The author of this impressive work is well credentialed. He is Professor of Management and the former Chair of the Hartford Department of the Lally School of Management and Technology at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), a private research University based in Troy, New York. He is a Visiting Professor at the Technical University in Munich and an Associate of the Centre for the Study of Corporate Sustainability in Argentina. Among others, he has already written Product Innovation (2005), Sustainable Business Development (2006), and Enterprise-Wide Strategic Management (2010), all published by Cambridge University Press.
An early opening statement in this book is that “[…] [Leadership] is easy to comprehend but very difficult to truly realise” (p. xvii) presents a sobering challenge for leaders and leadership developers alike. Some would dispute that leadership is easy to comprehend!
The fundamental proposition in this book is that the pursuit of sustainable leadership involves ongoing learning and development to acquire and demonstrate the proper principles, philosophies, values, capabilities and perspectives for achieving sustainable success (p. xviii). Sustainable leadership transcends managerial behaviour, although that is how these underlying issues obviously become visible.
Rainey knows that being sustainable includes the holistic notion of an “extended enterprise” (p. 7) where strategic leaders adopt rich perspectives on both external and internal contexts. He then briefly canvasses some examples of contrasting perspectives of historical strategic leaders, with George Washington, Alexander the Great and Winston Churchill on one side, and Adolf Hitler, Napolean Bonaparte and Louis XVI of France on the other.
The audience for this book is business leaders and especially aspiring young business leaders and management students.
The basic premise of this book is that astute leaders can create extraordinary value and achieve sustainable success through sustainable leadership and multifaceted perspectives and by leading change and inspiring people (p. xxi).
There are various integrating models throughout this book, which are impressive in themselves, and which reflect a significant degree of research rigour. For example, Rainey graphically depicts the relationship between openness, transparency and accountability which are important perspectives in the business world (p. 69). He also recognises a hierarchy of leadership development (p. 104), and argues that we need full-spectrum strategic leadership to be truly sustainable (p. 135). He also earlier scopes the choices one can make on leadership philosophies (p. 38) as well as presenting a comparative view of leadership constructs (p. 143). He recognises the dynamics of leaders as progressing from knowing oneself, leading people and change, to creating new paradigms (p. 144). This is no cursory treatise of leadership with the word “sustainable” just added for emphasis.
The Pursuit of Sustainable Leadership presents six chapters:
Chapter 1: Foundations of leadership – underpinnings and context;
Chapter 2: The principles, philosophies, responsibilities, personal values, cultural considerations;
Chapter 3: Openness, transparency and accountability – the new imperative;
Chapter 4: Qualities of leadership and leadership development;
Chapter 5: Sustainable strategic leadership; and
Chapter 6: Concluding comments.
I especially liked Chapter 2 on the explicit and implicit philosophies which leaders can and should portray. Rainey begins this chapter with the axiomatic precepts of ensuring human rights, equality and fairness; responsiveness, due care, precautionary (principle) safeguards and preparedness; good governance, proper disclosures and full compliance. This echoes the axiomatic assumption in strategic human resource management which affirms the paradigm of human well-being. Rainey's approach is clearly much deeper than corporate social responsibility (CSR) which can merely be based upon a reputational desire by an organisation to be seen as a good citizen.
Rainey cites the United Nation's Global Compact which was formulated in 1999 and includes ten principles across human rights, labour, the environment, and anti-corruption. He then outlines the fair labour (FLA) Code of Ethics which presents a workplace code of conduct opposing forced labour, child labour, harassment, abuse, and supporting freedom of association, health and safety, and wages and benefits.
He scopes business-related philosophies as including: embrace the fundamental underpinning that people always come first; employ holistic perspectives; develop win-win attitudes; create strong value-networks and enduring relationships; create sustainable solutions.
The author then presents four contemporary leadership philosophies:
focussing on value creation and value maximization;
leading people and garnering respect;
providing success and making people successful; and
being a good citizen and exhibiting social responsibility.
This impressive chapter concludes with some consideration of personal values. This embraces an important aspect of sustainability, that is, the extent to which leaders display and live their personal values, especially those which are correlated with leadership principles and philosophies. Some of these values are being honest, ethical and fair. We only need recall the sad case of Enron where, ostensibly, “the smartest guys in the room” colluded and showed a lack of integrity and little respect for others. Their behaviour was simply unsustainable.
What is evident, in this chapter and indeed, in the other five, is the range and depth of the concepts being addressed, but not in a tokenistic manner. Rainey presents a piece of work that is much richer than Dave Ulrich and Norm Smallwood's (2013) Leadership Sustainability (New York: McGraw Hill) and his contribution in this latest book, although brief, echoes the earlier and masterful contribution by Manfred Kets de Vries (2001) in The Leadership Mystique (London: Prentice Hall).
It was encouraging to see that there was some attention given to the “dark side” of leadership which clearly prevents sustainability. I would have liked even more attention devoted to authentic leadership and how this recent construct links with sustainable leadership. I would also have appreciated more consideration of mentoring and coaching as leadership development strategies as well as perhaps some attention to forming healthy habits: this is often the obstacle to new and sustainable leadership behaviour for many busy managers.
I was reassured that this book seriously addresses the problematic issue of developing leaders: it is one thing to exhort leaders to “be sustainable”, but providing realistic strategies to acquire and develop sustainability is another.
The book is adequately referenced and provides additional readings at the end of each chapter. The organisations cited are many but they are appropriately used to briefly illustrate Rainey's attempts to demonstrate sustainable leadership behaviours.
The book would have been enriched if there was an Index of all topics and concepts being addressed and a final Select Bibliography or at least one final list all the References he has previously cited. Speaking of citations, in this day and age, I was a little surprised that Rainey still uses “ibid” and “op cit”. Rainey provides References at the conclusion of each chapter but presenting them all at the end of the book would have enhanced accessibility to his sources even more. However, Rainey does well to provide a Glossary and lists of the figures and tables. His approach and scholarship is readily apparent in these devices.
In similar vein, and apart from his chapter Introductions and Reflections, the book could have been further enhanced by an Overview and a brief Summary of each chapter. However, these suggestions for improvement are mostly editorial and cosmetic: the book itself is marvellous.
A real strength of this work is its depth, erudition and accessibility. It is well researched but still tightly written. It transcends the evangelical exhortations by many other authors who simply urge leaders to be more effective, or, in this instance, to be more sustainable. Rainey clearly endorses a similar imperative to “be sustainable” but he provides relevant examples and proven strategies to do so.
This is an excellent book for senior leaders and leadership educators. It shows depth and a refreshing expectation that leaders need to do more and be more to be effective in the long term. I recommend it highly.
