Supporting Sustainability and Innovation by Value-oriented Leadership

Innovation in terms of sustainability requires appropriate leadership, values and circumstances. Although the concept of sustainability is well known nevertheless indeed there is a great discrepancy between theory and practice. Therefore, the aim of this paper is offering an appropriate leadership concept named Silent Leadership (SL) in order to reduce this discrepancy and to support innovation in sustainability-oriented companies.Design/methodology/approach: The paper is based on a current study conducted by the Wertekommission 2016. The study is based on interviews with 674 German executives of the middle and higher management. On the basis of this data a contemporary leadership concept is developed which takes the results of the research into consideration.Findings: The research covers an important topic of appropriate leadership style, which could lead towards more successful sustainability innovations in companies by closing the discrepancy existing in companies in terms of desirable and actual values. Research/practical implications: The paper includes implications for a new kind of leadership named silent leadership which serves as an appropriate concept for managing the challenges in terms of sustainability and innovation processes caused in a rapidly changing world.Originality/value: This paper fulfils an identified need to reduce the actual discrepancy between desirable and actual corporate values in order to support sustainability as well as innovation in companies.