Top-level Leaders Research Articles

PREDICTING LEADERSHIP EFFECTIVENESS THROUGH THE TALENTS THAT REALLY MATTER

AbstractConchie (founder and president of Conchie Associates) and Dalton (partner, Conchie Associates) explain that they apply science “to the study, application, and development of leadership,” adapted from the research in their book The Five Talents Really Matter. They discuss their criteria for outstanding leadership and point to “over 58,000 top level leaders in our global database.” Their scientific “assessment of The Five Talents That Really Matter carries a disproportionate weight, greater than all the other factors thought to be important in leadership selection, in predicting top leadership performance.” The Talents “capture the broad variability of traits, dispositions, and characteristics the very best leaders possess, and, through the Executive Leadership Assessment built to measure these talents, we are able to use the results to help predict future leadership performance.” In their words, the Talents are Setting Direction (using modern GPS technology as a metaphor), Harnessing Energy, Exerting Pressure (“Debate and dissent, we’ve found, is what many leaders claim to value yet precious few succeed in delivering”), Increasing Connectivity (“The very best leaders…are straight shooters who deliver difficult messages with compassion,”) and Controlling Traffic (“Exceptional leaders responsible for business execution follow rigid rules with maximum flexibility.”)

Civil society ethos? Attitude differences between civil society elites and the population in Sweden

Previous studies have found that elites differ from the general population not only in terms of their demographic and social composition but also with respect to policy preferences and attitudes. When it comes to civil society organisations, the issue of representation and representativeness of top-level leadership is of particular relevance, since a small number of individuals are expected to act on behalf of groups and causes that are not well acknowledged or even suppressed by other societal actors. Using two survey studies, this study compares the demographic composition and attitudes of the top-level leaders of the most resourceful civil society organisations in Sweden with those of the general population. We find that civil society elites are not demographically representative of the general population and that they also differ in attitudes when it comes to levels of trust, political orientations, satisfaction with democracy, and acceptance of income inequality. What is more interesting, however, is that the differences in attitudes cannot be fully explained by the skewed demographic characteristics of the civil society leaders, indicating that there might be distinctive sets of values and attitudes underpinning a ‘civil society ethos’.

The Paradox of Elites in Civil Society: A Comparative Study on Civil Society Leaders’ Satisfaction with Democracy in the UK and Sweden

AbstractThe presence of an elite group in civil society elicits a discursive friction between the long-standing normative understanding of civil society, acting as a check on government overreach and autocratic tendencies, and elite theories. Robert Michels’s iron law of oligarchy posits that as individuals rise in the ranks to become organizational leaders, they begin to take on elite attributes, and their priorities align with those of other elites and away from those of their constituents. Michels’s argument echoes with today’s populist anti-elitist rhetoric and the way populism rejects any intermediary bodies between the people and the political leaders, including interest organizations in civil society. As an attempt to empirically probe this theoretical tension, this paper explores satisfaction with the way democracy is working among the top-level leaders of the most well-resourced national-level civil society organizations in Sweden and in the UK, drawing on a survey study conducted in 2020–21.

Top-level leaders and implementation strategies to support organizational diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB) interventions: a qualitative study of top-level DEIB leaders in healthcare organizations

BackgroundThe Black Lives Matter movement and COVID-19 pandemic motivated the wide-scale adoption of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB) initiatives within healthcare organizations and the creation of DEIB top-level leader positions. The next step is to understand how these leaders contribute to the implementation of DEIB interventions, a task with notable salience due to not only the historical difficulties associated with DEIB strategy execution, but also the substantial evidence that leadership plays a significant role in implementation processes. Therefore, the objective of this qualitative study is to understand the role of top-level DEIB leaders in the implementation of healthcare organizational DEIB interventions.MethodsA qualitative research approach which used an in-depth semi-structured interview approach was employed. We conducted thirty-one 60–90-min semi-structured interviews with DEIB top-level leaders between February 2022 and October 2022 over Zoom. An iterative coding process was used to identify the key implementation strategies and activities of DEIB top-level leaders.ResultsInterviewees were mostly Black, majority female, and mostly heterosexual and had a variety of educational backgrounds. We identified the DEIB top-level leader as the DEIB strategy implementation champion. These leaders drive five DEIB implementation strategies: (1) People, (2) Health Equity, (3) Monitoring and Feedback, (4) Operational Planning and Communication, and (5) External Partners. Within these, we identified 19 significant activities that describe the unique implementation strategies supported by the DEIB top-level leaders.ConclusionsTo move toward sustained commitment to DEIB, the organization must focus on not only establishing DEIB interventions, but on their successful implementation. Our findings help explicate the implementation activities that drive the DEIB initiatives of healthcare organizations and the role of DEIB leaders. Our work can help healthcare organizations systematically identify how to support the success of DEIB organizational interventions.

