Aug 2026· Sustainability· Vol 18, pp. 8011· 0 citations· 39 references
Abstract
Sustainability leadership is increasingly recognised as essential for addressing complex socio-ecological challenges, yet empirically grounded competency frameworks remain scarce, particularly those derived from interdisciplinary and intergenerational samples. Building on an extensive literature synthesis, this study developed an a priori framework comprising four dimensions: (1) Knowledge & Understanding, (2) Values, Motivation & Purpose, (3) Leadership Practices & Impact, and (4) Inner Development & Learning, operationalised into 20 core competency elements. A convergent parallel mixed-methods design was conducted at Kiel University, combining quantitative importance ratings from 301 participants with qualitative content analysis of open-ended responses from 312 participants across all faculties and status groups. Quantitative findings supported all 20 elements, with systemic, value-oriented, and collaborative competencies rated particularly highly. Qualitative findings supported all deductive competency domains, with K2 and K5 merged into one integrated category, and added 12 inductive categories, foregrounding relational, visionary, critical-systemic, and inner-directed capacities. Trust and empathy emerged as implicit foundations across several dimensions. The resulting framework is organised across four competency dimensions and three relational levels: I (the leader within), Us (in relation to others), and World (in relation to society and systems). It offers a theoretically and empirically grounded foundation for sustainability leadership development in higher education, organisations, and professional training.
This study aims to examine how organizational constraints and systemic contradictions shape the enactment of leadership competencies in public sector organizations. Drawing primarily on contradiction theory and complemented by systems theory and competency-based leadership perspectives, it reconceptualizes leadership development as a dynamic, context-embedded and tension-driven process in which competencies are selectively activated, reshaped and reconfigured rather than linearly applied.
This study adopts a qualitative evidence synthesis (QES) of 208 secondary sources (2000–2025), using Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses-adapted selection procedures. Data were analyzed through interpretive thematic synthesis guided by contradiction theory and an E1–E6 framework. Open, axial and selective coding were applied. Quantitative findings were used only descriptively, without statistical re-analysis.
The synthesis indicates that while leadership development programs emphasize competencies such as innovation, strategic thinking and problem-solving, their enactment is systematically conditioned by bureaucratic, hierarchical and regulatory constraints. Rather than merely restricting leadership behavior, these constraints structure how competencies are interpreted and enacted in practice. Leaders respond through adaptive strategies, including incremental innovation and coalition-building, which enable performance stabilization within persistent systemic contradictions. Apparent weak quantitative relationships are interpreted as evidence of contextual and relational leadership dynamics rather than methodological failure.
Leadership development should extend beyond competency acquisition to strengthen leaders’ capacity to interpret and navigate systemic contradictions through adaptive judgment in constrained governance environments
This study advances leadership theory by demonstrating that contradictions function as both structural and interpretive mechanisms shaping leadership enactment, reframing effectiveness as an emergent, context-conditioned outcome rather than a direct output of competencies.
Raed Atef· International Journal of Pub...· 1 citation
This conceptual article addresses the urgent need for leadership capable of navigating ecological degradation, social fragmentation, and organisational complexity. It argues that to tackle these challenges, leadership development must evolve, moving beyond traditional models that focus on individualistic goals and abstract skill transmission. Drawing on Situated Learning Theory, we propose a new fourth-generation coaching framework designed to support regenerative leadership. This framework integrates five interdependent systems: psychological, spiritual, ecological, somatic, and social. It positions coaching as an embodied, relational, and participatory learning process, where meaning is co-constructed through engagement with people, place and purpose. By fostering post-conventional development, the framework helps cultivate leaders who can think systemically, engage with complex environments, and embrace ecological responsibility. This approach bridges the gap between leadership demands and developmental capacity, offering a transformative response to the global challenges of our time. We position coaching not merely as a developmental tool but as a critical practice for nurturing the regenerative leadership needed for sustainability. This article contributes to the ongoing discourse at the intersection of leadership learning, systems thinking, and ecological responsibility, offering a new perspective on how leadership should be learned in an interconnected world.
V. Canessa-Pollard, Terence Sexton· Management Learning· 0 citations
Addressing sustainability challenges such as climate instability, resource inequity, and biodiversity loss requires educational models that cultivate agency, systemic insight, and emotionally grounded engagement. This study examines learning outcomes associated with the multinational
Reimagine Our Future
sustainability competition, which engages undergraduate students from several countries. It further investigates how self-directed learning (SDL), systems thinking, and whole-brain “Think–Feel–Do” engagement emerged from participant data as a coherent learning triad.
Following the 2025 competition cycle, we administered a post-competition survey to all participants who made final submissions (
N
= 118). The survey included Likert-scale items spanning multiple outcome domains, as well as open-ended prompts exploring participants’ experiences, perceived challenges, and intended future actions. These data were complemented by semi-structured interviews. The analysis proceeded in two stages. First, we conducted outcome-level interpretations of individual survey items and qualitative responses. Second, we performed an exploratory principal component analysis (PCA) of the survey items to identify latent structures, supported by reliability testing and convergence with interview narratives. Because the study employed a cross-sectional post-participation design, findings primarily reflect participants’ perceived learning outcomes and experiences.
