Sustainable Leader Analysis: Examining Leadership in Sustainability

This essay analyzes the sustainable leadership of Paul Polman, former CEO of Unilever, examining his impact on the company's sustainability initiatives. The essay defines sustainability, explores Polman's leadership qualities, and highlights his contributions to environmental protection, community activities, and business practices. It discusses Polman's vision, values, and strategies, including the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan. The analysis applies leadership theories, such as transformational and ethical leadership, to demonstrate how Polman influenced and motivated others toward sustainable practices. The essay concludes with reflections on the lessons learned and aspirations for personal leadership development, particularly in the context of social innovation and sustainable strategies. The essay uses various references to support the analysis.

Running Head: SUSTAINABLE LEADERSHIP
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Sustainable leadership
Sustainable Leader Analysis
(Student Details: )
3/9/2020

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Sustainable Leader Analysis
The essay is focused to analyse the impact of an individual in the field of work with
their commitment to sustainability. In doing so, the key lessons will be considered which can
be applied to personal leadership development. With the help of this essay, a person’s
leadership strategies and skills will be explored, who is a leader in sustainability,
environmental protection as well as in the community activities. Here, in this essay, the great
leader and CEO of the Unilever Company has been selected for exploring sustainable
leadership. The CEO of the Unilever Company has implemented as well as championed
sustainability changes in the business. In addition to that, sustainability will be considered in
a broad sense rather than sustainability into business. It is worth knowing that Paul Polman,
CEO of Unilever Company is well known to the whole business world.
The Dutch businessman Paulus Gerardus Josephus Polman was born in the year 1956
in the city of Enschede. The leader belongs to the catholic family. Initially, the leader wanted
to become a doctor however he completed his MA into Economics. Furthermore, Polman has
done an MBA in Finance as well as international marketing in the year 1979 at the University
of Cincinnati. Later then, Polman was honored with a doctorate in June 2014 (Schwabel,
2017). During 2018, the leader Polman received the degree of Doctorate if Humane Letters
from George Mason University. In the context of a career, Polman worked with so many big
brands such as Nestle, Procter & Gamble, Imagine, Unilever and many more. The leader is a
former president of P&G for Western Europe. From 2009 to 2019, the leader has worked
with Unilever as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) concerning the British Dutch consumer
products company (Schaltegger, Burritt, & Peterson, 2017).
From the sustainability perspective, the responsibility of the leaders is high while
developing sustainable strategies in the business as well as the relevant industry. To define
sustainability, it is an ability to be sustained at a particular level or rate (Pearce, Barbier, &
Markandya, 2013). In other words, sustainability can also be seen as the ability of any system
to persist continuously at a specific cost (Bass & Dalal-Clayton, 2012). The sustainability
concept exists where the world is evolving towards thermodynamic equilibrium, which is the
state with maximum entropy. In addition to that, the sustainability concept in the 21st century
refers to the capacity for the environment as well as a human civilization to co-exist. In a
broader sense, there are three core principles of sustainability; they are the foundations of the

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concept in every century. Moreover, sustainability is made up of 3 key pillars include social,
environmental and economic (CC Amatil, 2019). Here, such principles of sustainability are
informally interpreted as people, planet and profit. The sustainable leader Polman’s vision is
to create and evolve sustainable living commonplace. The leader believed that sustainability
is the key long time way for businesses to grow and nurture to a large extent. The mission of
the sustainable leader Polman is to focus on sustainability amid customers, clients, people,
and society (App, Merk, & Büttgen, 2012). Some key values are shown and used by the
leader. The first value is to help people feel good, get more out of life, and look good. The
second value is to help people to meet daily needs for hygiene, personal care, and nutrition.
Lastly, he helped people to add vitality to life (Schwabel, 2017).
As per the modern researchers and management experts, there has been a great impact
on the leader’s work as well as leadership in the field of sustainability. The leader has
impacted people and society in a positive manner which is ultimately clear from the various
rewards and recognition were given to him (Ahvenniemi, Huovila, & Pinto-Seppa, 2017). For
instance, Polman has been received so many awards and recognition for his leadership as
well as efforts in the area of sustainable development. Some of the examples of such awards
are European Business Leader of the year by Wall Street Journal/CNBC (2003), Rainforest
Alliance Lifetime Achievement Award (2014), WWF's Duke of Edinburgh Conservation
Medal (2013), and many more. Moreover, the leader Polman has impacted people, planet,
and society with the help of sustainability efforts and strategies such as external
collaboration, system thinking, social innovation, as well as sustainability literacy (Carroll,
Brown, & Buchholtz, 2018).
It has been observed in the research and surveys, the leader Polman has attempted to
motivate others effectively (Bell & Morse, 2012). Undoubtedly, the leader has demonstrated
a positive influence on others concerning sustainability and sustainable development as well.
The aforementioned efforts of Polman in favour of sustainability were highly effective
because he has covered all possible ways to implement sustainability-oriented practices
within the business, daily life, and personal use (CSR Hub, 2018). With the help of great
insights into sustainable leader Paul Polman, the Company Unilever has been redefined
sustainable business success. It is because Polman has helped people as well as the Unilever
to defy all traditional wisdom for further leading one of the globe’s business giants with their
sustainability-oriented agenda. The leader Polman has also driven ethical as well as moral
principles in relation to sustainability (Carter, Ulrich, & Goldsmith, 2012).

