LEADERSHIP FOR SUSTAINABILITY: THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS AND PEDAGOGICAL PRACTICES THAT FOSTER CHANGE

Sustainability education has a significant role to play in changing the leadership paradigm and fostering leaders who are capable of working collaboratively to address complex sustainability challenges. Leadership for sustainability denotes a new and expanded understanding of leadership that signifies taking action based on sustainability values, leading from a living processes paradigm, and creating an inclusive, collaborative and reflective leadership process. This paper examines and weaves together literature on leadership, leadership development, and sustainability education to suggest best practices in leadership development. A variety of suggested pedagogical practices that foster the development of leaders include: observation and self-awareness, reflection, the exploration of ecological and diverse perspectives, and learning experientially and in community. In order to find solutions to the complex problems that we face as a global society, we need active citizen leaders who can collaboratively restore our sense of community and actively engage in transforming our current social, political, economic and ecological realities (Cress