Participants reported high satisfaction and substantial gains in confidence related to independent inquiry, addressing sustainability challenges, interdisciplinary teamwork, innovative problem solving, and systems-oriented sustainability thinking. They also expressed strong intentions to incorporate sustainability into their future studies, careers, and personal actions. PCA yielded three interpretable components that aligned closely with SDL, systems thinking, and whole-brain engagement, with strong internal reliability and convergence with interview themes. Interview responses described shifts from uncertainty to ownership, from fragmented issue awareness to systemic understanding, and from general concern to a sustained sense of agency.
The findings suggest that sustainability competencies may develop effectively when autonomy, systemic reasoning, and integrated cognitive-emotional engagement co-develop within challenge-based learning environments. The empirically derived triadic framework offers practical guidance for designing flexible, scalable, and transformative sustainability learning experiences across diverse higher education contexts.
Leon Liebenberg, W. Lavey, S. Khan et al.· Frontiers in Education· 1 citation
Sustainability challenges are characterised as “wicked” problems that cannot be tackled by one discipline but depend on collaboration between interest holders with multiple, sometimes competing, perspectives. Learning to work effectively in such circumstances is among the most valuable capabilities university students can develop and is therefore appropriately situated within the core curriculum. However, interdisciplinary encounters are demanding for students and educators alike, calling for low-threshold approaches that can adapt to changing circumstances without requiring extensive curriculum redesign. We designed and piloted a theoretically informed learning activity pattern to facilitate encounters between students from different disciplines. The design drew on concepts of epistemic stability and epistemic adaptability to support integrative competency development, alongside boundary object theory which highlights the capacity of artefacts to create shared problem spaces while retaining interpretive flexibility.
To examine the design, we took an inductive, theory-building approach comprising three strands: an observation and focus group with students piloting the activities; interviews with three educationalists; and interviews with two module leads who adapted the activities for their own students. Data were thematically analysed to appraise the design's potential in practice.
The student pilot successfully demonstrated a proof of concept of the activities, providing indicators of competency development and insights about pace, instructions, and other operational considerations. Educationalists and educators identified benefits, challenges, and conditions for successful implementation.
Participants valued the interdisciplinary encounters and expressed appetite for more such opportunities. The activity pattern shows potential to support interdisciplinary competency development. We also identified qualities of graphical (visual) abstracts that enable them to function effectively as boundary objects.
M. Vogel, Charlotte Haberstroh· Frontiers in Education· 0 citations
Purpose – Most school leadership research departs from assumptions that do not hold in many real-world contexts: adequate infrastructure, stable government funding, and sustained public trust in state-provided education.Methodology – Thematic analysis progressed through three stages, following the grounded theory procedures outlined in NVivo 15, which supported the work throughout.Findings – This study addresses the resulting gap through a qualitative case study of a state primary school in Tapanuli Tengah, North Sumatra, Indonesia, where the incumbent principal raised the school's accreditation from B to A under significant resource constraints. Twelve informants from four institutional positions participated in semi-structured interviews. Transcripts were coded in NVivo 15 through open, axial, and selective coding stages. Five core themes emerged: the manifestation of entrepreneurial competence through an asset-based orientation and a dual-channel resource strategy; humanizing leadership practices centered on psychological safety; pedagogical and managerial innovation as quality-improvement mechanisms; leadership resilience as a system of learnable practices; and community trust as strategically managed social capital. Two original theoretical constructs emerged: the dual conviction model, which holds that lasting motivation requires simultaneous beliefs in meaningfulness and personal capability, and the humanizing entrepreneurial leadership framework, which repositions psychological safety as a causal precondition rather than an ethical supplement.Contribution – Both constructs carry direct implications for leadership development programs in under-resourced school contexts.
F. Dongoran, Astri Novia Siregar, Hasnah Irawati Lubis et al.· JURNAL EDUSCIENCE· 0 citations
Corporate sustainability research is rich but fragmented where influential frameworks illuminate important aspects of sustainability dynamics, yet they are often used in parallel rather than connected through a shared explanatory logic of change. This paper addresses that corporate sustainability puzzle through a targeted literature review and critical synthesis of a 44‐source clean‐fit subset within a bounded conceptual corpus of 114 contributions organised into five approach families: responsibility taxonomies, strategy‐oriented lenses, maturity and stage models, process‐change perspectives and paradox/tension perspectives. Across these families, this study found that motives are often treated as separable rather than interacting, engagement is more often progressive than reversible, outcomes are under‐specified or weakly integrated and time and context are acknowledged more readily than embedded in the framework's change logic. Building on these findings, the study develops the dynamic sustainability system (DSS), a five‐dimensional, feedback‐driven conceptual architecture linking concurrent and interacting motives, reversible engagement, dual outcome reservoirs, explicit time horizons and internal and external conditioning contexts. The DSS explains how acceleration, plateauing and reversal may emerge in corporate sustainability trajectories and offers a more disciplined basis for longitudinal analysis, future empirical testing and context‐sensitive diagnostic interpretation by scholars, managers and policy actors.
Omaima A. G. Hassan· Business Strategy and the En...· 0 citations