Conceptual Problems of Political Parties Cadre Management in the Reform Era in Indonesia

This study describes the dynamics and practices of political party management in Indonesia after entering the reform era. The hopes for the welfare of the Indonesian people towards the existence of political parties in Indonesia have not shown significant results. Political parties are still trapped by internal interests compared to the big goal of improving the welfare of society, even the party's reputation in politics tends to decrease in society because of practices that violate the norms of decency. This study uses a qualitative method with a descriptive analysis approach From the existing data, factual problems of political parties were found. The political party cadre system is unable to build cadre capacity, there is no capacity standardization in cadre recruitment, cadre capacity shifts to financial capacity, personal motivation is still unstable and always changes when cadres have occupied legislative positions and regional heads. The organizational climate of political parties is periodic, only before elections, there is no integrated teamwork in political parties, political work in political parties still depends on the interests of cadres. The leadership role in the lower regions is not able to translate the vision, mission and policy directives of the top level leaders, the top level leadership is unable to absorb aspirations and communication from the lower level leadership. This research has a novelty that the management of political parties really needs the implementation of human capital. The human capital approach is currently still being applied to profit institutions and has never been tested in non-profit institutions, namely political party organizations. Keywords: political parties, cadre governance, reformation era, human capital, leadership

Bullying in Academic Medicine: Experiences of Women Physician Leaders.

Bullying is defined as offenders abusing positions of authority and intentionally targeting individuals through persistent negative behaviors to impede education or career growth. This study sought to estimate the prevalence and nature of bullying experienced by women physician leaders in academic medicine. In this survey-based study, 547 physician graduates of an executive women's leadership training program were invited to complete a survey that measured workplace bullying in 2021. Participants were asked whether and when they had been bullied, how it impacted their careers, and remedies for bullying. Descriptive statistics were used to profile mistreatment and bullying experienced by the respondents during their professional careers and the nature of bullying. Content analysis of open-ended comments was used to describe how bullying impacted women physicians and outline recommendations for bullying prevention and mitigation. The survey response rate was 64.7% (354/547). Most women (302/354 [85.3%]) had experienced mistreatment during their careers, with more than half experiencing bullying while an attending physician (198/302 [65.6%]). Many women (187/302 [61.9%]) who screened positive for mistreatment also reported that they had been bullied at work. Of these 187 respondents, 173 (92.5%) experienced bullying from men and 121 (64.7%) reporting bullying from women (effect size = 0.34, P ≤ .001), and 115 (61.5%) reported that bullies were their immediate supervisors. Qualitative findings suggested that bullying harmed individuals' career advancement, mental health, reputation, and relationships with others. Many had to change roles or leave jobs. Participants proposed that initiatives by top-level leaders, clear definitions of bullying behavior, reporting mechanisms, and upstander training for faculty and staff could mitigate bullying. Most women physician leaders have experienced bullying. These results highlight the need to address bullying in academic medicine so that women can reach their full career potential.

Muslim Women Leadership: The Catalytic Style in Developing School Members' Psychological Well-Being Amidst Global Pandemic

This article investigates how women principals practice their leadership to address the global pandemic challenges encountered by Islamic-based junior high schools or madrasah Tsanawiyah (MTs). The study examines the key behaviors and practices school leaders, particularly women, implement to address the global pandemic challenges. Some challenges in the global pandemic, including learning management, developing an online curriculum, school facilities, teacher performance, and school members' psychological well-being, were indicated to hinder the learning effectiveness in MTs. The MTs principals, the top-level leaders in the institutions, play a critical role in addressing these issues. This research utilized a multiple case study approach and collected qualitative data from six MTs in Bogor, Tangerang, and Bekasi. An in-depth interview with 18 participants was conducted to investigate the women's principal leadership practices. The findings revealed that principals displayed a catalytic leadership approach through an agent of change where school members and stakeholders are invited to change the curriculum system and performance to respond to the challenges of the global pandemic. The results of this study also indicate that most female principals prioritize the well-being of teachers and students in facing learning challenges in the pandemic era.

Changing Definitions of Leadership or Same old “Hero” Leader?

