ABSTRACT
The quest for sustainability requires leaders who can bring others with them by demonstrating deep levels of integrity founded upon sincere personal engagement and a sound understanding of the territory involved. This form of leadership is best described as ‘self-leadership’: the capacity to inspire and influence others to think and act differently. This chapter explores the concept of self-leadership for sustainability in the design professions and examines how self-leadership qualities can be promoted using values-centred sustainability training techniques developed at Plymouth University, UK.
The training is based on a model for positive change developed to help individuals move towards pro-sustainability thinking, which envisions six inter-linked personal attributes: awareness, self-motivation, self-empowerment, knowledge, skilful means and practice. The face-to-face training focuses on the first three attributes, while a specially written follow-up book, The Sustainable Self, covers all six attributes.
The theory and practice involved in developing the training and book is documented in the chapter and, because personal values are the centre-point of the model, values theory in the American psychology tradition is described in some depth. Research suggests that while individuals recognize similar value orientations, differing behaviours are associated with the particular orientations dominant at any one time. Pro-sustainability behaviour change then becomes less a question of changing people’s values than mobilizing pre-existing pro-sustainability values. Therefore, the training seeks to enable participants to reflect on and activate their deeper life intentions by provoking deep thought, not to manipulate mindsets or behaviour. Training participants’ feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, and preliminary studies have identified small but significant shifts in pro-sustainability values orientations resulting from the training. Overall, it is concluded that the training has considerable potential to promote self-leadership for sustainability and to thereby influence positive behaviour change.
