Sustainable leadership in non-profit organisation

Sustainable leadership has been a topic of discussion among business practitioners and researchers as requirements grow for leaders to consider social and environmental impacts in addition to a firm’s financial outcomes, and to sustain their organisation in increasingly complex business environments. This paper reports on the assessment of six sustainable leadership practices (i.e. ethics as a core value, considered organisational change, environmental responsibility, enabling culture, knowledge sharing and retention, and trust) and an organisation’s overall performance, derived from four performance outcomes (i.e. financial performance, customer satisfaction, brand and image, and long term stakeholder value). The study was conducted in an Australian non-profit organisation using the concept of sustainable leadership practices developed by Avery and Bergsteiner (2010), which were derived from observations of companies and supported by published research to distinguish sustainable enterprises from less sustainable enterprises. The questionnaire survey was conducted via online and mail methods. The studied organisation received high ratings on all six sustainable leadership practices as well as on organisational performance. The data shows that relationships exist between sustainable leadership practices and performance outcomes of the organisation except between environmental responsibility and the organisation’s brand and image. All six sustainable leadership practices, however, are associated with improved overall performance. The results also show differences in perceptions between leaders and followers as well as between employees under different working divisions, especially on the organisation’s knowledge sharing and retention.