Responsible Leadership: Theories, Practices, and Real-World Examples

This report delves into the concept of responsible leadership, exploring its evolution from traditional management styles to a more ethically conscious approach. It examines the core principles and emerging theories of responsible leadership, emphasizing the importance of considering stakeholders' interests, sustainability, and ethical conduct. The report analyzes key dimensions of contemporary responsible leadership, including awareness, vision, imagination, responsibility, and action. It provides a comparative analysis of leadership styles, highlighting the shift from directive to democratic approaches. Furthermore, the report showcases real-world examples of responsible leaders and their impact on organizational success, such as the example of Domino's Pizza. The conclusion emphasizes the need for responsible leadership as a lifestyle practice, setting behavioral standards, measuring performance, and being open to feedback. Finally, the report offers recommendations for business leaders to prioritize stakeholder perception, balance emotions, and invest in innovation to achieve sustainability goals. This report provides a valuable resource for understanding and implementing responsible leadership practices.

Running head: RESPONSIBLE LEADERSHIP
RESPONSIBLE LEADERSHIP
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author Note:

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Executive Summary:
Every Business Organisation operates in a particular society, hence like every individual
citizen the business entity as well is entitled to act responsible to the society. Hence in this
report the necessity of Responsible Leadership in every business organisation would be
discussed in details alongside certain core established theories of Responsible leadership and
how different business organisation today are understand its necessity and acting accordingly

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Table of Contents
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1.0 Introduction:
Responsible leadership specifically means taking crucial business decision in the best
interest of the business entity, its employees, then the clients and most importantly in the
favour of the society as a whole (Raghu, 2019). In today’s dynamic business environment it
is no more sufficient to just deliver the right amount of goods or service rather what helps an
organisation to grow and sustain is its corporate social responsibility activities and this is only
possible if the leader of the organisation holds a responsible attitude and impart the same
mission, vision and goals among the employees. Hence this research report will specifically
highlight on how the concept of Responsible Leadership has evolved with time and how in
today’s global business environment some leaders have stood out as exceptional examples of
how Responsible Leadership actually looks like.
2.0Research Overview:
According to Veeriah, Chua & Siaw, (2017) there are certain core considerations
which need to be made by the leader while assessing if his leadership is responsible or not,
which includes:
 Are all the business activity conducted in the best interest of maintaining a
balance with the nature that is if the business is following the expected
sustainability norms?
 Are the systemic risks involved with the business activity assessed timely to
save the company and the immediate environment from any major threat and
crisis?
 Does the organisation lend enough care towards assuring the overall welfare
of the workforce involved?

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Are all activities well tuned with the existing legal and ethical norms which stand
crucial for the organization’s operation?

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3.0Research Analysis:
3.1Emerging Theories on Responsible Leadership:
Since the 2008 threatening financial crisis, the very dimension of doing business in
the traditional ways has been put to question. However the problem is the business leaders
have been quite slow in assessing then need to change their ways of doing business to sustain
this global wave of cut throat competition, acquisition and merges (Freeman, 2016). The
2014 Edelman Trust Barometer argues that “business must lead the debate for change”, hence
according to World Economic Forum Young Global Leaders and Global Shapers (2017),
there are basically 5 Dimensions to critically evaluate how exactly the contemporary
Responsible leadership should look like which includes:
 Awareness- this means that the leader needs to be conscious about how he can
make his organisation more firm, how he can align his organisational strengths
to benefit the society
 Vision- How the leader expects to see himself and his organisation is next 5
years or so
 Imagination- How he aspires to change for better, act more responsible
towards his own principles, morals and towards the organisation and society as
a whole
 Responsibility- How prudent and rational he is when it comes to owning all
the right as well as wrongs of the organisation, the good and bad and act
reasonably to solve the wrongs
 Action- Finally the leader needs to constantly evaluate his actions to check if it
is all well aligned with the set corporate goals and if he is acting responsibly
towards his organisation and towards the society in which he operates

