Leadership Development Process Research Articles

Enabling relational leadership in primary healthcare settings: lessons from the DIALHS collaboration.

Strong management and leadership competencies have been identified as critical in enhancing health system performance. While the need for strong health system leadership has been raised, an important undertaking for health policy and systems researchers is to generate lessons about how to support leadership development (LD), particularly within the crisis-prone, resource poor contexts that are characteristic of Low- and Middle-Income health systems. As part of the broader DIALHS (District Innovation and Action Learning for Health Systems Development) collaboration, this article reflects on 5 years of action learning and engagement around leadership and LD within primary healthcare (PHC) services. Working in one sub-district in Cape Town, we co-created LD processes with managers from nine PHC facilities and with the six members of the sub-district management team. Within this article, we seek to provide insights into how leadership is currently practiced and to highlight lessons about whether and how our approach to LD enabled a strengthening of leadership within this setting. Findings suggest that the sub-district is located within a hierarchical governance context, with performance monitored through the use of multiple accountability mechanisms including standard operating procedures, facility audits and target setting processes. This context presents an important constraint to the development of a more distributed, relational leadership. While our data suggest that gains in leadership were emerging, our experience is of a system struggling to shift from a hierarchical to a more relational understanding of how to enable improvements in performance, and to implement these changes in practice.

Senior leaders’ strategic role in leadership development

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to identify the specific practices senior leaders need to engage in to best support their organization’s leadership development initiatives. All organizations invest billions of dollars around the world in leadership development, but there is surprisingly little attention given to the important role that senior leaders play in supporting these efforts. This paper draws upon focus group research with those responsible for designing and implementing leadership development initiatives to identify the strategic role senior leaders play in formal leadership development efforts.Design/methodology/approachTo explore this issue, we conducted structured focus groups with over 250 executives, HR leaders and talent managers from over 30 different global organizations. Participants were responsible for leadership development in their respective organizations, averaged 44 years of age, 18 years of work experience, and were 54 per cent men and 46 per cent women. These focus groups were being used to solicit the input of those responsible for leadership development to identify the specific things senior leaders need to do to best support these leadership development efforts. The participants were asked to answer the following question, “Based on your experience, what specific things do senior leaders in your organization need to do to best support your efforts at developing high performance and strong leadership talent?”FindingsFocus groups identified a series of key senior leader behaviors that are necessary to support an organization’s leadership development efforts. These findings, included the importance of senior leadership commitment to the process, the identification of specific leadership behaviors necessary to support these initiatives, the requirement of clearly understanding the organizations leadership development process, providing appropriate financial, staffing and technology resources to support these efforts, creating a climate of continuous learning and role modeling appropriate behaviors, among other findings.Research limitations/implicationsWhile the focus groups in this research and the subsequent qualitative and quantitative analysis of the findings were rigorous, the participants were not a randomly selected group and were by definition a convenience sample. At the same time, the implications of this research are significant on this important subject and provide a solid baseline for both practitioners and researchers alike to help explore, identify and build on best practices for senior leaders to support organizational leadership development initiatives.Practical implicationsLeadership is the key to success in any organization. To maintain that success, leadership development and continuous learning is imperative. This paper provides ten specific practices based on the focus group research that can help senior leaders create a more supportive environment for effective leadership development initiatives. The methodology used to identify these factors can be duplicated in other organizations to help them build an appropriate model for senior leader support for leadership development in their enterprise.Social implicationsThe social implications for improving any organizations’ leadership is significant. It is known that effective leaders foster innovation, improve teamwork, create a more positive workplace, drive continuous improvement in quality, reduce turnover and improve the financial performance of most enterprises. With this backdrop, organizations can and must do everything in their power to accelerate leadership development and to engage in activities that do so. This paper will help pinpoint leaders and leadership development researchers and experts in that direction.Originality/valueThis manuscript offers a unique perspective on the role of senior leaders from the perspective of those who design leadership development programming in their organizations. And given both the readership and focus of this journal, this is an important perspective which takes into account the operational demands of leadership development in the strategic role senior leaders play in supporting these efforts.

