The Global MILCC Box
Modeling Informed Leadership and Connected Community
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Sustainable
Leadership
The need for strong leadership is essential to ensure that an organization survives. The challenge that many of today’s organizational leaders face today is how to actively guide their communities through social, environmental and economic issues while successfully sustaining the energy and motive needed for change.
Sustainable leadership reflects an emerging purposeful consciousness among people who are choosing to live their lives by leading organizations in a way that accounts for the footprint they will be leaving behind on the communities they impact.
What does Sustainable
Leadership look like?
Attitude.
Those heading an organization set the tone for everyone involved. In order to effectively lead, a leader must believe in what they are doing. They must care about the organization, what they do and the people they lead and work with. Sustainable leadership requires leaders that are driven by the mission of their company and feel motivated everyday to fight for the change they are leading even through adversity. Effective leadership shines not only when the going is good, but even more so, when things are rough. Leaders are respected by the people around them, who in turn, become motivated to work harder to make more significant contributions to the betterment of the organization as well.
Thinking Ahead.
Leadership is not about working towards a goal single-handedly. In fact, leadership is about inspiring and motivating people to work together towards a long-term goal. Yes, it is important to initiate change as quickly as possible, however, it will do no good if a plan is not set in place to sustain that change for the future. A strong leadership will bring to the table innovative ideas and passion that will stay with its employees and communities it serves for many years to come. It will lay out plans that can be followed by future leaders that will take over that position to preserve and manage the changes made and those to come.
Distribution of Power.
Good leadership is rooted in the ability to achieve growth and sustain the engagement of people to accomplish something extraordinary in collaboration with all those involved. The distribution of leadership across individuals in an organization is important. Each community is filled with people from a variety of different backgrounds and as a result, has a multitude of diverse needs. Distributing power amongst leaders allows for all aspects of those needs to be addressed and focused on by different individuals and ensure all voices are heard. This prevents leaders from feeling overwhelmed by the tasks at hand and most importantly, burn-out. It is important to have a team of leaders to lean on for support. Members in an organization look up to those in charge for guidance. Creating a sense of balance within an intuition’s leadership sets the tone for all those involved and keeps up high spirits. Additionally, the transitions between different leaders is smoothed out to ensure consistent functionality of the organization.
Accountability.
A fundamental part of sustainable leadership involves having a sense of accountability. Leaders must give credit to others where it is due and take responsibility for the less than ideal outcomes of their actions and decisions. Society is rapidly evolving and changing with each new day and not every idea or plan is going to work out as desired. It is important to acknowledge when to step back and change a course of action as well as ask for help. Being on the forefront of non-profit organizing is a life-long journey of learning opportunities. You will not have the answers to everything and it is necessary to acknowledge the mistakes you’ve made along the way in order to address them and move forward accordingly.
Sustainable leadership is a complex topic that will not be perfected in its first run. It takes a team of dedicated individuals who are passionate about the work they are doing to put in the time into building a successful network of individuals, resources and plans. Leadership will not be as impactful as it can be if it cannot be sustained throughout the time to come.