University of Vaasa - Vaasan yliopisto

RESPONSIBLE LEADERSHIP: BUILDING BLOCKS OF
INDIVIDUAL, ORGANISATIONAL
AND SOCIETAL BEHAVIOUR.
Abstract
Tarja Ketola
Associate Professor of Sustainable Development,
University of Vaasa, P.O. Box 700, 65101 Vaasa, Finland,
671
Responsible leadership achieves best results when high levels of individual, organizational and
societal leadership responsibility coincide. How to find one's responsible leadership identity in
the midst of the changing and chaotic world? The building blocks can be found in psychologist
Erik Erikson's way of resolving individual identity crises.
The purpose of this paper is to adapt Erikson's model to individually, organizationally and
societally responsible leadership and integrate them to achieve the best results. When working
towards a responsible leader's identity, six areas of difficulty should be solved: (1) value basis, (2)
self-image vs. external image, (3) time perspective, (4) role experimentation, (5) anticipation of
achievement, and (6) leader-follower relation.
Responsibility and irresponsibility are contagious. Individuals, organizations and societies boost
or repress responsible behaviour: inspiring leaders pull others to higher ethical levels of
behaviour; greedy leaders push others back to lower levels of behaviour. Be a responsible leader:
care and dare.
Keywords: responsibility, leadership, individual, organization, society, behaviour
Building Blocks of Responsible Leadership Identity
There are several good responsible leader examples to follow: some individuals,
organizations and societies have found their responsible leadership identity. At
individual level, we can learn responsible leadership from political, corporate and
non-governmental (NGO) leaders, such as Mahatma Gandhi, Wangari Maathai, Al
Gore, Anita Roddick and Muhammad Yunus. At organizational level, good
responsible leadership examples to follow include e.g. The Body Shop (even after
Anita Roddick), Grameen Bank and Green Belt Movement. At societal level, it is
possible to compare for instance the USA and Bhutan. Contrary to common belief,
individuals, organizations or societies do not have to be rich to be responsible.
Wealth may seduce to irresponsible behaviour, like disregard for the disadvantaged
and wasteful consumption patterns. The six building blocks of responsible leadership
identity are based on individual psychologist Erik H. Eriksson’s (1957, 1969, 1974)
model of solving identity crises.