Scott Family Enterprises: Building the Path to Effective Governance

As founders of First Interstate BancSystem, which held $8.6 billion in assets and had recently become a public company, and Padlock Ranch, which had over 11,000 head of cattle, the Scott family had to think carefully about business and family governance. Now entering its fifth generation, the family had over 80 shareholders across the US. In early 2016, the nine-member Scott Family Council (FC) and other family and business leaders considered the effectiveness of the Family Governance Leadership Development Initiative launched two years earlier. The initiative's aim was to ensure a pipeline of capable family leaders for the business boards, two foundation boards, and FC. Seven family members had self-nominated for governance roles in mid-2015. As part of the development initiative, each was undergoing a leadership development process that included rigorous assessment and creation of a comprehensive development plan. As the nominees made their way through the process and other family members considered nominating themselves for future development, questions remained around several interrelated areas, including how to foster family engagement with governance roles while guarding against damaging competition among members; how to manage possible conflicts of interest around dual employee and governance roles; and how to extend the development process to governance for the foundations and FC. The FC considered how best to answer these and other questions, and whether the answers indicated the need to modify the fledgling initiative. This case illustrates the challenges multigenerational family-owned enterprises face in developing governance leaders within the family. It serves as a good example of governance for a large group of cousins within a multienterprise portfolio. Students can learn and apply insights from this valuable illustration of family values, vision, and mission statement.

Past Experiences, Present Beliefs, Future Practices: Using Narratives to Re(present) Leadership Educator Identity

In an effort to better understand leadership educator preparation, this qualitative study explores leadership educators’ identity constructions, or (re)presentations of experiences, beliefs, and practices that contribute to one’s professional identity. We used three narrative approaches (storytelling, symbolic interactionism, and anticipatory reflection) to capture short stories of leadership educators’ lived experiences and life perspectives. Analysis of these narratives illustrate the kinds of past experiences that led to shifts in thinking or practice. Leadership education was seen as a process of leadership development, with teachers and students both exercising leadership. And participants’ reflection on their intentions for future practice emphasize learning that is both personal (relational) and procedural (developing knowledge and skills). Findings offer insight into recommendations for intentional professional development experiences and future research.

Experience-centric leadership development process: challenges and way forward for organisations in India

Various academic scholars from leadership development discipline have found that experience-centric approach, compared to formal education and training-based approach is more effective for grooming organisational leaders. The world of academe offers plenty of insights on experience-centric leadership development process. In spite of such rich insights, business organisations have stuck to formal training and education-based approach for grooming leaders. This paper has briefly discussed key findings of 'Lessons of Experience, India' (LOEI) study, which offers insights on how leaders in India learn to lead. The author in this paper has proffered a few suggestions to organisations that might help organisations to effectively deal with the challenges an organisation may encounter, while leveraging on the job assignments for leadership development. He has also proposed a few pointers for creating a learning ecosystem that synergistically blends both education and training-based formal and experience-centric informal approaches to groom effective organisational leaders.

Experience-centric leadership development process: challenges and way forward for organisations in India

Various academic scholars from leadership development discipline have found that experience-centric approach, compared to formal education and training-based approach is more effective for grooming organisational leaders. The world of academe offers plenty of insights on experience-centric leadership development process. In spite of such rich insights, business organisations have stuck to formal training and education-based approach for grooming leaders. This paper has briefly discussed key findings of 'Lessons of Experience, India' (LOEI) study, which offers insights on how leaders in India learn to lead. The author in this paper has proffered a few suggestions to organisations that might help organisations to effectively deal with the challenges an organisation may encounter, while leveraging on the job assignments for leadership development. He has also proposed a few pointers for creating a learning ecosystem that synergistically blends both education and training-based formal and experience-centric informal approaches to groom effective organisational leaders.

