Leadership can be stated as the practical skill, which eventually encompasses the core ability of any organization and individual for the purpose of leading or guiding other individuals, teams and an entire organization (Gorski 2017, p. 373). This leadership comprises of some of the major traits, behaviours, functionalities, power, values, vision, situational interactions, intelligence and charisma. Leadership and corporate social responsibility are closely linked with one another, especially in the 21st century. Nowadays, few of the leaders are facing several environmental, social and economic challenges and within the global environment of ambiguity and uncertainty, these leaders have to anticipate the major changes and even to be catalysts for shifting the organizations towards a sustainable society (Bolman and Deal, 2017, p. 2).
Strategic management is the continuous planning, analysis, assessment as well as monitoring of each and every requirement that is extremely important and significant for any specific organization to fulfil the objectives and goals. The following research essay outlines a brief discussion on the broad topic of leadership for corporate social responsibility or CSR as well as various sustainability issues within strategic management in the 21st century with details.
Leadership for Corporate Social Responsibility in the 21st Century
Leadership is the core ability of any individual for influencing as well as guiding the followers and other members of the organization. Difficult decision making process is involved in leadership for creation and articulation of clear vision and even establishment of achievable goals and objectives (Hackman and Johnson, 2013, p. 2). Relevant tools and knowledge are extremely important for successful achievement of goals. An effective leader eventually possesses some of the most significant characteristics like strong communication, management skills, self confidence, and willingness in taking risks, innovative and creative thinking and many more (Tschannen-Moran, 2014, p. 1). There is an important role of leadership during implementation of CSR practices after taking into account the growing interests towards business related ethics.
The rapid pace of changes is eventually forcing the leaders in finding innovative and creative solutions for coping up with several stakeholders, whose requirements, needs and interests can sometimes indulge in conflicts (Cameron et al., 2014, p. 3). Within the complicated globalized environment of ambiguity and uncertainty, the leaders should anticipate the various changes and then act as a catalyst to shift the business towards a more sustainable society. One of the new organizational challenges depend on the obligations and growing needs for sustainability (Frohlich and Oppenheimer, 2015, p. 2). The various perceptions of corporate social responsibility that have been generated can be extremely deceptive and can create barriers for any organization. CSR is a multi layer concept with various significant responsibilities of economic, legal, ethical and philanthropic.
The 21st century world is being shaped by leaders. For building a sustainable world, the intersection of ethics and leadership is extremely important. Leadership plays a significant role while promoting moral and ethical behaviour. Furthermore, the leaders must be models for their followers and should eventually aim to shape the companies by own characteristics and values (Grint et al., 2016, p. 3). The employees of that specific organization rely on leaders for getting guidance whenever faced with the ethical dilemma. The behaviour of leader must be ethical and visible for both externally and internally to the respective company.
The organizations often undertake positive steps for addressing the ethical issues and even applying various practical ethical tools for practice management (Rosenbach, 2018, p. 2). The role of corporate social responsibility is to restore the most critical business resources for trust and sustainability of businesses. Leaders as well as organizations are engaged in the act of CSR for providing advantages to the suppliers, customers, employees, community and stakeholders (Benn, Edwards and Williams, 2014, p. 1). Due to this particular benefit, soft power is used and have a stronger influence on the organization.
As per the multi layer CSR pyramid, the four categories of responsibilities are economic, legal, ethical and philanthropic. Economic responsibilities are profitable and they maintain higher level of efficiency and producing better quality of products and services (Gorski 2017, p. 375). The legal responsibilities refer to not breaking of laws and behaving in legal manner. Ethical responsibilities involve business ethics and personal ethical awareness and philanthropic responsibilities include proper contribution to the external and internal community to eventually improve the human resource and financial contributions of the company. This leadership needs the individuals for possessing few key traits like charisma, empathy, assertiveness and communication skills. Several individuals inherently possess these leadership traits and these characteristics associated with leadership. Hence, it is highly required for a leader to be present during corporate social responsibility.
