3. b. The role of leadership in fostering a culture of sustainability
Organizations are required to formulate and execute environmentally friendly practices when confronted with a problem of crucial environmental pollution. Employees have long been thought to play a critical role in organizational green management as practitioners of environmental management practices (Afsar, Badir and Kiani, 2016). Therefore, encourage green behavior among employees is critical for businesses.
Employee green behavior is described as a group of actions taken at work that help to ensure the environment’s long-term viability (Norton et al., 2017).
Given the importance of employee green behavior to the organization’s long-term success, this topic is gaining more attention and interest from academics and practitioners. They have concentrated on how to make it easier for employees to be environmentally conscious (Norton et al., 2017).
Leaders with power, prestige, and roles set an example for employees in such situations. Leaders who consistently demonstrate pro-environmental behavior can persuade employees to follow the same behavior and value such environmental resources in the organization. Employees will be more motivated to take part in these kinds of activities as a result of this. Leaders, on the other hand, typically act to reduce pollution and waste as part of their social obligations, rather than to influence others in the organization (Wiering, Liefferink and Beijen, 2018). As a result, employees are aware of two facets of pro-environmental behavior: socially responsible and beneficial conduct, and if their leader is encouraging environmental protection, they should follow his or her lead (Al-Swidi, Gelaidan and Saleh, 2021).
Nevertheless, Nawaz Khan, (2023) emphasizes the need to take care of employee’s emotions, since leadership is a key predictor of employee emotional exhaustion in the workplace (Khan et al., 2020). Exhausted employees are the least willing to internalize information and follow leadership. When employees are exhausted in the workplace, green behavior will be adversely affected (Nawaz Khan, 2023).
Li et al., (2020) study revealed that green transformational leadership has a substantial influence on green intrinsic motivation and green creativity, which are needed for employees to produce clean and green products and services. In addition, green intrinsic motivation partially mediates the relationship between green transformational leadership and green creativity.
Leadership in organizations should raise the green motivation of employees so that they may innovate environment-friendly and sustainable products and services (Li et al., 2020).
Kim et al., (2020) presented some suggestions that managers in the industry can use to help further the environmental initiatives at their properties: engaging with staff to accomplish greater success: indicating and showing guests their sustainability efforts and results; understand then the importance of the environmental policies they produce to their teams and ensure, first, that they have one and, second, it is written and communicated in a clear and consistent manner; after having an environmental policy, it should be reinforced with training that specifically targets the operation’s sustainability efforts. Competent and topical training that mirrors the environmental policy may help to foster stronger environmental beliefs and leads to better pro-green behaviors; communicating to and showing guests their sustainability credentials and should result in more effective sustainability initiatives, helping both the brand image and the environment; support their staff in the operation. The importance of the support of managers for environmental initiatives is a key component of getting the staff to take ownership of and move the operations forward by engaging in pro-ecological extra-role behaviors. The failure of doing so can negate much of the good work the organization is doing to build its brand image and protect the environment.
Management should prioritize hiring-process policies for leaders with a particular emphasis on environmental problems. To enhance the effectiveness of green leadership, appropriate reward systems must also be incorporated. Second, managers should conduct training to discuss all information about the firm’s sustainable environmental initiatives with non-management workers. Managers can make these workers watch particular online courses about environmental protection and resource conservation to enhance their knowledge and encourage them to engage in green behaviors. As a result, leaders and managers can explain how environmentally sustainable behaviors of workers can make their work and life more valuable while also benefiting other stakeholders. Employee participation would help the organization achieve its environmental targets, so environmental training is vital. These workers would also display environmentally friendly behavior beyond the workplace. Third, in the procedure of enhancing employee green behavior, companies should not only instill green leadership or implement GHRM practices but also go as far as possible on both sides in promoting employee green behavior more efficiently, thus promoting the company’s long term growth. To provide an organizational assurance for leaders’ green leadership behavior, management should create a uniform methodology for green initiatives, such as incorporating environmental problems into different components of HRM and training, encouraging employees to engage in green behavior, and even assessing employees’ green performance. Finally, employees must develop green understanding, correct knowledge of the human-nature relationship, correct environmental concepts, and efficiently contribute to green environmental conservation at work, such as recycling office supplies and turning off the office lights after finishing their daily duties (Alreahi et al., 2023).