Leadership Role in Ensuring Corporate Social Responsibility

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Introduction
For years, Corporate Social Responsibility has always been associated with social terms that include corporate performance, ethics in business, accountability, stakeholder involvement, and corporate accountability. The issue of Corporate Social Responsibility has grown in many firms as a well-known and collective expression. The growth of Corporate Social Responsibility comes as a result of firms realising the amount of responsibility they have towards their employees, customers and other stakeholders. Corporate Social responsibility enables companies to integrate social and environmental issues in the way they carry out business and also how they interact with stakeholders on voluntary grounds (Kotler & Lee, 2004).
Main Purpose of the Article
This article investigates the foundations of corporate social responsibility and corporate social irresponsibility, by taking a look on how leaders play a big part in Corporate Social Responsibility activities. The articles also takes a look at how leaders can merge their skills with those required in the area of Corporate Social Responsibility in order to strengthen their abilities to be perform the task required of them (Christensen, Mackey, & Whetten, 2014).
Issues Discussed
Some of the corporate issues raised in the article evolve around diversity at workplace, treatment of employees by top management, environmental pollution, financial transparency, stakeholder interest in the way firms manage their organisation and their community (Christensen, Mackey, & Whetten, 2014). This is important because if these areas are not put in to consideration then the firm may not be able to sustain itself in the business and social world. Most of the issues that arise around Corporate Social Responsibility have to do with the kind of leadership that the firm enjoys.
The work of a leader is here has been discussed in three main categories: one are the theories about the individual as a leader, this will include his or her traits, personality and skills and the process that these skills play in the organisation. This is because individual differences will affect the application of Corporate Social Responsibility in the organisation. According to resource dependence theory (Christensen, Mackey, & Whetten, 2014), stakeholder theory and the agency theory, it is the tendency of CEOs to imprint firms with their personal values. These values eventually affect their decision making processes. During this time, leaders will also determine the length at which the leaders in the organisation will give priority to claims by competing stakeholders. This will eventually affect the social performance of the firm (Benn & Bolton, 2011).
In addition, an irresponsible leader will tend to have a darker side of personal traits. For example, a leader who is very dominant and short tempered will influence the relationship that the company will tend to form with the society. Decisions made by such a leader will always appear to be punitive of the company’s employee or one that is meant to hurt stakeholders of the company. These types of leaders may not even inspire followers to engage in corporate...