Leadership Development Practices Research Articles

Leadership Development in Graduate Medical Education: A Pilot Study of Implementation of a Validated Self-assessment Instrument.

Graduate medical education programs need leadership assessments and curricula to engage residents and advance their leadership skills. The Foundational Healthcare Leadership Self-assessment (FHLS) is a validated 21-item self-assessment of leadership skills residents need to be effective team leaders in health care settings. It generates a composite score along five foundational leadership domains: accountability, collaboration, communication, team management, and self-management. Our objective was to determine whether a leadership curriculum, using the FHLS as an educational tool to support self-assessment, self-directed learning, and reflective practice, promotes self-awareness and engagement in leadership development. We conducted a qualitative pilot study in the University of Utah Family Medicine Residency Program, integrating the FHLS into our residency's longitudinal leadership curriculum using coaching, self-directed learning, and reflective practice. Family medicine residents completed the FHLS prior to their leadership rotation. Faculty met with each resident during their rotation using a coaching paradigm based on data from the FHLS to inform leadership self-awareness. Residents identified a leadership domain for self-improvement, selected resources for self-study, and submitted a written reflection. We conducted qualitative content analysis on the reflections for evidence of self-awareness and engagement in leadership development. Residents completed 27 leadership rotations between May 2019 and April 2020, generating 21 reflections. Qualitative content analysis of resident reflections grouped by FHLS leadership domains identified evidence of impact on the residents' leadership development. This qualitative pilot study supports the usefulness of the FHLS within a residency leadership curriculum to promote self-awareness and engagement in leadership development.

Promising Practices for Leadership Development: Exploring a Collaborative Professional Learning and Coaching Program

<p>Given the substantial impact school leaders have on school improvement, the imperative for continuous professional learning for leaders is evident. In this two-year action research study, researchers collaborated with a school division, forming a research-practice partnership, to design and explore a collaborative professional learning and coaching program. The primary objective of this program was to align with local leadership standards and foster leadership development. The central research question was: How does implementation of a collaborative professional learning and coaching program contribute to leadership development? Data were collected from district and school leaders and included pre and post surveys, interviews, and focus groups. The findings of this study indicate that district leadership practices show promising potential in fostering inservice opportunities for leadership development. These practices include the following: (a) ensure programs are sustained with a consistent focus, (b) utilize collaborative learning approaches, (c) assess growth through reflection and feedback, and (d) use action research to support continual improvement. This study aims to provide valuable insights to school districts and researchers regarding the implementation of sustained and job-embedded professional development for school leaders, with a specific focus on leadership development.</p>

Leaders’ Experiences of Integrated Leadership Development in Higher Education

This article examines the perceptions of leaders of a public university in Ghana on how leader and leadership development perspectives are reflected in the institution’s leadership development (LD) practices. While there is an extensive body of literature on LD, further research is required on how leader and leadership development perspectives can be integrated. The study examined the applicability of the 70:20:10 model to leaders’ LD experiences and blended this model with Kolb’s experiential learning theory. A qualitative case study research approach was employed to explore the experiences of the institution’s leaders. Data were gathered using semi-structured interviews, document review and observation of a training session. The data were analysed using the thematic perspective of narrative analysis. The study found that the concepts in the 70:20:10 model, namely (1) on-the-job task performance (2) relationships in the workplace, and (3) training formed the basis of formal and informal sources of learning that propelled leaders in their development journeys. However, the university did not leverage these to consciously integrate the perspectives of leader and leadership development. It is thus recommended that LD should be consciously planned to ensure holistic learning from the three sources in the university setting.

Training future leaders: A qualitative study exploring leadership development in predoctoral dental curricula.

