What Does Achieving "Sustainable Leadership" Look Like? And Why it is Necessary.

Sustainability has become a hot topic for good reason. Too much of how we have functioned as a society has burdened the resources necessary for maintaining life. We see this in ecological and environmental terms as it impacts natural resources such as fresh air and water and the consequences of rampant pollution. We also see burden in geopolitics as nations compete for their survival against the encroachment of neighboring interest. And we see this in our lifestyles as we witness a decline in life-expectancies in various populations (many of them surprising) and an increasingly unsustainable presence and acceptance of clearly unhealthy personal habits and choices. The need to change the course of unsustainable conditions and the resistance to these changes is a constant struggle in the world today.

Change happens all the time. It is a constant function of nature. But changing the course of things for the better is a function of leadership. Allowing things to drift wherever they are headed or ignoring the consequences of how we contribute to things getting worse rather than better may seem like a default mode for humanity. It is not. The drive for progress, for improvement and for bettering the ways we engage with the world around us is a quality of being human that dates back to early civilizations. Human beings have never been satisfied to simply exist. We have continuously sought to improve. It is in our DNA.

Leadership is the driver of sustainability. And sustainability is the responsibility of leaders.

In a very basic sense, the leader of any business is responsible for maintaining a sustainable competitive advantage. This is the foundation of a company's survival.

For an organization to realize an enduring competitive advantage, it must have sustainable leadership. This means that those who serve as leaders must be adaptable to the changing conditions and circumstances in which the organization operates. The volatility, uncertainty, complexities and ambiguities that define the forces at play in the world today require a creative approach to problem solving - and moving away from the reactive, command-and-control tendencies that leadership had been long designed to serve.

Sustainable leadership is agile. Not just flexible, but sufficiently self-aware in order to see itself within the context of the problems it causes as well as those it seeks to solve. This awareness helps us decenter from the processes we engage with and observe ourselves in our role and in terms of what we must accomplish. Without this agility, leadership deteriorates with changing needs and circumstances.

Sustainable leadership is intensely curious. It is not just curious about itself and its ability to perform, but about the world around us and how we elevate the potential and improve the performance of those around us. Without curiosity, leadership gets crushed by its failure to learn to understand what is changing - and how to adapt to the needs of tomorrow.

Sustainable leadership is ruthlessly caring. It is not good enough to care for people; it is more important to care about them enough to challenge their beliefs and their capacity to perform. When we take care of people who can take care of themselves, we deprive them of the opportunity to develop what it takes to be autonomous and independent and deprive them of the deep satisfaction of the kinds of accomplishments that are the true and most basic sources of human joy. Without caring fiercely about people, and having the courage to confront the values and behaviors of others, leadership rapidly becomes anemic and and its grasp on its reasons to exist.

Sustainable leadership is driven by an indelible sense of purpose. This is not a matter of electing to be part of any "cause-du-jour." An indelible purpose is one that you cannot wash off. You cannot shake yourself free from its grasp, nor can you define what it looks like. An indelible purpose defines you by shaping your beliefs, forming your habits and driving your actions. It is what makes things necessary to you, and then compels you to find a way to make those things possible. And it is how you draw people to what you can demonstrate is possible and show them the inspiration that makes those things necessary to them. Without an indelible purpose, leadership becomes attached to fleeting ideals and is replaced with whatever new idea takes root and sprouts-up.

Cultivating sustainable leadership is more an art than a science. It is something that can be learned - but not effectively taught.

The competencies, the knowledge, skill, talent and experience required are not standard-issue, but are unique to who you need to be in order to accomplish what makes you sustainably effective. The level of conscientiousness and the grit this informs can only be fashioned with a clear sense of duty to your indelible purpose. No one can define or instill this; you must discover your purpose by exercising your curiosity and finding your humility so you can understand when you are wrong about what you believe or think in order to shift your attention to find what your purpose is. And finally you must care deeply about others. Compassion is necessary but not sufficient. Sustainable leadership requires championing the needs of others above your personal interests and desires. There is no process you can apply that will deliver such qualities.

The art of becoming a sustainable leader begins when you determine what it is about your world that is unsustainable.

It is then possible to understand what you must stop tolerating. Only then will you find the way to address the things that others see as impossible and see them as necessary. And when you find a way to show others how to make necessary the things you have willed to make possible, you will find that the sustainability of your leadership is not a function of what you do, but a result how you influence others to accomplish things that are truly meaningful, measurable and significant.

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Phil Liebman is the Founder and CEO at ALPS Leadership - We Guide CEO's and Their Leadership Teams to Become Exceptionally Competent Leaders and High-Performance Organizations

www.ALPSLeadership.com

Phil is also been a Group Chairman with Vistage Worldwide since 2005 - where he helps leaders realize their potential by learning with and from other leaders. He is the author of the soon-to-be published book, "Cultivating MoJo: How competent leaders inspire exceptional performance."