Sustainability Issues in Strategic Management in the 21st Century
Sustainability is the procedure to maintain changes in a properly balanced environment, where the resource exploitation, investment direction, orientation in technological development for meeting the human aspirations and requirements. The sub domains of this sustainable development are being considered such as political, technological and cultural (Solow, 2014, p. 19). This sustainable development is the organizing principle for sustainability. It is the socio ecological procedure that is being featured by the pursuit of a common ideal. A sustainable business is the business, which comprises of minimal negative effect on the local and global economy, society, community and environment for meeting the triple bottom line.
The sustainable businesses comprise of human rights policies and progressive environmental policies and there are four distinctive criteria (Clayton and Radcliffe, 2018, p. 3). The first and the foremost criterion is that it is responsible for incorporation of sustainability principles into every business decision. The second criterion is that it eventually supplies environmentally friendly services and products, which can easily replace the demands for non green products and services. The next significant and important criterion is that it is greener than any type of traditional competition and the final criterion is that it has made the most enduring commitment towards environmental principles within the business operations and processes (Gibson, Hassan and Tansey, 2013, p. 2). The sustainable business is the organization, which eventually participates within environmentally friendly activities for ensuring that each and every process, product and manufacturing activity is addressing the current environmental concerns during maintenance of profit.
The corporate sustainability practices are extremely important for any organization. Most of the organizations consider sustainability as the major impact on environment and society (Bell and Morse, 2013, p. 2). There are several practices, which foster business sustainability and even help the organizations in moving along the path for becoming leaders. These practices are as follows:
Stakeholder Engagement: The first and the foremost practice is stakeholder engagement. The organizations could easily learn from the employees, surrounding community and their customers (Laszlo and Zhexembayeva, 2017, p. 5). This engagement is not only about pushing the messages, but also learning about opposition and involvement of stakeholders in joint decision making process.
Environmental Management System: The environmental management system eventually provides the various processes and structures for helping out the embedded environmental efficiencies within organizational culture for the purpose of mitigation of risks (Neubauer and Lank, 2016, p. 2). The most efficient and effective recognized standard is the ISO 14001, however several country specific and industry specific standards are existing.
Reporting as well as Disclosure: The measurement or control are the most significant sustainable practices. The organizations collect as well as collate the sensitive information that are completely transparent to the outsiders.
Analysis of Life Cycle: Each of the organizations wishing to undertake a larger leap forward and hence systematically analyse the social and environmental impacts of products that are being utilized and produced through the analysis of life cycle for measurement of the more accurate and perfect impact (Neubauer and Lank, 2016, p. 4).
In the 21st century, several sustainability issues are being observed in strategic management of an organization. These subsequent issues are responsible for effective execution of strategic management in the company. Such issues are required to be eradicated under every circumstance and there is an urgency to remove them (Solow, 2014, p. 15). New technologies are effectively transforming the working environment both for the organization and its members. The remote virtual teams in businesses are keeping numerous employees out of the office buildings for bringing changes within the size or environmental impacts of commuter traffic. The electronic commerce in the 21st century eventually makes it unnecessary to drive to the stores for sustainable development (Gibson, Hassan and Tansey, 2013, p. 3). The proper combination of all of these factors is responsible for shaping the future and thus the approach towards sustainability includes corporate impacts on social as well as environmental issues, impacts of environmental and social issues on business and finally the major effects of new business models and technologies, which are reaping sustainability results for the society and business during destroying the businesses that no longer compete in the market.
The major opportunity in innovation around the sustainability issues can limit their core ability to survive and succeed within the future (Bell and Morse, 2013, p. 1). The sustainability issues in the 21st century are the core business issues, which would be centralized to innovation, profitability, strategy and growth. The creation of value for both the society and business by simply looking at innovation should not be avoided under any circumstance. The major issue is that the current sustainability practices are not at all improving the societies and hence most of the organizations have eventually made distinctive efforts in addressing their environmental and social issues. However, these efforts have been extremely incremental as well as marginalized and have not subsequently led to the break through of innovation (Crane and Matten, 2016, p. 3). The main reason for this type of break through innovation is that the organizations approach sustainability in three traditional methods, which are risk management, operational efficiency and reporting. Each of the three practices are quite vital and should continue.
