Leadership Matters

Blog by Julie Urlaub, Founder and Managing Partner at Taiga Company
Apr 27, 2011 1:15 PM ET

Taiga Company blog by Julie Urlaub, Founder and Managing Partner at Taiga Compa…

As it is, today’s companies face greater pressure than ever before from shareholders, customers, and employees to become more sustainable.  But how do you engage workers within your business to personally integrate sustainability into their everyday actions and decisions? 

Frequently, executives ask their employees to exhibit behavior or take initiative only to be disappointed in a negative result.  However, as we share in our business sustainability consulting, if you want to engage people in your company to be personally involved in taking eco actions and becoming more sustainable in their personal lives, then it seems only natural that the organization itself would lead those sustainability efforts by demonstrating value for the sustainability concepts they are asking their employees to embrace.  On the corporate level, this takes the form as a formal sustainability plan or business sustainable strategies.     The post, Sustainable Leadership: Are you a Diminisher or Multiplier? identifies two types of bosses, "diminishers", who get less than 50% of the capability of people around them, and "multipliers" who get virtually 100%."   Leadership has the ability to make it or break it for employees, teams, departments, and the bottom line.    "In a comprehensive review by the researchers Bruce Avolio and Fred Luthans of more than two hundred leadership studies, only one quality among leaders consistently had a positive impact on their employees. It was the capacity to recognize potentials that the employees didn't yet fully see in them.  Put another way, the best leaders used their own positive energy to bolster their employees' faith in their own abilities and to fuel their optimism and perseverance in the face of stresses and setbacks. That belief from a leader is intoxicating."   Bridging the gap between corporate sustainability programs and employees rest in the sustainable leaders vision - being a "multiplier".    How does this happen? Click here to find out how!  

Home to one third of the earth's trees, the Taiga is the largest land-based biosphere and encircles the globe. Its immense oxygen production literally changes the atmosphere and refreshes the planet. It is this continuous renewal that has shaped Taiga Company's vision to drive similar change in the business world. Taiga Company seeks to be the "oxygen for your business".