Sustainability

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JMD

25,6

522

Received 12 January 2005

Revised 30 June 2005

Accepted 12 July 2005

Sustainable components of

leadership effectiveness in

organizational performance

¨

Goran Svensson

Oslo School of Management, Oslo, Norway, and

Greg Wood

Bowater School of Management and Marketing, Deakin University,

Warrnambool, Australia

Abstract

Purpose – The objective is to describe a selection of sustainability components of leadership

effectiveness in organizational performance.

Design/methodology/approach – The paper is based on a conceptual discussion.

Findings – The paper contributes to descriptive models that address sustainability components of

leadership effectiveness in organizational performance. The study highlights some common views that

exist in the management literature and in prosperous management practice related to the direct impact of

the relationship in organizational performance between leadership and effectiveness. In fact, it also

highlights the critical or sceptical views of leadership effectiveness in organizational performance raised in

the literature.

Research limitations/implications – The paper contends that the actual leadership effectiveness in

organizational performance varies over time and across contexts. At times, the achievement in

organizational performance is the outcome of prosperous and conscious leadership, while it at other times

may be the outcome of poor and deficient leadership. The topic at hand is positioned and limited to the

interface that may describe and explain the connection between these two views. Furthermore, it is limited

to corporate decision making and business behaviour in relation to leadership effectiveness and

organizational performance.

Practical implications – The leadership of an organization need not only to be successful today,

but they also need to be successful...