Public relations leadership development cycle: A cross-cultural perspective

This exploratory research study is the first known attempt to understand the process and various stages of leadership development in public relations specialists. Using purposive in-depth interviews with PR practitioners and students from five countries (Brazil, China, India, Russia and the U.S.), this study gathered qualitative data about the seven public relations leadership dimensions (Berger & Meng, 2014) to glean insights as to when these dimensions appear/are learned and how they are manifested. This study indicates that having strong technical skills (the communication knowledge and expertise dimension) is viewed as the main prerequisite to develop into a PR leader. Other personal leadership dimensions found to be learned early in life and developed more fully over time include: self-dynamics (first learned through family/peer interactions and through those of school/organizations/groups), ethical orientation (first learned from family/religious values), team collaboration (first learned through family, sports, church and school projects), relationship-building (first learned through interactions with peers, teachers, family members, coaches). Strategic decision making capabilities seem to develop later in one’s professional growth, after one has both technical skill and professional experience upon which to draw.

The opaque gendered lens – barriers to recruitment and career development

PurposeThis paper aims to reveal gendered leadership constructs that hinder a competency-based view of leadership in Swedish-based global companies and the implications for leadership recruitment and development to top management positions.Design/methodology/approachThe paper is based on qualitative semi-structured interviews, which have been analyzed using a gender analytic framework to identify how senior management, Human resource management and leadership trainees are discussing leadership and career development.FindingsThree themes were identified as clouding the issue of gender-equal leadership practices thereby creating an opaque gendered lens of who is defined as eligible for leadership positions. The three themes were: symbols as gendered images, counting heads – preserving the existing system and illusive gender inclusion.Research limitations/implicationsRecruitment practices were identified as contributors to homosocial practices that perpetuate male-dominated leadership representation. However, specific recruitment practices were not fully explored.Practical implicationsThe potential use of gender equality as a sustainable management practice for competitive organizations to recruit and develop talented people.Social implicationsTo create resilient and gender-equal recruitment and leadership development practices.Originality/valueThis research offers an original perspective on gender representation at the senior management level in global companies by revealing gendered leadership constructs in the leadership recruitment and development process as antecedents to unequal gender representation in senior management positions.

Development of teacher leadership identity: A multiple case study

This study investigated the processes and pathways of leadership development of teachers in different career stages as they participated in a professional development program. A multiple case study approach with conceptual frameworks of teacher leadership practice and identity was used. The leadership development process across all three teachers involved an alignment and synergy among their leadership views, leadership practices, and identity; however, the particular pathways of leadership development were unique for each teacher depending upon their personal priorities, school context and prior life experiences. This study contributes to the literature by documenting 'how' teachers develop as teacher leaders.

Use of Personality Profile Assessments in the U.S. Commercial Construction Industry

ABSTRACTEmployee turnover is a continuing challenge in the construction industry with negative effects on construction companies. Other industries have begun using personality profile assessments as a tool for reducing employee turnover, and more specifically in their hiring, promoting, team building, and leadership development processes. However, it was unknown if this trend was effecting the construction industry. The purpose of this research was to determine if and how U.S. commercial construction companies utilize personality profiles in their employee retention processes. A survey was randomly sent to 235 of the top 400 commercial construction companies in the United States to determine if these companies were using assessments, and if it had any effect on the turnover within these companies. Interviews were conducted over the phone with human resources representatives from these companies, and responses were sorted into similar themes and ideas using qualitative pattern coding techniques. Of the 78 responding companies, one-third were using employee personality profiles within their business practices. This article reports the experiences and general attitudes for both the companies that do and do not utilize personality profiles. The results of this research provides strong evidence that using personality profile assessments can help construction companies reduce employee turnover.

Strategic leadership development: simplified with Bloom’s taxonomy

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to suggest and state that an individual or company who aims to follow through the strategic leadership improvement pathway will find Bloom’s taxonomy useful practically when it comes to self-evaluation and simplification.Design/methodology/approachThe global leadership survey statistics and findings are stated to define why global leadership is important and needed. In addition, there is an emphasis on the global confluence of markets, economy and technology, and how in the upcoming decades individuals would be required to build the skills stated in Bloom’s taxonomy in order to sustain and enhance their employment value. A strategic leadership development toolkit is used. Then Bloom’s taxonomy is infused with it, hence providing a practical implementation of how taxonomy simplifies the strategic leadership development process in organizations.FindingsStatistics and facts of global leadership and technological surveys and studies are highlighted to emphasize the significance of strategic leadership. The required abilities needed in strategic leadership are linked to the six levels of thinking in Bloom’s taxonomy, thus implying that it can be used in the strategic leadership development process.Originality/valueIt is suggested that Bloom’s taxonomy should not only be used for educational purposes but can aid leaders in their quest to develop strategic leadership abilities and simplify the process to start and sustain their organization’s prosperity.

