Leadership Qualities and Management Competencies, Research Paper Example

Introduction

Managers’ attitudes influence not only the overall performance of the organization, but the communication of visions, missions related to corporate social responsibility.

Problem statement: Corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance has an impact on the brand’s image, reputation, relationship with the public and stakeholders. Managing CSR, however, requires specific skills and attitudes.

As the question of sustainability, corporate citizenship and stakeholder engagement is in the focus of current research, the authors would like to reveal the most successful management approaches, practices, competencies and qualities to increase corporate social responsibility performance.

Purpose

The purpose of the study is to create a managerial framework to increase CSR performance of the organization.

The research question of the proposed study is: which leadership qualities and management competencies support an organization’s corporate social responsibility performance the most? What skills and qualities does the leader need to possess in order to successfully develop and manage a corporate social responsibility campaign within the organization?

Literature Review

Wilson, Lennsen & Hind (2006) stated that the integration of responsible leadership in the policies and management of the organization can increase the corporate social responsibility performance. The authors have reviewed competencies, skills and attitudes of managers and found that attributes of responsible leadership (integrity, open-mindedness, long-term perspective, ethical behavior demonstration, caring attitudes, effective communication and responsibility management outside of the organization) result in positive corporate social responsibility outcomes.

Study Design

The authors would like to survey 100 medium to large companies where corporate social responsibility policies are developed and examine the leadership skills, qualities and competencies in the light of the policy’s performance. Self-reports based on skills, competencies and attitudes will be collected to form a qualitative comparative research.

Dependent Variables

The leaders’ approach, attitude, skills, and vision will be compared with the company’s public CSR performance rating. The number of employees will also be recorded to note any variations based on the size of the organization.

Implications

Through completing the research, the authors would like to support the creation of an effective framework focusing on leader skills and competencies that result in great CSR performance.

Conclusion

The study is intending to emphasize the relationship between leadership approaches and CSR performance of organizations. The authors would like to be able to create recommendations for leaders based on the findings of the study completed.

References

Wilson, A., Lenssen, G. & Hind, P. (2006) Leadership qualities and management competencies for corporate responsibility.  A Research Report For the European Academy Of Business In Society. Retrieved from:             <http://www.ashridge.org.uk/website/IC.nsf/wFARATT/Leadership%20Qualities%20and          %20Management%20Competencies%20for%20Corporate%20Responsibility/       $file/LeadershipQualitiesAndManagementCompetenciesForCorporateResponsibility.pdf>