Leadership for sustainable innovation

This article explores and explains the effects of a manager's leadership style on sustainable, that is environment friendly, innovation processes. It uses an analytical framework, based on the literature, to investigate a manager's influence on sustainable innovation in the Dutch building sector. An empirical research project observes a manager in a series of sustainable innovation processes in four building projects. The research shows that a manager's charismatic, instrumental, strategic, or interactive leadership style substantially contributes to the development of sustainable innovation processes. It also shows that the exchange of knowledge and information in the organisation affects the sustainable innovation process. It concludes that a manager's performance of an innovation leadership style is (un)successful where it is (not) combined with the management of knowledge.