Motivations and Dimensions of Environmental Leadership

This chapter explores the various motivations driving individuals and organizations to engage in environmental leadership and pro-environmental practices. These motivations are rooted in a combination of intrinsic factors, such as personal values, ethical imperatives, and environmental stewardship, as well as extrinsic factors, including social support, regulatory pressures, and economic incentives. Additionally, an integrative and systems perspective emphasizes the importance of long-term sustainability approaches over short-term gains. The chapter also addresses the challenges associated with the traditional concept of leadership, which often embodies a hierarchical and individualistic paradigm. It presents an innovative perspective based on Keith Grint’s analytical typology, which categorizes leadership into five distinct dimensions: person, position, process, results, and purpose. This typology is applied to the context of environmental leadership and illustrated through a review of a previous study that examined various leadership dimensions within conservation programs. This analysis sheds light on how leaders and leadership are socially constructed within environmental contexts, providing a comprehensive view of leadership. Furthermore, the chapter explores how environmental leaders exert influence across different scales within organizational structures, highlighting a two-dimensional framework characterized by two distinct yet interrelated levels of influence—individual and organizational—and two types of influence relationships—internal and external.