Commission on Dental Accreditation (CODA) accreditation standard 2-19 states predoctoral dental schools must assess students' ability to function successfully as the leader of the oral health care team. This study aimed to explore how dental schools incorporate leadership training into their curriculum to better understand the leadership skills students learn, the ways students engage in leadership training, and the opportunities students have to practice leadership skills with their peers. The aim of this 2022 qualitative phenomenology study was to use semi-structured interviews with academic Deans at CODA-accredited dental schools and one subject matter expert to uncover types of cognitive, behavioral, and environmental factors influencing leadership training through the lens of social cognitive theory. All interviews were recorded on Zoom, transcribed, de-identified, and analyzed for recurring themes using NVivo. Eight academic Deans and one subject matter expert participated in the study. Four major themes emerged from the data: leadership is essential for dental professionals, leadership is incorporated into the curricula in diverse ways, students most often engage in leadership training opportunities with dental peers and interprofessional opportunities could be expanded, and dental schools often face barriers to incorporating leadership training. Vertically integrated case presentations and team-based practice management simulations are meaningful leadership development activities. Prominent barriers include time constraints, lack of faculty champions with teaching leadership expertise, and prioritizing the development of hand skills. Standard practices for student leadership development and assessment do not appear to exist across dental school curricula. Findings support the need for a leadership development framework.

Workplace Leadership Development Practices: An Environmental Scan

Effective workplace leadership development programs are considered critical to organizational adaptive capacity and sustainability. The purpose of this exploratory study is to conduct an environmental scan of contemporary practices and approaches to leadership and management development programs in Australian workplaces. An online survey was distributed to a sample of Australian human resource professionals given the field’s strong practitioner orientation. The survey sample includes members of the Australian Human Resources Institute (AHRI), the professional body for human resource professionals and practitioners in Australia. The findings indicate a substantial majority of the current practice is not informed by evidence-based theory or practice. The most commonly used model is 70:20:10, which lacks a coherent evidence base and has been widely criticized for that reason. The findings point to the frequent application of bespoke leadership frameworks and significant theory–practice gaps. While organizations cite “ensuring delivery of business results”, as the main driver for instigating leadership development programs, with support from top management being crucial to the effectiveness and success of leadership development programs/interventions, evaluation and measurement of impact and return on investment remains problematic. Based on these insights, we present a future research agenda for monitoring and evaluating leadership development programs that will build a stronger theoretical foundation to inform evidence-based practice.

The Association between Lean-Agile Leadership, Nurses Connectivity and Sustainable Development Practices

The Association between Lean-Agile Leadership, Nurses Connectivity and Sustainable Development Practices

Theoretical Research into Leadership for Sustainability

Given the social and environmental challenges facing all organizations, there is a need for new leadership models, methods, and tools for implementing organizational change for sustainable development. Thus, throughout this article, it is reviewed the current approaches to leadership for sustainability in terms of their conceptual frameworks and extant research, which all advocate a balanced stakeholder approach to leadership to address the social and environmental issues related to sustainability and sustainable development. Being drawn from spiritual and centered on leadership theories, the article offers a Global Leadership for Sustainability model that incorporates and extends the conceptual domain beyond current approaches to leadership for sustainability. Spirituality, through the qualities of self-transcendence and interconnectedness, is critical for sustainability and fundamental for Global Leadership for Sustainability. The article also emphasizes the importance of cultivating a Global Mindset for Sustainability, which incorporates two ethical principles—an ethic of remote moral responsibility and an ethic of care and compassion. As a result, global leaders for sustainability become more committed to moving beyond satisfying stakeholders’ demands for economic returns, towards a more sustainable, triple-bottom line, balanced approach. Finally, we discuss implications for theory, research, and practice. Global leaders for sustainability are consequently more dedicated to adopting a triple-bottom-line, balanced approach that goes beyond meeting stakeholders' needs for financial gains. To change the paradigm of leadership and develop leaders who can cooperate to tackle difficult sustainability challenges, sustainability education is crucial. An up-to-date and broadened understanding of leadership is what ‘leadership for sustainability' means, putting sustainable values into practice, leading from a paradigm of living processes, and developing an inclusive, collaborative, and reflective leadership style. To make recommendations for best practices in leadership development, this study reviews and integrates literature on leadership, leadership development, and sustainability education. The following are some recommended pedagogical strategies for developing leaders: self-observation and awareness, contemplation, inquiry into various and ecological viewpoints, experiential learning, and community engagement.

