Abstract
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) has become increasingly vital to organisations, with leaders playing a crucial role in shaping CSR practices. This study delves into the relationship between CSR and leadership styles, focusing on the South African context. This research endeavours to understand how different leadership styles influence an organisation’s CSR initiatives. The Circumplex Leadership Scan (CLS) was used to measure eight various leadership styles. CSR was measured using the Turker CSR scale. The findings reveal that there is a relationship between these two constructs. Particularly, a pattern emerged through criterion pattern analysis, highlighting that high participative leadership and low authoritarian leadership were predictive of CSR engagement. To add to this, the correlations between the CLS and other leadership models were discussed. Specifically, participative leadership was positively correlated with transformational, servant, and human-oriented leadership. This study offers valuable initial insights for both theory and practice. It encourages researchers and practitioners to focus on the optimal configuration of leadership styles to predict CSR outcomes. However, the study’s limitations, including a relatively small sample size and reliance on a single CSR scale, suggest avenues for future research. This research provides evidence of a relationship between CSR and leadership styles in the South African context, emphasising the crucial role of leaders in promoting socially responsible practices within organisations.