Transcript The Earth Charter: A Holistic Vision for a Just

e-GLO 2
Earth Charter
Guiding Leaders Towards Sustainability Action
Intercultural / Interpersonal
Communicative Competence
The interpersonal skills and communicative abilities of leaders
are essential because a “unified focus results from the leader’s
skill in communicating a unifying vision”
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Why do we need to talk about
communicative competence
• Effectual leadership requires the ability to inspire
shared visions and motivate people to work
toward realizing them
– allows leaders to gain support and to work competently
toward achieving their goals
• Leaders need to be able to bring together many
different individuals
– proficiency at building and fostering the cooperation of
likeminded people, along with collaborating with people
who may hold different views, is extremely important
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International Institute for Sustainable
Development, IISD’s study
“Supporting the Next Generation of Sustainability
Leadership”
IISD’s 2008 survey of the World Conservation Union (IUCN)
members’ training programs for ages 20-35
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• The values, beliefs and aptitudes that were ranked
most highly include a capacity for innovation and
a global mindset
– The personal commitment to a sustainable lifestyle, peer
networking, experiential learning, project management
skills and awareness of stakeholder roles
• Of the skills required, communications was at the
top of the list
– Understanding how to engage people was key - the ability
to work across sectors, personality types and cultures for
a better future
– “the ability to inform, engage and influence others to
change policies and practices for the better”
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The term ‘communication’ in sustainable
development projects
• encompasses a number of overlapping but distinct
activities:
– it involves building a system for dialogue and
consultation with and within the community
– it entails communicating the actions and
expectations of the organization itself to a
larger community of stakeholders
– bringing these two ideas together, it involves
making the information about the community,
as well as its relationship to the service
organization, available to the broader society
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• The three components are not alternatives;
communication is not merely ‘dissemination’ or
letting others know what we are doing, and even
less so about telling them what they should do
• To be meaningful, investments in communication
have to be rooted first in the listening component
of communication and only then in the talking
component
• participatory dialogues – input from the community
about their needs ownership, sense of involvement,
transparency
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• In many projects, communication is not an activity
for supporting action; it is itself the action
• It could be even said that ultimately sustainable
development is all about communication
• Sustainable development is not about designing a
process; it is about sustaining a dialogue
• Investments in communication is not ‘support’
activity but the core of the programs
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