Dynamic Interactions of Agency in Leadership (DIAL): An Integrative Framework for Analysing Agency in Sustainability Leadership

This article investigates agency as a way of being and acting in sustainability leadership. Our primary aim is to enhance understanding of agentic strategies that facilitate transcending systemic complexities in sustainability leadership. We make a distinction in our analytical approach by drawing from Emirbayer and Mische’s (Am J Sociol 103:41, <CitationRef CitationID="CR30">1998</CitationRef>) conceptualisation of agency as ‘an interactive process of reflexive transformation and relational pragmatics, a temporally embedded process of social engagement, informed by the past, oriented towards the future and enacted in the present’ (p. 963). We add ontological sources of agency to these dynamics which interact with habit, imagination, judgement and learning in the transformation of social systems. This approach underpins our model ‘Dynamic Interactions of Agency in Leadership’ (DIAL), an integrative framework for analysing agency in sustainability leadership. We examine the efficacy of our framework in higher education initiatives in which sustainability aspirations, aims and actions are envisioned, articulated and mobilised. We conclude by offering further avenues of research in sustainability leadership designed to advance this burgeoning field and contribute to bridging the gap between sustainability challenges and our abilities to solve them. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2015