Sustainable Leadership: Why Inner Work Matters for a Sustainable Tomorrow
By Dragan Šimičević
In the age of climate crises, social inequality, and economic instability, the call for sustainability is louder than ever. But while much of the discourse focuses on technology, policies, and green business models, there is one dimension often overlooked: the inner world of those who lead.
From a psychoanalytic perspective, sustainable leadership is not only about long-term strategies and ecological KPIs. It’s about emotional maturity, unconscious dynamics, and the ability to hold complexity without collapse.
What Is Sustainable Leadership, Really?
Sustainable leadership means more than just maintaining organizational success over time. It involves:
Considering the impact on people, planet, and future generations
Building inclusive cultures that allow diverse voices to be heard
Making decisions with ethical responsibility, even when profit is at stake
But what allows a leader to live up to these ideals?
The Inner Architecture of a Leader
Psychoanalysis reminds us that our actions are rarely purely rational. They are shaped by early experiences, internalized figures of authority, unconscious fears, and defense mechanisms. A leader who strives for sustainability must therefore be someone who can tolerate uncertainty, work through ambivalence, and remain emotionally attuned—not only to others but to themselves.
In psychoanalytic terms, sustainable leadership requires:
Ego strength: the capacity to withstand pressure without resorting to splitting or denial
Reflective functioning: the ability to mentalize and understand the emotions behind behavior
Containment: the skill of holding the anxiety of a team or system without passing it on
Leadership as Holding Environment
Winnicott spoke of the “holding environment” as a space that enables psychological growth. Leaders, in this view, become containers—not controllers. They provide the emotional climate where trust, transformation, and innovation can emerge. Sustainable leadership means cultivating safe enough spaces where conflict, doubt, and dialogue can happen.
This is especially crucial in times of change or crisis. Without containment, organizations become reactive, short-sighted, or even destructive. With it, they can evolve.
Working Through – Not Burning Out
A sustainable leader is also one who has learned to self-regulate, to work through their own burnout tendencies and omnipotent fantasies. In other words, they have met their limits and made peace with them. They lead with humility, not hubris.
This doesn’t mean less ambition—it means a different kind: one that is relational, durable, and anchored in reality.
Leadership and the Collective Unconscious
Leadership doesn’t occur in a vacuum. Leaders are vessels of collective hopes, fears, and projections. From a psychoanalytic point of view, every leader is also a carrier of unconscious societal dynamics. Understanding these transference relationships helps leaders navigate the symbolic dimensions of their role—without becoming trapped in them.
By acknowledging the unconscious forces at play, leaders can become more aware of what they are enacting—and what is being enacted upon them.
A Call for Inner Sustainability
As we seek to make our systems more sustainable, we must not forget the inner work that true leadership demands. Psychoanalysis offers tools not just for understanding the self, but for transforming the way we relate to others, to power, and to the future.
Sustainable leadership is not a checklist. It is a continuous, reflective practice—a commitment to staying awake.
About the Author
Dragan Šimičević is an organizational psychologist, supervisor, and topic ambassador for “Psychoanalysis Meets Culture.” He works at the intersection of leadership, sustainability, and inner development—helping teams and leaders navigate change with depth, care, and clarity.