research

Our research into sustainable leadership started more than eight years ago, and provided the original thought that went into our book*. We revealed the kind of dynamics in the relationship between leaders and their organisations that can either create long term, sustainable success or lead to business failure and derailment.

Our findings threw light on the complexities of this relationship: the dimensions of organisation culture that can influence more – or less – responsible approaches to leadership; what successful leaders do – and don’t do – that sustains them and their careers over the long term, as well as the patterns of behaviour associated with pursuing work unsustainably.

Our work in applying this research in organisations pointed to the need for a mind-set shift in the way we think about and carry out leadership development – one that is more suited to the new order that is emerging as the recession gradually recedes. We believe that trying to go on with the business of developing leaders as if nothing had happened will inevitably lead, sooner rather than later, to a reccurrence of the crisis.

*Casserley, T and Megginson, D. (2008). 'Learning from burnout: developing sustainable leaders and avoiding career derailment'. Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann.