I went to a talk on sustainability in business, which focused on the concept of "responsible management". As I listened I was struck by the way this chimed perfectly with seeing business more personally and was a good example of how the route to responsible management might be simpler than we want to believe.
I wondered if responsible management would be a natural consequence of encouraging more leaders to take personal responsibility for their decisions, rather than justifying them as just a part of the business role they play. We want them to be saying "I think this is right" rather than the more impersonal "I think this is what I have to do in the interests of shareholders", or even "of stakeholders".
Of course, this assumes that leaders bringing more of themselves to work and following their own conscience would actually be more responsible. But for the "good guys" that will be true. And this change would only affect the "good guys". There would be no change for the "bad guys" - of whom I think there are, in any case, relatively few. They've always acted on their own personal agenda, and always will!
So the sustainability message could simply be that business leadership is not just about doing a job, it's about taking a personal stance. Then all we need to worry about is who we are appointing as our leaders! Which, of course is always the real issue.