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After assessing leadership theories and concepts, it has been found that CEO and the
great sustainable leader Paul Polman created the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan which is
indeed a decade long scheme for further doubling the company’s revenue (Pearce, Barbier, &
Markandya, 2013). When sustainable leadership theory has been applied to the analysis then
it is found that Polman has been considered a great sustainable leader as he helped Unilever
and thereby the world to reduce the overall carbon footprint by half (CC Amatil, 2019). This
essay has been identified as the leadership style of the chosen leader as sustainable leadership
because of his core behaviours, traits, and attitudes towards the issue of sustainability in the
21st era (Bass & Dalal-Clayton, 2012).
The key strengths, as well as skills identified for the Paul Polman, are team
effectiveness, effective collaboration, social change, good communication, listening skills,
high commitment, passion, honesty, creativity, reflective power, decision power, inspirational
and motivational attitude, supportive nature and many more (Ahvenniemi, Huovila, & Pinto-
Seppa, 2017). In addition to that, sustainable leader Polman has been a great problem solver
in the field of sustainable development for all. It has been observed by many management
experts and researchers that the leader has demonstrated an affirmative decision-making
behaviour with his great critical thinking and problem-solving skills within Unilever as well
as international business. While talking about sustainability leadership theories like
transformational and ethical leadership, it has been found that Polman’s values and ethics
have been successfully reflected in his wise decisions, behaviour and thereby actions while
working with Unilever for the long tenure of 10 years (Schwabel, 2017). In this way, the
leadership theory application of transformational and ethical leadership, it is clear that Paul
Polman has successfully influenced and motivated the whole business world as well as a
society for adopting sustainable practices in business and daily practices respectively
(Adams, Jeanrenaud, Bessant, & Denyer, 2016).
In whole, with the help of this discussion, so many important lessons regarding
sustainable leader and sustainability have been occurred both from the writer and reader
perspectives. Based on this research, I have explored learning and lessons about the type of
leader I want to become in the near future. In this context, I have decided I aspire to become a
transformational leader in the context of society and social innovation. In addition to that, my
sustainability values include morals and ethics in favour of earth, nature, and sustainable
development. I will also follow the sustainable strategies practiced by the leader Paul Polman
who is an inspiration in the contemporary business-oriented world.

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References
Adams, R., Jeanrenaud, S., Bessant, J., & Denyer, D. (2016). Sustainability‐oriented
innovation: A systematic review. . International Journal of Management Reviews,
18(2), 180-205.
Ahvenniemi, H., Huovila, A., & Pinto-Seppa, I. (2017). What are the differences between
sustainable and smart cities? Cities, 60, 234-245.
App, S., Merk, J., & Büttgen, M. (2012). Employer branding: Sustainable HRM as a
competitive advantage in the market for high-quality employees. Management revue,
262-278.
Bass, S., & Dalal-Clayton, B. (2012). Sustainable development strategies: a resource book.
London: Routledge.
Bell, S., & Morse, S. (2012). Sustainability indicators: measuring the immeasurable?
London: Routledge.
Carroll, A. B., Brown, J., & Buchholtz, A. K. (2018). Business & Society: Ethics,
Sustainability & Stakeholder Management (10th ed.). Australia: Cengage Learning.
Carter, L., Ulrich, D., & Goldsmith, M. (2012). Best practices in leadership development and
organization change: how the best companies ensure meaningful change and
sustainable leadership . New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons.
CC Amatil. (2019). SUSTAINABILITY. Retrieved 2019, from
https://www.ccamatil.com/sustainability
CSR Hub. (2018). Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) & Environment, Social,
Governance (ESG) Metrics. Retrieved 2019, from
https://www.csrhub.com/CSR_and_sustainability_information/Coca-Cola-Amatil-
Limited
Pearce, D., Barbier, E., & Markandya, A. (2013). Sustainable development: economics and
environment in the Third World. LOndon: Routlegde.

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Schaltegger, S., Burritt, R., & Peterson, H. (2017). An introduction to corporate
environmental management: Striving for sustainability. London: Routledge.
Schwabel, D. (2017). Unilever's Paul Polman: Why Today's Leaders Need To Commit To A
Purpose. Retrieved from Forbes:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/danschawbel/2017/11/21/paul-polman-why-todays-
leaders-need-to-commit-to-a-purpose/#5a344ddb1276