If it'll take leadership, it will take the development of the right sort of leader. LEAD (Leadership for Environment and Development International) has become a pioneer in developing leaders for sustainability in the government, NGO and corporate sectors. Among LEAD's capacity-building services is their 18-month international training programme in Leadership for Sustainable Development. Alumni of the programme form a network, and according to LEAD's Mark Smith, "there are some 1200 LEAD Fellows in 70 countries. They belong to the worlds of academia, business, governments, media and NGOs."

Speaking at the Delhi Sustainable Development Summit in February, LEAD's Julia Marton-Lefèvre addressed the issue of leadership and governance in government, multinationals and intergovernmental organisations. In her speech, she observed that "It is not difficult to find examples of flawed governance in our countries and in our professions. It is more difficult to find examples of governance that works for sustainable development."

She went on to describe the sort of leader it will take to address this. "Sustainable development needs better institutions. Institutions however, are made up of individuals. We need individuals who can think big; who are committed, hardworking, who behave in an ethical way, are willing to share, and who are never afraid to learn from others." 7

In March, LEAD were in the news for launching a programme in partnership with Globalegacy. Globalegacy runs development projects in deprived areas, as they say, "mobilizing alliances of the world's most influential institutions to invest money, people and ideas, collectively over a ten-year period in these communities to create sustainable social and economic benefits." 8

They suggest it has benefits for all concerned. On the one hand, corporates put their people into the programme, as part of their leadership development. A young manager goes through "a 3-to-12 month leadership experience - known as the 'Externship' - working full-time to help community entrepreneurs build new local businesses that are economically, socially and environmentally sustainable." 9 LEAD provides their leadership training to the participants. On the other hand, Globalegacy, and the communities they serve, are intended to benefit from the people and their skills.

This wasn't the only example of leadership development being tied to community activity. More corporates appeared to be learning the benefits of this sort of leadership development, both for their overall quality of future leadership, and the shift of their organisational cultures to a more citizenship-friendly mindset. Shell's "Project Better World" 10 and PwC's "Ulysses" 11 combine the traditionally-separate areas of employee community involvement and corporate leadership development, and others are following.