The relationship between self-enhancement & self-transcendence personal values and strategist & integrator mindset characteristics of responsible leadership

Responsible leadership emerged out of ethical leadership and its definition has evolved over the years. The initial definition of responsible leadership was constructed from an ethical leadership paradigm. A new proposed definition has emerged that proposes that responsible leadership is not a leadership style but rather an integrator or a strategist mindset. The integrator mindset is aligned to the stakeholder’s theory and therefore is inclined to favour stakeholders opposed to shareholder’s needs; while the strategist adopts an economic perspective of an organisation and prefers to prioritise shareholders’ needs compared to stakeholders’ needs.

Various drivers affect the behaviour of responsible leadership. Macro drivers such as the national culture, the type of economy of the country and the type of industry have an impact on the behaviour of responsible leaders. The mining industry is a controversial industry; that is dependent on natural resources and mining operations can have a negative impact on the surrounding society and the environment. Meso drivers such as organisational policies and programmes can have in impact on responsible leadership. Micro drivers such as personal values have an impact on the behaviour responsible leaders exhibit. The self-enhancement personal value dimension consists of power and achievement, while self-transcendence consists of universalism and benevolence. Individuals with self-enhancement will focus on achievement and gaining power over resources, while individuals with self-transcendence focus on being benevolent and being universalists.

This study investigated the relationship between personal values; namely self-enhancement and self-transcendence with the two responsible leadership mindsets being strategist and integrator. This study adopted the hypothesis that individuals with self-enhancement personal values will prefer to adopt a strategist mindset while individuals with self-transcendence will adopt an integrator mindset.

This study was conducted in the mining industry and within an emerging economy, South Africa. This was a quantitative study and therefore, a questionnaire was compiled, and responses was solicited to the various management groups within the mining industry for subsequent statistical evaluation. This study found that a positive relationship exists between self-enhancement and strategist. Similarly, a positive relationship has been established between self-transcendence and the integrator mindset.