Collective Sensemaking: Training the Leadership-as-Practice Development Trainer for Adult Leadership Learning

A gap often exists between adult leadership learning and development practice. This gap seems particularly pronounced when considering training through a collective, practice, and constructionist theoretical lens. Leadership developers need to address this gap in their teaching methods if they are to support learning capable of responding to Complex Adaptive System (CAS) challenges. Drawing from a case-in-point (CIP) train-the-trainer experience hosted by the Kansas Leadership Center (KLC) this study will help trainers understand how primary and keying frames can be used to analyze how facilitators train trainers to use collective sensemaking for adult leadership learning. The case-in-point leadership development method is capable of moving adult leadership learners to make more systemic interpretations of leadership challenges and collectively interrogate cultural assumptions and identity.

Design Principles for Sustainable Leadership Learning: A Complex Analysis of Learner Experiences

Many institutions of higher education claim to produce leaders and many assume that graduating from a university equates to someone naturally growing in their ability to lead. Developing leaders is considered a worthwhile endeavor in society today and developing a leadership identity is considered foundational to leadership development in college. While colleges and universities purport to develop leaders, little is known about how best to help students develop sustainable leadership learning. Utilizing design-based research, this study examined the learning experiences of college students in three different semesters of a personal leadership course through their reflections about course activities designed to help them develop their leadership identity. Using network maps from student reflections, we analyzed the complexity of learner experiences and developed a set of design principles anchored in the relationships between learning experiences concerning strengths, weaknesses, and theoretical foundations. The following design principles emerged from this study: framing for authentic learning, scaffolding for learner agency, social and collaborative learning, and multimodal engagement. By using these principles in designing leadership experiences, college leadership educators will be empowered to create opportunities that are sustainable and inclusive and that promote lifelong learning in regard to students’ authentic and personal leadership development practices.

Evaluation of the impact of leadership development on nurses and midwives underpinned by transformational learning theory: a corpus-informed analysis

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to evaluate the impact of leadership development programmes, underpinned by Transformational Learning Theory (TLT).Design/methodology/approachA corpus-informed analysis was conducted using survey data from 690 participants. Data were collected from participants’ responses to the question “please tell us about the impact of your overall experience”, which culminated in a combined corpus of 75,053 words.FindingsFindings identified patterns of language clustered around the following frequently used word types, namely, confidence; influence; self-awareness; insight; and impact.Research limitations/implicationsThis in-depth qualitative evaluation of participants’ feedback has provided insight into how TLT can be applied to develop future health-care leaders. The extent to which learning has had a transformational impact at the individual level, in relation to their perceived ability to influence, holds promise for the wider impact of this group in relation to policy, practice and the promotion of clinical excellence in the future. However, the latter can only be ascertained by undertaking further realist evaluation and longitudinal study to understand the mechanisms by which transformational learning occurs and is successfully translated to influence in practice.Originality/valuePrevious research has expounded traditional leadership theories to guide the practice of health-care leadership development. The paper goes some way to demonstrate the impact of using the principles of TLT within health-care leadership development programmes. The approach taken by The Florence Nightingale Foundation has the potential to generate confident leaders who may be instrumental in creating positive changes across various clinical environments.

