Linking sustainable leadership practices and organisational high performance: a preliminary analysis

Which leadership practices drive organisational high performance? Practitioners and academics alike are seeking answers to this question, searching for alternative leadership approaches to generate high performance. One alternative is Sustainable Leadership (SL), which seeks to balance people, profits and the planet over the life of the firm, while simultaneously creating high performance and resilience. Although there has been much research into leadership and organisational performance in the past decades, current understanding of leadership and organisational performance is limited. Previous research also lacked sophisticated statistical methodologies, such as cluster and configuration statistical techniques and analyses, to simultaneously examine multiple variables and identify meaningful patterns that drive organisational high performance and resilience. Several gaps in the literature remain and this paper attempts to addresses major gaps in the field. This paper reviews the existing literature on high-performance in organisations and concludes that 21 of the 23 SL practices are linked to high performance. Specific research propositions and suggestions for future directions are provided.