Understanding Responsible Leadership:

Role Identity and Motivational Drivers

Rizwan Qamar

Understanding Responsible Leadership: Role Identity and Motivational Drivers

• Dr. Nicola M. Pless Visiting Senior Research FellowUNIVERSITY OF ST. GALLEN, SwitzerlandReader and Research Director

• Source: Journal of Business Ethics, Vol. 74, No. 4, Ethics in and of Global Organizations:

• The EBEN 19th Annual Conference in Vienna (Sep., 2007), pp. 437-456

• Published by: Springer

Responsible Leadership

• Responsible leadership is about making business decisions that,

• next to the interests of the shareholders,

• also takes into account all the other stakeholders,

• such as workers, clients, suppliers, the environment,

• the community and future generations.

Author’s Exploration

• Relationship between responsible leadership behavior and the underlying motivational systems.

– What are the driving forces behind responsible leadership behavior?

– What role does childhood play in the development of a responsible leader?

– How do motivational drivers translate into responsible leadership behavior?

Motivational Drivers

• Intrapsychic Drivers (For Self)– Need for exploration and assertion– Need for attachment and affiliation– Sense of enjoyment

• Normative Drivers (For Others)– Need for justice– Need for recognition– Sense of care

The Roles Model of Responsible Leadership

Source: Adapted from Maak and Pless (2006b).

Methodology

• It is Qualitative Research• Researcher used a narrative approach • Analyzing the biography of ANITA RODDICK

understand the phenomenon• In order to do so, the Author has considered

the whole life story of the Single person• She has suggested that it can help understand

and explain why and how Anita Roddick has developed into the Responsible Leader

Anita Lucia Roddick

• Born: 23 October 1942, , England• Known for: Businesswoman,

founder of The Body Shop, charity work. She is widely recognized as being a socially responsible leader

• Spouse: Gordon Roddick• Death: 10 September

2007 (aged 64), England• Death reason: Cerebral hemorrhage

The Body Shop• Industry: Cosmetics• Established: 26 March 1976• Place: England, United Kingdom• Naming Rights: In 1987 The Body

Shop.• Outlets: 2,605 (2010)• No. of Courtiers Operations: 61• The Body Shop agreed to a £652.3

million takeover by L'Oreal

The Body Shop Products

Charitable Works

• The Body Shop Foundation• Children On The Edge (COTE)• Donated 9.5 Million Starlings• She was known for her campaigning work on

environmental issues• Animal Protection• The Body Shop has undertaken periodic

independent social audits of its activities

How motivational factors affect on Roddick`s life.

• Need for exploration and assertion• She was aware of that to feel constantly the thrill of

the unexpected”. • She wanted to learn more and more. • She has given very importance, to learn from

experience.• Teachers, mentors and coaches have great impact on

the learning.

• Enjoying, Passion and Fun• She identifies passion her driving force in life.• She enjoyed what she did in her life. • She made fun as part of Body shop business

mission. • Her mother tells love, romantic stories. • She treated every person and thing with love.

Through love she earned trust.

Cont….d

• Attachment and Differentiation• In business, as in life, she needs to be

entertained, to have a sense of family, to be part of community.

• Justice, Care and Responsibility.• Her mother taught ethics in her

childhood. Her sister who was a nun instilled a sense of care and respect for the deprived class. She learned these all from her childhood.

Responsible Leadership Behavior• Leader as a visionaryLeaders in the business world should aspire to be true

planetary citizens. They have global responsibilities since their decisions affect not just the world of business, but world problems of poverty, national security and the environment. Many, sad to say, duck these responsibilities, because their vision is material rather than moral. (Roddick, 1991, 226).

• Leader as a stewardA lot of people ? those who did not know us very well

- thought that after going public we would perhaps sell up and retire to a life of indolent luxury. Gordon and I never remotely considered doing such a thing. The Body Shop was too much our baby ever to let it go.

Cont….d• Leader as a servant

– Caring for employees – Caring for customers – Caring for communities – Caring for the environment – Caring for suppliers

• Leader as a citizen and change agent• she used this citizenship spirit as a means of

turning the "The Body Shop vision ? of making the world a better place - into reality" (Roddick, 1991).

• In 1985, the first year as a public company, Anita Roddick and The Body Shop started their campaigning trail following the motto that "businesses have the power to do good" (Roddick, 2005).

Cont….d• Leader as a net worker• Anita Roddick understands herself as a relationship

builder and a networker: "the bUss of my job is networking ? finding people with visions similar to mine, or even greater." (Roddick, 1991)

• Living leadership, and leadership by experience and not by rhetoric. So like going to visit one of our community trade projects ? no founder ever goes and sits in a bloody mud hut for three days holding babies, with flies or fleas. But that was the expectation of the people I work with, that I'd be doing that, that I'd be in the middle. They were absolutely and rightly expecting me to be right in the middle of Afghanistan to see if I could find a community trade project. (Roddick, 2002, 4, 24-29).

Cont….d• Leader as a story teller• Storytelling served her as a form

of leadership to achieve different objectives:

• To create a common values-based spirit

• To create a common glue in the vast growing global network of local shops and franchises

• To lead and manage change• To foster a cooperative and

human working environment

Lessons Learned

• Responsible leader is driven by a values based vision

• Responsible leadership manifests itself in defining moments

• Responsible leadership can be understood as the art of building and sustaining social and moral relationships between business leaders and different stakeholders (followers)

• Responsible leadership is rooted in an ethics of care driven by a desire to serve others.