Objective/Research Question: The urgency to replace retiring community college leaders has been a topic of research and discussion for the past two decades. Concurrently, expansive definitions of leadership and collaborative approaches to leading have emerged. The central research question for this study was: How do sitting community college leaders define leadership? The sub-questions included: Do definitions of leadership differ by gender? Do definitions of leadership differ by position? Methods: Coding of survey data from approximately 770 sitting leaders occurred based on responses to the prompt: How do you define leadership? Descriptive statistical analysis occurred based on demographics and on position related to the coded responses. Results: This study found three prevalent ways of defining leadership: leader-focused (leader’s abilities mentioned); other-focused (leader included others, collaboration mentioned); institution-focused (leader focused on institutional needs/mission). About half of both women and men used leader-focused definitions, with slightly more men than women in the tallies. More women than men used other-focused definitions, whereas men used definitions more institutionally focused compared to women (not statistically significant). Leader-focused definitions were also most prevalent by position, with mid-level leaders using this definition slightly more than top-level leaders. Top-level leaders used a combination of institution-focused definitions more so than mid-level leaders, however (not statistically significant). Conclusions: A shift to more other-focused ways of leading is emerging. Those in mid-level positions hold onto leader-focused definitions of leadership, and this points to the need to reconceptualize mid-level leadership and ideas of leading that include others and connect to institutional missions and initiatives. The complex nature of today’s organizations requires broader conceptions of leadership.

Do Leaders Matter ? Evidence from 56 Years of U.S. Governor Successions

Societies are facing numerous grand challenges and leaders are increasingly counted on to provide solutions. Top-level institutional leaders are implicitly assumed to have an effect on important social and organizational outcomes. But can top-level leaders affect outcomes that unfold across space and time via various pathways? Some research streams have suggested that organizational outcomes may not be caused by, but are simply ascribed to the leader; leadership may merely be a social construction. We provide a rigorous test to determine whether leaders matter by exploiting a very controlled, though unusual leadership context, where leader discretion is large; that of U.S. state governors. This context allows us to estimate precisely what role top-level leaders may play in determining institutional outcomes, measured on a standard metric. We quantify the “leadership effect” in a sample of 500 governors across the 50 states of the U.S. and the district of Columbia. We use a custom likelihood function to implement state-of-the-science methodical advances in variance decomposition on a sample of 2,985 governor-time observations, covering the periods 1963 to 2019, to explain variance in real yearly Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth. After having partialed out time effects (0.47 of the variance in real yearly GDP growth), we show that governors are responsible for 4.45% of the variation in real GDP growth, while state-effects only account for 1.45% of the variation in real yearly GDP growth. Our results contradict earlier research suggesting that top-level leadership may not matter (e.g., Salancik & Pfeffer, 1977). Keywords: Leadership, Variance decomposition, Economic growth, Leader performance, GDP, Political Leadership, Maximum likelihood, Autoregression.

The Leader Vitality Scale: Development, Psychometric Assessment, and Validation.

One of the most important units of analysis for positive organizational psychology research is leaders and future leaders in the workplace. Leaders often have a large responsibility for and influence on the well-being and performance of their followers. They also face the unique challenge of serving their followers and the organization while needing to maintain their own vitality and well-being. Vitality can provide a foundation of energy resources to a leader to serve at their full capacity. This study develops and empirically examines a new three factor scale to measure leader vitality which includes physical, psychological, and emotional components. In study 1, a total of 175 participants (including n = 128 leaders) completed the Leader Vitality Scale (LVS) and other positive psychology related measures. Exploratory factor analysis and then confirmatory factor analysis showed that the LVS is hierarchical with three distinct factors, with overall vitality as the higher-order factor. Correlational tests with two established vitality scales for general use showed that the LVS is positively related to existing scales, demonstrating convergent validity. In study 2, data was gathered from 92 top level leaders in the C-Suite (n = 25), vice presidents (n = 23), directors (n = 21), and managers (n = 23) of organizations across the United States. Results showed that LVS scores significantly correlated with life satisfaction, positive emotions, positive functioning at work, and psychological capital. Overall, these findings suggest that the LVS is a valid measure for assessing leader vitality, and can used in future studies of well-being and positive functioning at work.