An integrated systems model for understanding experiences of academic leadership development in Qatar

ABSTRACT While leadership development is acknowledged as essential for institutional growth in the higher education sector, it remains poorly understood and under researched both empirically and theoretically. Although knowledge in this area is growing in western contexts, there is little published data from the Arabic speaking world. This article addresses this gap by reporting on a Qatar National Research Fund (QNRF) funded research project which aimed to explore academic middle leaders’ experiences of leadership and leadership development in Qatar. Drawing on semi structured interviews with 17 academic middle leaders, an integrated systems model for understanding leadership development in Qatar is proposed, based on three inter-related systems: intrapersonal, relational, and institutional. This model has clear implications for future leadership development policy and practice, which it is argued needs to acknowledge the nuanced and complex leadership behaviours and interactions that are required to run academic departments successfully.

The Role of Developing Individual Leaders to Enhance Organizational Performance: The Human Capital Perspective

There is evidence showing the role of developing individual leaders to enhance organizational performance. However, both theoretical and practical works relating to components of leadership development practices and organization-level performance are required in the literature. To close this gap, a model analyzing the impact of two components of leadership development methods on the growth of human capital, which in turn improves organizational performance, was presented. The differentiation leadership development practice component is directed primarily at developing the intrapersonal knowledge, skills, and abilities of leaders, while the integration leadership development practices component helps develop leaders’ interpersonal knowledge, skills, and abilities. Primary data were collected using a structured questionnaire from a sample of 336 bank managers to test the proposed hypotheses. The collected data were analyzed using Structural Equation Modeling. The results of the data analysis revealed that the differentiation leadership development practice was positively correlated with human capital and that human capital may explain the correlation between this practice and organizational performance.

The Emerging Leaders in Public Health Initiative: Leadership Development to Advance Public Health Practice.

Effective leadership is essential for governmental public health agencies to promote and protect the health of their communities. The Emerging Leaders in Public Health Initiative, a program of The Kresge Foundation, was implemented to strengthen leadership in governmental public health. We seek to examine lessons from the initiative to contribute to the field a better understanding of leadership development practices. An external evaluator conducted a retrospective analysis of participant responses postinitiative to assess the overall impact of the initiative and explore which components were most valuable. United States. Directors and other staff from governmental public health agencies were recruited in 2-person teams to participate in 3 successive cohorts. Drawn from adaptive leadership principles, a framework was developed to guide the selection and implementation of educational and experiential activities. Participants were challenged to develop a new role for their public health agency, which provided a learning laboratory to practice individual and team leadership skills. The Kresge Foundation provided participants with a resource grant and a National Program Office offered convenings, webinars, coaching, and technical assistance over the 18 months of the developmental experience. Satisfaction, perceived value of components, and future intentions were assessed from participants in cohorts II and III (n = 70). The overall response rate was 93%. One hundred four diverse leaders from 52 agencies, representing 30 states participated in the initiative. Participants were extremely satisfied with the program (94%) and indicated a strong likelihood of recommending it to a colleague (96%). Unrestricted grant funding, peer learning, and in-person learning sessions were the program components rated most highly valuable. This initiative offers insights into principles and processes to be considered for future public health leadership development.

Community college discourses of sustainability in an academic and professional corpus

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to identify discourses of sustainability of community colleges and how they related to sustainability imaginaries.Design/methodology/approachThis study used a combination of research strategies associated with corpus linguistics and critical discourse analysis. Data included 57 issues of Community College Journal, a professional magazine published by the American Association of Community Colleges, and 2,972 abstracts of dissertations about community colleges. Publication dates ranged from 2010 to 2020.FindingsCommunity college discourse of sustainability coheres around six themes: careers and fields of study; curriculum and credentialing; campus ecological sustainability; administrative roles and processes; external organizations, partnerships and processes; and fiscal sustainability. There is little evidence of a sustainable living imaginary found.Research limitations/implicationsThe analysis is limited to a specific set of professional and academic texts about community colleges. Future researchers should explore discourses of sustainability in other contexts.Originality/valueThere has been no research associated with critical discourse analysis and corpus linguistics to explore community college discourses of sustainability, specifically in the field of community college leadership. The findings of this study situate the community college within contests over sustainability competencies in the practice of community college leadership development.

