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This paper examines existing concepts of the leadership development of high potential managers and aims to take a step further toward them understanding their leadership development within the context of the working environment and gain a more developed self‐awareness. Once armed with this greater sensitivity, the way they choose to use it is surprising. Specifically, several waves of carefully screened participants holding a full leadership portfolio and attending a specific and focused program – the Integrated Leadership Development Program (ILDP) – are studied. After leadership training, field experience and reflective journal keeping, the participants produced a wide range of qualitative feedback to be set alongside that of their peers and subordinates. The experiences of the 216 study participants and the leadership traits they revealed are reined in on the Leadership Discretion model to assess the similarities and differences between four defined categories of leader. The majority of participants reported benefit from an increased self‐awareness, particularly in terms of being more conscious of and thoughtful regarding their impact on others. A minority sported the tendency to covet and collect more control.

To examine the leadership requirements and challenges that need to be considered for future organizational sustainability.

The approach adopted focuses on the pool of talent available and required within the organization and how a philosophy of shared responsibility and commitment can be engendered on behalf of the organization.

A model is provided outlining how multiple conversations, namely a practice of polylogue, can be effectively pursued.

The benefits of polylogue are outlined in terms of future leader development and staff retention through accommodating a co‐operative working environment.

Pursuing multiple “fierce conversations”; through polylogue, but in a constructive manner, is positioned to effectively realize competitive advantage.

The purpose of this paper is to outline how CSR can be effectively implemented and driven through the organisation. The emphasis of the paper is not on CSR definition but on the skills and capabilities needed by individuals and organizations to fully implement CSR application.

As a qualitative study, interview, data feedback, and participant observation were the particular methodologies adopted.

Three stages of CSR implementation and, within those stages, ten leadership skills and capabilities are identified. The nature of their inter‐relationship and how that impacts on application, is discussed and explored. The ten skills and capabilities form a portfolio for individual leaders to consider and indeed develop in their management of CSR. These capabilities are called forth in three logical stages from those required for early decision making to those required for full enactment of CSR, forming a clear model. This model provides a road‐map for leaders to increase their consciousness and their effectiveness in the implementation of true rather than token CSR.

A limitation is the qualitative case‐based method. The learning arising from the study can be pursued and further tested through quantitative survey methods in order to provide for balanced, comparative analysis.

A road‐map to effective CSR application for leaders of organisations is offered. This road‐map can be used to guide current leaders and as a guide to developing future leaders.

Originality is high as no such model of CSR application exists. The value of the paper is to offer a research‐based practical guide to CSR implementation.

Despite the challenge of precisely defining the nature of temptation, this paper seeks to collect contrasting perspectives of this less attractive side of leadership and sets out to find a cure, or rather prevention, for falling into its grasp.

Following a literature review of the temptations to which leaders succumb, the results of focused and intimate case studies of highly respected leaders highlight just what they are tempted with and how and why they particularly may succumb to hedonism, power and posterity.

Extracts of interviews with an international sample of Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) and significant others reveal a distinctly human experience from which it is considered no‐one is exempt. Included in the sample were female top managers but no discernable difference between the genders could be ascertained. The idiosyncratic nature of response to temptation positioned each interviewees experience as unique. It is concluded that certain measures need to be implemented in order to control and reduce the darker human tendencies when exposed to certain conditions.

The paper offers suggestions on possible strategies that leaders can adopt to guard against temptation.