4: Achieving a Sustainable Future through Adaptive and Strategic Leadership

Leadership has been under intense and rigorous study for the past few decades. Its importance and significance are difficult to overstate. It is believed that competition and eventual success of communities and organizations in the twenty-first century’s global economy will be fraught with complexities, challenges, and filled with competitive opportunities and threats (Ireland & Hitt, 2005). Additionally, the emergence and speed of international development have witnessed tremendous strides in our lifetimes. However, the world’s poorest and most vulnerable regions and communities continue to face steep and seemingly unassailable challenges to date.

In 2015, the UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, declared that world leaders have collectively adopted the ambitious 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, with 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) at its heart. This Agenda stands as a shared plan to transform the world in 15 years and, crucially, to build lives of dignity for all. In assuming the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, world leaders resolved and committed to free the entire humanity from poverty, secure a healthy global community for future generations, and to build and foster peaceful, diverse but inclusive societies as a basis for ensuring lives of dignity for all. As a guiding principle, this collective journey has embedded within its core a promise to leave no one behind.