Leadership development perspective of adult learning philosophies

In view of the impact of philosophies ofn adult learning on leadership development practices, this article evaluates the humanistic philosophy of adult learning as tacit philosophy of a leadership development program.This research contributes to the discourse on leadership development by introducing adult learning philosophies as multidisciplinary insights in leadership development. It also explores the leadership development utility of the humanistic philosophy of adult learning by synthesizing its taxonomy from the work of Abraham Maslow, Carl Rogers, and Malcolm Knowles. This taxonomy classifies the philosophy in motivational drivers, learning-fostering vs. learning discouraging forces, pro-learning attributes (e.g., developing knowledge of the actual and ideal self), pro-learning conditions (e.g., self-directed learning), experiential learning and output evaluation. The taxonomy is used to evaluate the leadership development utility of the humanistic philosophy of adult learning by: (a) Evaluating the literature on empirical support for this philosophy; (b) Comparing its scope against that of a leadership development program; and (c) Evaluating its potential as a remedy for the failure of leadership development programs. Finally, the summary discusses the theoretical and practical implications of the evaluations. It proposes complementary streams of future research to deepen the evaluation of the humanistic philosophy of adult learning and to evaluate the leadership development utility of other philosophies of adult learning.

Context-Considered Leadership Development: Quasi-Experiment in a Russian Mining Company

Scholars argued that leadership development approaches should be deeply contextualized and explain how to develop leadership. This article aimed to answer a research question: how to develop leadership in the context of a Russian mining organization. For that purpose, a quasi-experiment using a pre-and post-intervention was conducted in a Russian mining organization by an immersed researcher. Multiple levels of management were involved. Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire was used as a major measurement tool for leadership styles and effectiveness that had objective criteria. The results indicate that the leadership development was driven by the executives and mirrored by middle managers and supervisors. A cascade of frequency of utilization of leadership styles was observed, which led to an increase in effectiveness. Generally, the intervention caused statistically significant changes with low-to-large effect sizes. To the best of the author’s knowledge, no similar studies were conducted with the reported level of contextualization and details, allowing us to expand the body of knowledge and provide guidance for the practice of leadership development. The study limitations include the following: research was conducted in a real-life context and could be difficult to repeat. The author acted as an associate of the managers, and effectiveness measures transactional outcomes.

Instructional Leadership Development Practices in Ethiopia: Curriculum Development and Implementation Practices, and Career Development Frameworks

The purpose of this study is twofold: to examine the curriculum structure for instructional leaders’ training and development against the desired competences; and to evaluate the career development framework of instructional leaders. With these ends in view, the study examined the instructional leadership framework, the curriculum document, and the instructional leaders’ recruitment, selection and retention strategies. Unstructured interviews were made with purposely selected thirty-one (31) interviewees until information saturates. Hence, the perspectives of instructional leadership trainers, instructional leaders, zone education department heads, and national level education experts who were selected using a purposive sampling technique were explored through one-on-one interviews. The data analysis and presentation was made based on the major themes identified as purposes of the study. In the light of these, the qualitative data analysis discloses the absence of national instructional leadership framework from which instructional leadership curriculum should have emerged. It was also understood that the loosened curriculum development culture ultimately resulted in the curriculum’s lack of relevance to the desired competences for instructional leadership development. It was further learnt that there existed an absence of context specific recruitment, selection and retention strategies for instructional leaders. It is, therefore, concluded that the instructional leadership development practices of Ethiopia, seemed to have been deviating from expectations. Hence, it is recommended that there is a need to design a national instructional leadership development framework based on which the instructional leadership curriculum development and implementation practices could be managed. The recruitment, selection, and retention strategies should also involve incentive packages that could attract competent candidates to the profession. It is further recommended that there is a need to promote positive mindset exercises for instructional leaders to take their own professional development initiatives.

