Abstract
Responsible leadership (RL) is a process of interaction with stakeholders integrating around a shared goal, taking place in the
company and outside and based on values and principles of ethics. In Poland, the concept of responsible leadership began to
appear only in times of political and economic transformation (after 1989), with the influx of foreign investment. In contrast to
countries with about 100 years of experience in the implementation of the concept of responsible leadership, its Polish history is
quite short. The purpose of this paper is to analyze how RL exists in a transitional country and region, and how RL contributes to
Human Resource Management (HRM). A qualitative and quantitative methodology was used to summarize the research among
entrepreneurs and businesses. Exploring the construct of social responsibility orientation among entrepreneurs, we show that
executives in these businesses hold different beliefs about their responsibilities toward different stakeholders, with concomitant
implications for their understanding and enactment of responsible leadership.