ABSTRACT
Conventional approaches to managing and introducing organizational change adopt a linear, rational model, prioritizing control under the stewardship of a strong leader or ‘guiding coalition’. Underlying this top-down, leader-centric approach remains the enduring assumption that organizational change follows an inexorable and universal pattern. Change operates as a finite, one-off phenomenon invoking a series of predictable, reducible steps enabling senior managers to mandate new work routines. However, in the face of unprecedented environmental turbulence and uncertainty, standard leadership approaches, conceiving change as an inconvenient distraction to be brought under control as expeditiously as possible, only lead to disappointment. Top-down leadership control in the age of sustainability is unworkable because it fails to appreciate that change occurs naturally and is intimately entwined with continuity. At a time when organizations must be capable of adapting to immense competition while maintaining new levels of environmental and ethical performance, change leadership must assume a new form. We argue in this chapter that the change–continuity continuum defines organizations. The ability to exploit and explore simultaneously comes at the price of new leadership dynamics. Sustainable leadership means accepting that organizational change has changed. Successful change no longer equates with fast change. We propose that sustainable leadership for change demands accepting a worldview where either/or choices such as flexibility or control are misleading. We argue that change and continuity do not exist as opposite sides of the leadership see-saw, but coexist as dualities that sit side by side without compromising one another.