A case study exploring field-level risk assessments as a leading safety indicator.

Health and safety indicators help mine sites predict the likelihood of an event, advance initiatives to control risks, and track progress. Although useful to encourage individuals within the mining companies to work together to identify such indicators, executing risk assessments comes with challenges. Specifically, varying or inaccurate perceptions of risk, in addition to trust and buy-in of a risk management system, contribute to inconsistent levels of participation in risk programs. This paper focuses on one trona mine's experience in the development and implementation of a field-level risk assessment program to help its organization understand and manage risk to an acceptable level. Through a transformational process of ongoing leadership development, support and communication, Solvay Green River fostered a culture grounded in risk assessment, safety interactions and hazard correction. The application of consistent risk assessment tools was critical to create a participatory workforce that not only talks about safety but actively identifies factors that contribute to hazards and potential incidents. In this paper, reflecting on the mine's previous process of risk-assessment implementation provides examples of likely barriers that sites may encounter when trying to document and manage risks, as well as a variety of mini case examples that showcase how the organization worked through these barriers to facilitate the identification of leading indicators to ultimately reduce incidents.

Building a Physician Culture for Healthcare Transformation: A Hospitalʼs Leadership Challenge

Engaging and integrating physicians has become the veritable "brass ring" for many hospital systems: many attempts and few actual wins. This is especially true in California's managed care environment and for public entities such as Palomar Health in Escondido, California. Our commitment to engage and integrate physicians continues to be a vital element of a larger cultural shift toward delivery of care that puts the patients' needs first. A key determinant of success has been the ability to align a diverse medical staff culture with administrative priorities. This alignment involves a carefully executed strategy and a structure to build a collective identity among diverse players. Palomar Health is in the third year of the journey. Some of the critical milestones have been the implementation of a physician leadership development process, creation of a physician onboarding process to codify the desired physician culture, delineation of roles and expectations for physician leadership, and formalization of dyad and triad partnerships between physicians and their clinical and administrative partners.

Leadership Development: An Outcome-Oriented Review Based on Time and Levels of Analyses

Contemporary organizations face critical challenges associated with possessing and leveraging leadership capabilities. Researchers studying leadership development have responded to this practical imperative, although research on the topic is still in the early stages of scientific development. In assessing the state of the science in leadership development, we review an array of theoretical and research approaches with the goal of stimulating thoughtful intellectual discourse regarding fundamental questions, such as, what is leadership, and what is development. We highlight the breadth of this phenomenon by reviewing theory and research that has considered the development of leadership in individuals, dyads, and teams/organizations. Additionally, we describe a set of proximal and distal signs that indicate leadership may be developing, and we promote experiences, interventions, and interactions as factors that enhance the leadership development process.

Defying Displacement: Organizing for a Beautiful Life in Flagstaff, Arizona

This article is a reflection on practice from anthropologists and community organizers working together to affect policy change related to health. In particular, we describe a successful organizing effort to oppose the displacement of low-income residents of a mobile home park. We argue that this victory was in part because of the approach of key members of the organizing coalition, who viewed the work of policy change as a process of leadership development and community collaboration rather than top-down advocacy. Here, we show the ways that an anthropological approach to policy change was built into the work of the coalition, intersecting with community organizing theories and methods. This has led to political change and an ongoing process of coalition-building and leadership development that has the potential to change public discussion and decision making on health-related issues for years to come.

Bridge to shared governance: developing leadership of frontline nurses.

Transforming health care systems to improve quality is the responsibility of nurse executives and frontline nurses alike, yet frontline nurses are often ill-prepared to share leadership and accountability needed for transformation. The aim of this qualitative study was to describe the process used to build leadership capacity of frontline nurses engaged in resolving operational failures interrupting nursing care. The leadership development process served to bridge staff transition to shared governance. This institutional review board-approved qualitative research was designed to identify the effects of mentoring by the chief nursing officer and faculty partners on leadership development of frontline nurses working to find solutions to operational failures. Twelve nurses from 4 medical surgical units participated in a Frontline Innovations' nurse-led interdisciplinary group, which met over 18 months. Transcriptions of audiotaped meetings were analyzed for emerging process and outcome themes. The transcripts revealed a robust leadership development journey of frontline nurses engaged in process improvement. Themes that emerged from the mentoring process included engagement, collaboration, empowerment, confidence, and lifelong learning. The mentoring process provided frontline nurses the leadership foundation necessary to initiate shared governance.

