Personality Profile

Personality Profile

Leadership can be defined in many different ways, thus making it hard to clearly define. However, there are certain characteristics of a good leader. In his book Leadership in Organizations Gary Yukl writes "Leadership has been defined in terms of traits, behaviors, influence, interaction patterns, role relationships, and occupation of an administrative position" (Yuki, p. 2, 2013). Some off the qualities and traits of leadership are honesty, vision, competence, inspiration, and intelligence. Nike's Vice President of Sustainable Business & Innovation, Hannah Jones displays these traits and qualities.

Hannah Jones oversees Nike's global corporate responsibility efforts including responsible competitiveness, community investments, social innovation and considered product innovation (Politico, 2010). Handling these responsibilities require one to have sound leadership skills and a unique management style, which allows them to install a culture of sustainable practices. Good leadership traits met with effective management strategies helps to increase sustainability within an organization and/or field. Hannah Jones understands leadership and sustainability. Her profile is further proof of this fact.

Culture of Sustainability

Nike has focused its sustainable objectives on cutting energy, slashing water use, empowering workers, rejecting toxic waste, reducing waste, and supporting communities. Other targets include, unleashing innovation, sustainable products through design and materials, and sustainable manufacturing and sourcing. With Hannah Jones at the helm Nike has seen significant progress in these target areas, particularly in the area of empowering workers, where Jones has used a collaborative approach. In fact, in the 2011 fiscal year under Jones guidance the organization achieved its goal of promoting multi-brand collaboration to working conditions in the global supply chain, covering 30% of factory locations. In a 2011 interview with Sustainable Oregon Jones explains the importance of collaboration within the industry, "In order to accelerate the industry's progress to a sustainable future, it's imperative that the industry works together and collaborates in order to create lasting, scalable, systemic change. We cannot do this work alone, and so collaboration is key" ("Jones: Cooperation Is Key to Sustainability", 2013). It is this thinking that has led to innovations such as Nike's Materials Sustainability Index (MSI), a database index aimed at selecting materials that lowers environmental impact. It is also the reason why Hannah Jones one of the best in the business.

Management Style and Leadership Qualities

In an interview with Maya Albanese, Ms. Jones said that to be a successful leader you need to follow two rules:

1. You have to ultimately be consultants to the business and know how to influence it.

2. You must have a massive capacity for understanding systems change, the ability to be flexible and to understand how to effect change. And it is really about enabling others to make change.

As a leader, Hannah says it is not easy to bring massive changes in a company and at Nike there were some key points which have set it as a sustainable company today, which Hannah calls "embracing the counter intuitive". The first of the counter intuitive points was embracing 'transparency', not only in the positives but also in the challenges that were met. The second was to be 'accountable' for actions taken. Finally, one of her personal goals was to design the future. As an example, one of the biggest issues were that of factories using a very toxic chemical in the screen printing process and all workers needing a protective gear to avoid being affected by this chemical. Jones, through internal efforts and with some help from certain NGOs, introduced the use of a water based nontoxic solution for the screen printing process, thus eliminating the need to wear protective equipment. This proved as an example of doing things in a new way.

As a first step, key indicators that were responsible for changing