Lifelong Leadership Research Articles

Leadership in a Private Higher Education Institution in Mexico:

Leadership for the new digital era and the 4.0 industry comes with some challenges for organizations across the board; and, in the education field, for institutions and educators alike. Understanding the need to transform and innovate processes is necessary to offer high-quality programs to students and competitive opportunities to educators. In Higher Education (HE) institutions, it is of great urgency to assign and distribute such leadership skills and tasks to educators and students, to provide and ease specific tasks at hand, and to encourage collaborators in the development of leadership skills for the classroom and to promote lifelong leadership skills for students too. In Mexico, the HE system looks to include new ways to innovate, collaborate and even compete with other national and foreign institutions for the most qualified human capital. Tecnologico de Monterrey, a private institution, is not only one of the top-ranking universities in Mexico, but it also has a strong emphasis on leadership development for its students and collaborators. The case of Sonora Norte Campus is a successful one, its empowerment approach toward building, nurturing, and developing quality leaders. A qualitative study was conducted to identify the practices of the institution and the leadership practices in the institution's different schools. We conducted semi-structured interviews with leaders and collaborators which resulted in understanding the leadership dynamics on the campus, the different styles of leadership among its collaborators as well as some of the challenges they face. This study provides a look into the leadership in a private HE institution, and some of its successful practices. This study proves to be relevant for other heads of HE institutions in the world (and in other Tecnologico de Monterrey campuses nationwide) interested in adding and researching effective leadership practices to their agendas.

PSYCHOMETRIC APPRAISAL OF THE GERIATRIC SOCIAL WORK COMPETENCY SCALE II WITH LIFELONG LEADERSHIP SKILLS

The Council on Social Work Education (CSWE) Gero-Ed Center and Hartford Partnership Program in Aging Education (HPPAE) emphasize five competency areas specific to social work practice with older adult clientele (i.e., gero social work), namely knowledge and skills applicable to (a) values, ethics and theories; (b) assessment; (c) intervention; (d) aging programs, services and policies; and (e) leadership in aging environments. Accordingly, CSWE/HPPAE created a standardized measure – Geriatric Social Work Competency Scale II with Life-long Leadership Skills (GSWCS II) – to assess empirically these practice competencies among social work students and gero social work practitioners. A scant amount of literature exists that reports properties of this measure. Consequently, the purpose of this study was to conduct a psychometric examination of the GSWCS II, namely its factor structure and reliability among the competency areas. The sample consisted of three, advanced year MSW cohorts (N=170) from a state flagship university in the southern United States. Almost one-third of the sample were enrolled in a gerontology specialization during their advanced year. The typical participant was a 27-year-old female enrolled full time, completing the 60-credit hour MSW program. Principal axis factor results indicated unidimensionality, using the traditional 1.0 eigenvalue threshold, for each competency scale. All items loaded moderately-to-strongly on their respective competency scales; loadings ranged from 0.569 to 0.906. Regarding internal consistency for each of the competency scales, Cronbach’s alphas ranged from 0.932 to 0.959; Guttman split-half coefficients (lambda-4) ranged from 0.896 to .941. Implications for gero practice competency assessment are discussed.

Foundation News

The Society of Exploration Geophysicists (SEG) Foundation has established honorary endowment funds to honor outstanding SEG colleagues who have made contributions to geophysics, to the Society, and to the oil and gas industry. The first Honorary Endowment Fund will be dedicated to Mike Forrest for his lifelong leadership and contributions. Forrest has chosen the Geoscientists Without Borders program as the beneficiary of his named honorary endowment fund — the Michael C. Forrest Honorary Endowed Fund.

Transforming community services through the use of a multidimensional model of clinical leadership.

