Green Transformational Leadership as a Redefinition of the Organizational Psychological Contract: Psychological Capital in Green Corporate Performance

Introduction

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.