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3.2 Leadership Comparison- Then V/s Now:
To best understand how the theories of responsible leadership have evolved with time,
it is necessary to draw a comparative analysis of the both. It was not too long ago when
leadership in any organisation basically comprised of telling the employees what to do, when
to do, where and finally how to do it. They were expected to act as the face of the
organisation and mostly involved in managerial decision making and maintaining the overall
performance structure and good will of the organisation. However today the scenario has
completely changed and the managers and leaders face a whole new set of expectations to
help the organisation sustain and evolve in the global competitive business market. Unlike
yesterday today the employees does not just want to be managed but led by their leaders
(Stone-Johnson, 2014), creating a democratic and two-way work relationship toady’s stands
very essential. The traditional style of leadership did not need to deal with the constantly
changing world of business but today the leaders need to be active, on their feet and
constantly evolve themselves to retain their economic position. So being a responsible leader
in today’s generation demands the fulfilment of certain basic ideas and implementation of
certain core skills which include:
 Continuous learning and Unlearning, experiencing the worse and coming out
victorious out of it
 Broadening their won perspective, acting more observant as well as flexible
 Exceptionally strong problem solving skills as the word of business is
constantly becoming more complex leaders are best expected to act prudent,
not lose their calm and take the most appropriate decision in a strategic
manner.

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 Developing self- awareness which is very much required to equip the leaders
to accept their own mistakes learn from the same and carry on
 Strengthening communication skills as the key to a good business reputation
management is an excellent communication pan, tailor made messages to suit
the purpose of both the internal and external stakeholders of the firm.
 Thinking globally cannot be an option but a mandate to stay relevant in today
business environment, posses the necessary diversity in thinking and action
and comply well with the establish laws and standards.
3.3Real Life Heroes:
As the saying goes “with great power comes great responsibility” hence leaders of
varied organisation have showed how much necessary it is to act responsible be it during a
corporate crisis or everyday activity. For instance when the Dominos faced the bitter truth in
2010 where they found lots of customers complaining about the boring taste of the product
the CEO of this global brand Patrick Doyle knew what could be the best response to this and
came up with excellent solution and emerged as a new example of how a Responsible and
Contemporary business leader is expected to act (Raspa, 2017). He schooled his customers
with varied ad campaigns loudly proclaiming how its pizza tasted awful and why was it been
so disliked. The actually reason behind this move was to act more responsible to the
customers making them realise that they are always hear by the brand and then acting upon
the same to improve its image. It was no doubt a risky step and was very much applauded by
the customers worldwide as the leader and the brand was appreciated for being radical,
honest and transparent in their operation.

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4.0 Conclusion:
The basic definition of what a responsible leader should be like or act like is
constantly evolving. There is no doubt about the fact that the notion of acting behaviour must
be observed as a lifestyle practice rather than a business practice by the leaders as they are
bound to set examples for their staffs as well as the younger generation to follow. Hence
being a responsible will basically cater to
4.1 Setting behavioural standards
This is quite necessary because every new day brings in significant challenges for the
firm and a set guideline is no doubt expected to bring in favourable results. These standards
of behaviour can be specifically measured to ascertain the success and failure of the same.
4.2 Constantly measuring one’s performance
The leader must be active enough to constantly assess one’s success and failure, act
rational and aspire to build on one’s strengths and work on one’s weaknesses
4.3 Open to receive Feedback
This is very much crucial for a responsible leader to stay positive and open in
receiving feedback from the high level managers as well as from his subordinates, discuss
how one can improve and welcome varied opinion to maintain a democratic and positive
work environment.

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5.0Recommendation
Every business leader must emphasise of certain key areas to remain responsible in
their actions which include:
 Assessing stakeholders’ perception of the business
 Balancing emotions and intuition
 Focusing on one’s set standard and goals
 Constantly investing in innovating and technological expansion
 Reflecting upon business activity and meeting sustainability goals

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6.0References:
Freeman, R. E. (2016). Ethical leadership and creating value for stakeholders.
In Business ethics: New challenges for business schools and corporate leaders (pp. 94-109).
Routledge.
Leaders, Y. G. World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2016 Mastering the Fourth
Industrial Revolution.
Raghu, N. S. (2019). Leadership styles, roles and attributes that leaders need to
influence Employment Equity (Doctoral dissertation, University of Pretoria).
Raspa, R. (2017). The CEO as corporate myth-maker: Negotiating the boundaries of
work and play at Domino’s Pizza company. In Symbols and Artifacts (pp. 273-279).
Routledge.
Stone-Johnson, C. (2014). Responsible leadership. Educational Administration
Quarterly, 50(4), 645-674.
Veeriah, J., Chua, Y. P., & Siaw, Y. L. (2017). Principal’s transformational leadership
and teachers’ affective commitment in primary cluster schools in Selangor. International
Online Journal of Educational Leadership, 1(1), 60-89.