Mindfulness–based positive transformative leadership development for health organisations

PurposePositive transformative leadership development practices in health care are perhaps the most important pathway that, collectively, can be pursued while heading towards a post-corona virus disease 2019 world, and race towards 2030. As a practitioner paper, based on front line and leadership experience, this study aims to argue that we need transformational leaders who will go beyond knowing to practice and implementation. While the findings from research is presented from different organisations and companies, they all have something in common – people. Hence, important lessons can be extrapolated to health-related organisations in the future.Design/methodology/approachThe approach is based on practical research findings based on the literature. The approach uses real practical examples from companies and organisations to demonstrate the need for a new, radical way forward.FindingsThe findings from the literature clearly indicate that mindfulness-based transformative leadership development program is a worthwhile investment for decision-makers and organisations. A new transformative leader for the future of health care needs to be developed with care with investment in that development.Research limitations/implicationsImplications of this paper show that health-care organisations need to begin this journey. There is a paucity in the literature to demonstrate the implementation of mindfulness-based transformative leadership development programs.Practical implicationsOrganisations of the future face even greater challenges brought about by intelligent technology, new pandemics and even tighter government regulation. The time to prepare for such eventualities is now. This is not a choice but an imperative for organisations to know what to do rather than react with regret.Originality/valueThere is a paucity in the health-care literature that tracks, measures, and reports on the long-term results of a mindfulness-based transformative leadership development program. This needs to be addressed, and health care should be a leader in the field of mindfulness and transformative leadership of the future.

Authorising managers in management development?

This article explores the relationship between management and leadership development and leadership practice. Critical studies of management and leadership development programmes have mainly focused on such programmes as spaces for identity work and/or identity regulation. This article extends the literature by investigating the notion of organisation, the organisational view, in a large management and leadership development programme and how it works as a source of authority for the participating managers. Our inquiry is based on ethnographic studies of both an in-house management and leadership development programme in a large Danish public organisation and of the managerial practice of six participating managers. Drawing on a communicative constitution of organisations perspective, we analyse how the management and leadership development programme (re)produces a unitarist organisational text, an organisational view that assumes the members of the organisation have the same goals and perspectives. We further analyse how this organisational text shapes the authority relationships that managers engage in in their leadership practice. The article demonstrates how the unitarist organisational text fails in authorising participating managers as it clashes with the plurality of perspectives and interests in the organisation and is not recognised as a source of authority by employees and collaborators.

Developing players for athlete leadership groups in professional football teams: Qualitative insights from head coaches and athlete leaders.

Athlete leadership groups (ALGs) are a widely used yet under researched approach to leadership in professional sports teams. Athlete Leadership Groups (ALGs) represent a shared athlete leadership model whereby a small group of players are selected as athlete leaders and appointed to a formal ‘leadership group’ (i.e., an ALG) that shares team leadership responsibilities with the coach. Although athlete leadership has been linked to improved team outcomes, inadequately trained athlete leaders can have a detrimental effect on team functioning and performance. The aim of this study was to provide coach and athlete leader’s perceptions of the development opportunities that have been afforded to players to prepare them for their role in an ALG. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 16 head coaches and 14 players from leadership groups drawn from 17 teams across four professional football leagues (i.e., Super Rugby, National Rugby League, A League and Australian Football League) in Australia and New Zealand. Results illustrate that athlete leaders benefit from developing enhanced understanding of leadership as a multidimensional relational process, recognising various leadership styles, preferences, and how to leverage their influence with teammates. However, it is evident this theoretical knowledge alone is insufficient to equip players for a professional team ALG role. Players need opportunities to practice their developing leadership skills in authentic and appropriately challenging situations with support and facilitation. Findings point to the importance of systematic, individually tailored leadership development that includes scaffolded, structured experiential learning and meaningful interactions with other successful high-performance leaders. Further, this study reinforces the value of guided reflective practice in leadership development and how this process can enhance learning and transfer from leadership development initiatives. Finally, this study adds weight to calls from other researchers for coaches to be consistently intentional in employing leadership development strategies.