Leadership for Sustainability : Myth, Metaphor and Narrative in Governance

Tackles the challenge of translating global sustainability goals into local action. Through concepts of myth, metaphor and narrative, the authors offers a framework for understanding sustainability as a productive fiction that fosters environmental awareness, appreciation, and long-term planning. Aimed at advanced students and professionals.

Offering a bold and original perspective, Leadership for Sustainability explores how leadership can drive meaningful sustainability transitions through local and regional governance. The authors introduce an interpretive framework developed around the concepts of myth, metaphor and narrative, revealing sustainability as a highly productive fiction – one that enables communities to observe their environment differently and envision and organize long-term futures. Through critical analysis of sustainability narratives and a careful dismantling of common leadership myths, this book uncovers the functions and roles of leadership within governance systems. This approach illuminates how leadership can foster new modes of observation, understanding, and organization that reconnect communities, governance, and the environment. Featuring a clear and concise overview of key issues, tools, concepts and contexts for the understanding of leadership for sustainability, this is an essential insight for scholars and practitioners working in sustainability, environmental issues, leadership studies, public policy, and administration.