Sustainability efforts ultimately succeed or fail not because of strategy documents, net-zero pledges or carbon targets, but because of how leaders behave day to day. While formal plans and metrics remain important, new research underscores that leadership conduct — visible, consistent and credible — is what determines whether environmental ambitions take root inside organisations or remain largely symbolic. Employees are acutely sensitive to signals from those at the top, and they quickly distinguish between sustainability treated as a core value and sustainability presented as a communications exercise.

The research shows that employees are far more likely to act in environmentally responsible ways when leaders actively demonstrate green values through their everyday decisions, priorities and behaviours, rather than relying on speeches, policies or internal messaging alone. When sustainability is embodied in how leaders allocate resources, resolve trade-offs and set expectations, it becomes part of the organisation’s lived reality. In contrast, when leaders speak about environmental responsibility without visibly practising it, employee engagement rapidly weakens.

At the centre of the findings is a clear conclusion: leadership forms the critical foundation of an authentic green workplace culture. Where leaders consistently prioritise environmental responsibility, employees respond with higher levels of voluntary green behaviour. This includes everyday actions such as reducing waste and conserving resources, as well as more proactive engagement, like supporting sustainability initiatives and encouraging colleagues to adopt greener practices. These behaviours arise not because they are mandated, but because employees perceive sustainability as genuinely valued.

Crucially, the peer-reviewed research identifies trust as the mechanism that turns leadership intent into action. Employees who trust their leaders are significantly more willing to go beyond formal requirements and act in ways that support environmental goals. Drawing on survey data from hotel employees across the United States, the study demonstrates that environmentally focused leadership builds trust and that trust directly translates into stronger environmental performance by staff. In organisations where sustainability is clearly supported and rewarded as part of everyday working life, this effect becomes even stronger.

The study also highlights that employees’ own environmental values matter. Leadership does not manufacture commitment from nothing, but it plays a decisive role in activating, legitimising and sustaining it. When leaders clearly signal that sustainability is important, employees who already care about environmental issues feel empowered to express those values at work rather than sidelining them. “What this research makes clear is that sustainability lives or dies at the leadership level,” said Kirk Chang, Professor at the University of East London and one of the study’s authors. “If leaders do not visibly live the sustainability story, that story will not survive contact with reality.”

Taken together, the findings carry clear implications for organisations grappling with climate commitments, sustainability performance and accusations of greenwashing. They suggest that environmental performance is not primarily a technical or compliance challenge, but a cultural one rooted in leadership credibility. Where leaders send mixed signals or treat sustainability as a bolt-on, employees disengage. Authentic sustainability, the research reinforces, is cultural before it is technical, and leadership behaviour is the point at which strategy becomes reality.

More information: Mohammad Nisar Khattak et al, Leadership and green performance: from the perspective of environmentally-specific servant leadership, Journal of Organizational Effectiveness People and Performance. DOI: 10.1108/JOEPP-11-2024-0568

Journal information: Journal of Organizational Effectiveness People and Performance Provided by University of East London