To evaluate the application of a Multidimensional Model of Clinical Leadership on the community healthcare leader and on transforming community services. Healthcare policy advocates clinical leadership as the vehicle to transform community and healthcare services. Few studies have identified the key components of an effective clinical leadership development model. The first two stages of Kirkpatrick's (Personnel Administrator 28, 1983, 62) Four/Five Levels of Evaluation were used to evaluate the application of the multidimensional model of clinical leadership. Eighty community healthcare leaders were exposed to this multidimensional clinical leadership development model through attendance of a community clinical leadership development programme. Twenty five leaders participated in focus group interviews. Data from the interviews were analysed utilising thematic content analysis. Three key themes emerged that influenced the development of best practice principles for clinical leadership development: 1. Personal leadership development 2. Organisational leadership 3. The importance of multiprofessional action learning/reflective groups Emergent best practice principles for clinical leadership development include adopting a multidimensional development approach. This approach encompasses: preparing the individual leader in the role and seeking organisational leadership development that promotes the vision and corporate values of the organisation and delivers on service improvement and innovation. Moreover, application of the Multidimensional Model of Clinical Leadership could offer the best platform for embedding the Six C's of Nursing (Compassion in Practice - Our Culture of Compassionate Care, Department of Health, Crown Copyright, 2012) within the culture of the healthcare organisation: care, compassion, courage, commitment, communication, and competency. This is achieved in part through the application of emotional intelligence to understand self and to develop the personal integrity of the healthcare leader and through supporting a culture of lifelong leadership learning. Embedding the best practice principles of clinical leadership development within a multidimensional model of clinical leadership provides a promising approach to: equipping the healthcare leader with those transferable leadership skills required to help them embark on a journey of lifelong leadership learning; and producing the healthcare leader who is caring, compassionate and can confidently and effectively transform community services.

A Leadership Elective Course Developed and Taught by Graduate Students

To develop and implement a flexible-credit elective course to empower student pharmacists to develop lifelong leadership skills and provide teaching practice opportunities for graduate students. An elective course focusing on leadership development for second- and third-year doctor of pharmacy (PharmD) students was designed and taught by 4 graduate students under the mentorship of 2 faculty members. Student pharmacists could enroll in a 1-, 2-, or 3-credit-hour version of the course. Attainment of course objectives was measured using student pharmacist reflection papers and continuing professional development portfolios. Additionally, self-assessments of graduate students and faculty members delivering the course were conducted. In their responses on course evaluations, student pharmacists indicated they found the course a valuable learning experience. Graduate students found course development to be challenging but useful in developing faculty skills. This flexible-credit elective course taught by graduate students was an innovative way to offer formal leadership instruction using limited college resources.

Advancing Leadership Capacity in Nursing

To address the potential shortage of nurse leaders, the profession must evaluate current strategies in both education and practice. While many new graduates dream of becoming a nurse practitioner or nurse anesthetist, few transition into practice with the goal of becoming a nurse leader. To increase the number of nurses capable of leadership, the profession must address 2 critical issues. First, effort must be made to augment faculty and students' conceptualization of nursing such that leadership is seen as a dimension of practice for all nurses, not just those in formal leadership roles. In so doing, leadership identity development would be seen as a part of becoming an expert nurse. Second, a comprehensive conceptual framework for lifelong leadership development of nurses needs to be designed. This framework should allow for baseline leadership capacity building in all nurses and advanced leadership development for those in formal administrative and advanced practice roles. The knowledge and skill requirements for quality improvement and patient safety have been explored and recommendations made for Quality and Safety Education for Nurses, but parallel work needs to be done to outline educational content, objectives, and effective pedagogy for advancing leadership development in nursing students at all levels.

A year of learning for your lifelong leadership journey: Climbing Mount Everest

A year of learning for your lifelong leadership journey: Climbing Mount Everest

Lead by Example and Precept: Introducing, Developing, and Recognizing Leadership Mastery at the Collegiate Level

Colleges and universities are establishing courses and programs to promote leadership development. In fact, there is evidence that the college experience is associated with increases in leadership skills. Furthermore, there is evidence that being a member of a social fraternity or sorority develops your leadership skills more than a nonmember. Accordingly, a social fraternity is launching a new, comprehensive leadership development program for its members and leaders -- called Lead by Example And Precept (LEAP) - to introduce, develop, and recognize lifelong leadership competencies in undergraduate members to prepare these students to be leaders for the world in which they will live.