During the last decade, the sustainability position in multinational corporations has grown in influence. Much literature has explored how corporations can play an important role in solving the environmental challenges facing the planet. However, until now, there has been little research on sustainability leadership at the individual level. In this book, Schein explores the deeper psychological motivations of sustainability leaders.

He shows how these motivations relate to overall effectiveness and capacity to lead transformational change and he explores the ways in which the complexity of sustainability is driving new approaches to leadership.Drawing on interviews with 75 leaders from over 40 multinational corporations and NGOs, Schein explores how ecological worldviews are developed and expressed in global sustainability practice. By applying key theories from developmental psychology, integral ecology and eco-psychology to sustainability practice, Schein encourages us to think about leadership in a different way.

A New Psychology for Sustainability Leadership will be of interest to an interdisciplinary audience of social scientists, educators, corporate executives, and social entrepreneurs. The insights from this book can be usefully integrated into leadership curriculum and development programs to help the next generation of leaders respond to global challenges.

Steve Schein

Part 1: Introduction

1. Ecologically awake

2. The limits of "sustainability"

Part 2: Exploring the corporate eco-psyche

3. Perspectives on ecological worldviews

4. Life experiences that shape ecological worldviews

5. Anthropocentric blindness

6. The ecological self

7. Expressions of ecocentricism and ecological self in the corporate world

Part 3: How sustainability leaders think

8. Interior dimensions of leadership

9. Human development

10. Expressions of post-conventional worldviews

Part 4: The future of sustainability leadership

11. The collaborator-in-chief (with an ecological worldview)

12. Cultivating a new psychology for sustainability leadership

13. Multinational executives as human trim tabs

Appendix A: Ecological Sustainability Worldview Assessment Tool (E-SWAT)

Appendix B: Research methodology and description of participants