Teaching Sustainability Leaders in Systems Thinking

Abstract

The increasingly required responsibility of enterprises for the environment and society creates new challenges for leaders. They need to be able to deal with multidimensional, complex systems, with different time horizons, ambiguities, and competing stakeholder-interests. In order to convey these competences, new methods are needed in management education. Systemic Constellations is a method that has been used in management consulting to learn about complex systems and to develop problem solutions. It allows cognitive, emotional, and affective learning to occur simultaneously, thus training leaders to grasp the whole complexity of Sustainable Development and CSR, giving them the opportunity to make better and more responsible decisions. At the Vienna University of Economics and Business different forms of constellation work were tested and judged according to their usefulness to teach sustainability competences in graduate and post-graduate education.

Keywords: Sustainability leadership, Competences, Abilities, Sustainable development, Systemic constellations, Responsible leadership, Corporate Social Responsibility, Leadership development, Sustainability education, Leadership

JEL Classification: M00