Abstract
This study grounds on the contemporary concern towards sustainability, reviewing literature to ascertain the personality traits of current leaders, framing them under the most effective leadership style in order to leverage organizational green consciousness and performance. It provides insights on the multilevel social dynamics outlining individual citizenship behaviors at work, as it advances that organizations shall rely on green transformational leadership to enhance the workforce green cognitions and behaviors, providing workplace opportunities to engage in environmental management related activities, thus leveraging green consciousness and performance. Hence, this study maps the current leader's personality traits so that their leadership paradigm may be best captured in terms of the value congruence between leaders/followers, solidifying a green psychological climate at the organization, impacting on its psychological capital and ownership, reconfiguring the organizational psychological contract by defining it as a collaborative learning process.
TopIntroduction
Across literature on sustainable management, reference is made to the vital role leadership represents as a backbone on the transition towards a sustainable economy, even though, scholars have only recently begun to study the antecedents of green personality traits and behaviors in the workplace (Boiral, 2009; Boiral et al., 2009; Guest, 2011; Kim et al., 2014): this work aims to fill in that gap. It grounds on the contemporary concern towards sustainability, reviewing literature to ascertain the personality traits on current leaders, framing them under the most effective leadership style to leverage organizational green consciousness and performance. It provides insights on the multilevel social dynamics that outline individual citizenship behaviors at work, as it advances that organizations shall rely on green transformational leadership to implement initiatives enhancing the workforce green cognitions and behaviors to provide them with workplace opportunities in order to advance engagement in environmental management related activities, hence leveraging green consciousness and performance. Thus, reviewing literature articulating different scientific fields (Sociology, Psychology, Economics and Management), this study maps the current leader’s personality traits so that their leadership paradigm may be best captured and explained in terms of the value congruence between leaders and followers, solidifying a green psychological climate at the organization, which will impact on its psychological capital and ownership, reconceptualizing the organizational psychological contract by (re)defining it as a collaborative learning process.
Theoretically, the argumentation grounds on the overarching framework of the Upper-echelons, which is built on the assumption that complex strategic decisions consist largely on the results of behavioral factors, thus, it emphasizes personality traits as main predictors of organizational outcomes. So, the subject will be theoretically framed also making use of the insights provided by the Ability, Motivation and Opportunities as well as by the Leader-Member Exchange theories, and it will also be framed within the postulates of the resource-based-view of the firm.
Taking into account the organizations’ multilevel nature, the chapter argues that workplace green behavior of individual employees is amplified through the interpersonal dynamics that occur within work groups, in the sense that leaders’ workplace green behavior and work group green advocacy, conveyed by Green Transformational Leadership, can be viewed as contextual forces in a top-down cross-level model. The reminder of the chapter is the following: after an initial contextualization of the topic, literature will be reviewed in order to theoretically frame the subject. Afterwards, the distinctive personality traits of current leaders will be presented, which will then be framed into a leadership style: green transformational leadership will in here be emphasized and further examined in order to argument that it assumes as an efficient means by which such leaders’ personality traits can best be highlighted and enhanced in order to boost follower’s green consciousness, thus improving corporate green performance. Solutions and main recommendations will then be exposed, as well as future research directions.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Corporate Consciousness: Aggregate concept formed by the individuals that constitute an organization and their collective consciousness, also entailing in the equation the world with which such vectors interact, resulting in a relationship represented in multiple tangible and intangible ways, whose symbiosis assumes as the daily organizational culture.
Organizational Psychological Contract: Refers to the individual beliefs that are molded by the organization, concerning the terms of an exchange agreement between individuals and their organization, being at a large extent informal and implicitly rather than explicitly understood because they root on expectations.
Psychological Ownership: The state of consciousness in which individuals assume a certain target of ownership as inherently theirs, proactively assigning to themselves the accountability for a particular goal, task, or responsibility, hence experiencing feelings of concern for those.
Personality Traits: Traits reflecting people’s distinctive patterns of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, thus implying consistency and stability, reflecting basic features on which people differ. These traits reflect continuous distributions rather than distinct personality types; hence, people score relatively low or high along a continuous distribution of a given personality trait.
Positive Organizational Behavior: Examination and subsequent application of positively oriented human resources’ psychological capabilities able of being measured, managed, and enhanced in order to leverage organizational performance.
Value Congruence: At an organizational context, refers to the consistency between an individual’s and his/her organization’s values, and the extent that individuals feel they have to compromise their personal values to meet organizational demands. It postulates that minimal conflict between both values results in positive outcomes for both agents, which first requires the individual to be aware of his/her own values and those of the organization.
Psychological Capital: Entails an individual’s positive psychological state of development, defined by displaying self-assurance to prosper at challenging tasks, making a sustained and positive ascription about succeeding both in the present and in the future, and, when beset by adversity, readdressing paths, and bouncing back or even beyond in order to reach success. It is via the synergy of the individual psychological capital capacities (confidence, hope and resilience) that each adds unique variance and becomes additive to overall psychological capital.
Green Transformational Leadership: Behaviors of leaders who are guided by the sustainability moto, emphasizing green vision, and shaping employees’ passion for pro-environmental behaviors, acting as role models to motivate followers to achieve environmental goals, inspiring them to perform beyond expected levels of environmental performance.
Organizational Citizenship Behaviors: Individual and discretionary social behaviors imprinted of an ethical character, directed at societal sustainability and well-being, contributing to improve the effectiveness of organizational sustainable management, even though not explicitly recognized by the formal organizational reward system.