Mechanisms of sustainable leadership development: The role of scientific literacy, thinking skills, and green consumption awareness

In the context of global sustainability challenges, the development of leadership capable of making rational decisions and taking responsibility for systemic impacts has received increasing attention. Most research on sustainable leadership has emphasized leader attributes and values, yet it lacks mechanistic explanations of the cognitive processes that shape leadership behaviors within educational contexts. This article aims to develop and test a structural model explaining the pathway from Scientific Literacy to Sustainable Leadership Behaviors through Rational Thinking Skills, Critical Social Thinking Skills, and Green Consumption Awareness. This study employed a quantitative approach, collecting data from 444 business students who were about to graduate, and analyzed the data using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM). The findings indicate that Scientific Literacy serves as a critical foundation for the development of higher-order thinking skills, which influence Green Consumption Awareness and function as a linking mechanism toward sustainable leadership behaviors. In addition, the results suggest that critical thinking does not directly affect leadership behaviors unless it passes through a value transformation process. This research contributes to filling the mechanistic gap in explaining sustainable leadership and proposes an integrated approach that combines scientific knowledge, thinking skills, and sustainability values in developing future leaders.