Risk management approach to the sustainability involves regulatory and legal measures that organizations undertake for avoiding fines and exposures, which result from environmental, political and social issues (Benn, Edwards and Williams, 2014, p. 2). This approach includes activities that are being undertaken for meeting regulatory and legal guidelines like the Clean Air Act, the EU Directive on the Non Financial Information Disclosure and Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. The second approach is operational efficiency. There are several efforts for using resources in an effective manner for increasing cost savings and efficiency for the companies (Clayton and Radcliffe, 2018, p. 5). The analysis of data towards better understanding of water and energy utilization and supplying customers during reduction of costs are required in this case.
Finally, the third approach is reporting. The reporting focused sustainability group is being led by the communication professionals and then concentrating on production of corporate responsibility reports for effective strategic management. Generation of communication strategies and handling of public affairs issues are the other effective sections of reporting approach (Neubauer and Lank, 2016, p. 3). The only solution is to undertake sustainable development to a higher level in the 21st century. Sustainability focused break through innovation can be extremely effective to resolve the above mentioned sustainability issues in strategic management of a business.
Conclusion
Therefore, from the above discussion, it can be concluded that strategic management is vital and significant for any business as it is responsible for successful execution of long term goals and objectives. The customer expectations, emerging technologies and fast paced innovations eventually force the company in thinking and making proper decisions strategically for remaining successful. The entire process of strategic management helps the organizational leaders in assessing the organizational current situation, chalking out of strategies, deploying them and finally analysing the efficiency and effectiveness of these deployed strategies. Analysis of cross functional business decisions is being involved even before they are being implemented. Business sustainability is one of the major and vital requirement in any business in the present 21st century. This type of sustainability is for the management of three risks of financial, environmental and social opportunities and obligations. The impacts of these issues are extremely vulnerable for the growth and development of that particular organization. The above provide research essay has clearly outlined a brief description of leadership for corporate social responsibility as well as sustainability issues in a business in the 21st century.
List of References
Bell, S. and Morse, S., 2013. Measuring sustainability: Learning from doing. Routledge.
Benn, S., Edwards, M. and Williams, T., 2014. Organizational change for corporate sustainability. Routledge.
Bolman, L.G. and Deal, T.E., 2017. Reframing organizations: Artistry, choice, and leadership. John Wiley & Sons.
Cameron, K.S., Quinn, R.E., DeGraff, J. and Thakor, A.V., 2014. Competing values leadership. Edward Elgar Publishing.
Clayton, T. and Radcliffe, N., 2018. Sustainability: a systems approach. Routledge.
Crane, A. and Matten, D., 2016. Business ethics: Managing corporate citizenship and sustainability in the age of globalization. Oxford University Press.
Frohlich, N. and Oppenheimer, J.A., 2015. Political leadership and collective goods (Vol. 1298). Princeton University Press.
Gibson, B., Hassan, S. and Tansey, J., 2013. Sustainability assessment: criteria and processes. Routledge.
Gorski, H., 2017, June. Leadership and Corporate Social Responsibility. In International conference KNOWLEDGE-BASED ORGANIZATION (Vol. 23, No. 1, pp. 372-377). De Gruyter Open.
Grint, K., Jones, O.S., Holt, C. and Storey, J., 2016. What is leadership. The Routledge companion to leadership, p.3.
Hackman, M.Z. and Johnson, C.E., 2013. Leadership: A communication perspective. Waveland Press.
Laszlo, C. and Zhexembayeva, N., 2017. Embedded sustainability. In Embedded Sustainability (pp. 116-140). Routledge.
Neubauer, F. and Lank, A.G., 2016. The family business: Its governance for sustainability. Springer.
Rosenbach, W.E., 2018. Contemporary issues in leadership. Routledge.
Solow, R., 2014. An almost practical step toward sustainability. In An Almost Practical Step Toward Sustainability (pp. 11-28). RFF Press.
Tschannen-Moran, M., 2014. Trust matters: Leadership for successful schools. John Wiley & Sons.
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