Abstract
The rise of sustainable development as a field of applied research has been observed across
a wide range of disciplines. Successful change towards sustainability in organizations and societies
requires leadership to provide a vision, set direction, and motivate people to move towards new goals.
Thus, sustainable leadership is emerging as a new domain of study within the field of management.
This review of research employed science mapping tools to examine 952 Scopus-indexed documents
explicitly concerned with sustainable leadership. The goals of the review were to document the
size, growth trajectory, and geographic distribution of this literature, identify key journals, authors,
and documents, analyze the intellectual structure of this knowledge base, and highlight emerging
topics. The review documented a modest-sized knowledge base of recent vintage, concentrated
in Western developed societies but global in scope. Six Schools of Thought were identified within
this knowledge base, one of which—Sustainable Leadership—was singled out for attention. As the
first bibliometric review of research on sustainable leadership, this review provides a reference for
scholars entering this domain, as well as guidance with respect to high value frameworks, foci for
future research, and practical implications.