ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses a new paradigm of emerging leadership in organizational life that I call “eco-leadership” (Western, 2008b). To be clear from the outset, eco-leadership is not focused on a leader who defi nes themselves through environmental concerns, although this plays a part. Instead, ecoleadership implies leadership in relation to the ecosystems in which we live and work. Eco-leadership conceptualizes leaders as being agents distributed throughout organizations (of all kinds) taking a holistic, systemic, and ethical stance. Eco-leadership works in organizations that are conceptualized as “ecosystems within ecosystems.” This contrasts with the normative 20th-century idea of organizations as stable and boundaried systems that operate with leaders at the top of clear hierarchies. Eco-leadership shifts the focus from individual leaders to leadership, asking of an organization “how can leadership fl ourish in this environment?”
