Leadership For Sustainable Development: Sustainable Competency Development
Open Access
- Author:
- Dominick, Juliana
- Area of Honors:
- Elective Area of Honors - Engineering Leadership Development
- Degree:
- Bachelor of Science
- Document Type:
- Thesis
- Thesis Supervisors:
- John Park, Thesis Supervisor
Paul W Mittan, Thesis Honors Advisor - Keywords:
- Leadership
Engineering
Sustainable Development
Sustainable Competencies - Abstract:
- The United Nations outlined the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development to improve the environmental, social, and economic dimensions of the world. Specifically, the Agenda demanded lasting protection of the planet and its resources, peaceful societies that protect human rights, and sustained economic growth and prosperity. Even with a clear list of goals and a well-defined set of competencies that individuals should have to advance these goals, progress remains unhurried, only exacerbated by the pandemic and global conflict. Now, more than ever, leaders are needed to aid in the world’s development towards sustainability. However, methods to introduce sustainability topics and develop related competencies are unclear, making it difficult to develop leaders with the skills to solve these challenges. In this study, an initial qualitative phase is used to uncover mechanisms contributing to participants’ motivation to address sustainability issues, as well as their development of sustainable competencies. Then, a quantitative phase is used to identify and link specific factors contributing to competency development. The results suggest that personal experiences and background play a strong role in interest in sustainable development. Thus, leveraging personal motivations may improve competency development. Additionally, developed competencies were observable in a participant’s problem-solving skills, suggesting a method to evaluate development of a specific competency. Finally, it was evident that leadership identity and the sustainable competencies were interrelated, emphasizing the importance of including leadership training alongside sustainability topics for successful competency development. It is anticipated that these findings will better equip educators and leadership trainers on methods to introduce and develop the personal competencies needed for progress in sustainable development.