Seeing What They Want to See: Racism and Leadership Development in Urban Schools

This critical race theory (CRT)-framed qualitative study (n = 9) examined racism within a context of urban teacher leadership development. A series of semi-structured interviews were conducted with three White principals, who each identified one White and one African American teacher as “most promising” leadership potential. These teachers were interviewed, leading to analysis of principal support and teacher perceptions of being supported. The findings clarify principals who adopted a language of equity, while simultaneously arguing that their White teachers were more effective (based erroneously on the belief that the White teachers’ students had higher test scores). The African American teachers, on the other hand, were framed as experts in culturally responsive approaches, given increased teaching responsibilities, and not provided similar leadership opportunities. This difference in opportunities and expectations had lasting impacts on the African American teachers, who internalized the lack of resources and negative messages they received from their principals. The paper concludes with CRT implications for inclusive leadership development processes.

Emotional and Social Intelligence and Leadership Development in the Higher Education. An Exploratory Study

Our study aims to contribute to the literature on leadership development through the lifespan, by providing an empirical evidence of the dynamic processes related to leadership development in early stages. This research advances the understanding on how higher education institutions can introduce a systematic approach to support leadership identity formation and self-regulation as primary outcome of leadership development process, by taking into account that individuals may undertake different developmental trajectories We suggest that the implementation of the Intentional Change Theory in the academic context, which aims to help students to attain their desired professional future and to increase their self-awareness, could support leadership identity formation. Through the case study of the Ca’ Foscari Competency Centre (CFCC) of University of Venice (Italy), we discuss how the process of early identity formation and regulation of two groups of students, who have expressed a different intent about their job, may differ. Findings show some differences in the values and in the competency portfolio between the two groups of students. These differences suggest two different developmental trajectories of students aiming at an entrepreneurial career and students who expressed a different intent.

Developmental Readiness for Leadership: The Differential Effects of Leadership Courses on Creating “ Ready, Willing, and Able” Leaders

The development of effective leadership capacity involves multiple factors including increasing students’ leadership self-efficacy, motivation to lead, and leadership skills. This study of 165 undergraduate students enrolled in an introductory leadership theory course explores the degree to which students report changes in these three areas of leadership from the beginning to the end of the course. Our analysis showed two important findings. First, students report significant gains in leadership self-efficacy, transformational and transactional leadership skill, and each measured form of motivation to lead at the conclusion of the course. Second, a closer examination shows that student learning is not across-the-board but, rather, differentiated. Students experience significantly different outcomes depending on their levels of self-efficacy and motivation to lead when they enter the course. These findings not only have broad implications for the way colleges and universities structure curricula around leadership development, but they also inform theoretical model-building regarding the process of student leadership development. DOI: 1012806/V13/I3/R1 Journal of Leadership Education Summer 2014

Developmental Readiness for Leadership: The Differential Effects of Leadership Courses on Creating “Ready, Willing, and Able” Leaders

The development of effective leadership capacity involves multiple factors including increasing students’ leadership self-efficacy, motivation to lead, and leadership skills. This study of 165 undergraduate students enrolled in an introductory leadership theory course explores the degree to which students report changes in these three areas of leadership from the beginning to the end of the course. Our analysis showed two important findings. First, students report significant gains in leadership self-efficacy, transformational and transactional leadership skill, and each measured form of motivation to lead at the conclusion of the course. Second, a closer examination shows that student learning is not across-the-board but, rather, differentiated. Students experience significantly different outcomes depending on their levels of self-efficacy and motivation to lead when they enter the course. These findings not only have broad implications for the way colleges and universities structure curricula around leadership development, but they also inform theoretical model-building regarding the process of student leadership development.