Effect of transformational leadership on organizational commitment through the interaction of psychological empowerment

The present study was aimed at examining the association between transformational leadership and organizational commitment, and the mediating role of psychological empowerment in the association between them. Even though there are plenty of empirical studies on the association between leadership styles and organizational commitment in various contexts, there is inadequate evidence in the Sri Lankan context. Considering the gap in the current literature, the study was conducted on the Development Officers working in the public sector organizations in the Jaffna region. For this purpose a sample of 235 Development Officers attached to the District Secretariat and Divisional Secretariats was selected based on random sampling method. The transformational leadership was measured using MLQ- Form 5x (Bass & Avolio, 2000), organizational commitment was measured using OCQ (Meyer & Allen, 1997) and empowerment was measured using Empowerment Scale (Spreitzer, 1995). Exploratory factor analysis and Confirmatory factor analysis were performed to validate the data and then the constructs were integrated in the structural equation model to find the relationships among the variables. The results revealed that the direct effect of transformational leadership on organizational commitment is not significant (b=.011, p>.05). The effect of transformational leadership on psychological empowerment is significant (B=.621, p=.001). The results confirm that psychological empowerment doesn’t act as a mediator in the effect of transformational leadership on organizational commitment (direct effect and indirect effect are not significant). As the present study concludes transformational leadership is not effective in promoting commitment of Development Officers working at District and Divisional Secretariats, future research should cover other public sector and private sector organizations. As the operative level employees’ perception of their superiors’ (first line leaders) leadership style was studied, future studies need to focus on the middle and top level leaders’ leadership styles and the resultant outcomes.

Failed It or Nailed It: A Historical-Comparative Analysis of Legislating Bushmeat Ban in China

One of the prominent policy responses to COVID-19 by the Chinese government is a recent complete ban on trade and the consumption of wild animals for food use purposes. Despite some discussions and debates in media coverage, the policy has not obtained much scholarly discussion from a public policy perspective. This article aims to fill the research gap by examining the policy formation process of the complete ban. The study conducts a historical-comparative analysis of the three legislative attempts on the bushmeat ban in 2004, 2016, and 2020, applying the multiple streams framework (MSF). We identify six key explanatory factors contributing to the successful formulation of the strictest-ever bushmeat ban. Five corroborate with the problem, policy, and political streams respectively: (i) the existence of an exogenous zoonosis-related crisis as background (problem stream); (ii) the attention and support from the top-level political leaders (political stream); (iii) the national mood (political stream); (iv) proposals from both internal and external policy advisors and experts (policy stream); and (v) feasibility of the proposed solutions (policy stream). The sixth—the role of policy entrepreneurs—serves as a fundamental driving force in shaping and coupling the three streams.

Local leaders and the environment: little resilience/influence to produce a sustainable environment

The Legal Amazon region (LAR) consists on a complex area where multiple actors coexist with conflicting interests. Indigenous population, agribusiness entrepreneurs and small producers are examples of individuals with different behaviors concerning the economic development and deforestation of the area. In this sense, research has been conducted in order to evaluate the impacts of agricultural development and the rise of deforestation levels, the influence of economic incentives on economic development and deforestation and the impact of institutional incentives on deforestation reduction. However, the role of local leadership on these matters has not been analyzed so far. An efficient local leader would be the one who is resilient (e.g. promote both economic development and deforestation reduction on his municipality). Therefore, in our study we test if local leaders are resilient in the Legal Amazon environment, whether or not they make use of economic and/or institutional incentive to promote economic development and deforestation reduction and whether or not sustainable top leaders (e.g. state governors) influence the actions of local leaders (e.g. mayors). For this, we use a Regression Discontinuity methodology and a quasi-randomized experiment (elections with a margin of victory close to zero). Our sample comes from multiple databases and includes over 18000 observations from 755 LAR distinct municipalities for the period between 1996 and 2016. Amongst our results, we identify that local farmer leaders promote economic development but do not produce significant changes on deforestation levels. We also identify that economic incentives are used by these local leaders, but institutional incentives are not. Finally, we identify that top level leaders do not influence local leaders on their actions on behalf of being resilient.

Women Proficiency for Global Crises Management in Ethiopia

The COVID-19 virus is a new pathogen that is highly contagious, can spread quickly, and considered capable of causing enormous health, economic and societal impacts in any setting. According to WHO report, about (78%-85%) human-to-human transmission of the COVID-19 virus is the household transmission have occurred in families. The main purpose of this article is to assess the potential of women in crises management. These findings suggest that, women leadership has a potential advantage in crises management mainly because, women are on average more likely than men to adopt a relational approach to leadership. So that Ethiopia, will benefit more , hence the country’s more than half of the population and 50% of top-level leaders are women as a golden opportunity for Ethiopia to easily overcome this pandemic crisis by engaging a full potential of women at all levels. I recommend for Ethiopian government to use this acknowledged golden opportunity of having more women leaders especially at top-level and having women more than half of the population by mobilizing this women force up to family level to overcome this pandemic disease more better than any countries in the world. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Challenges and Strategies of Educational Leadership to Sustain the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme (IBDP) in a Malaysian Premier Public School

The IBDP is known worldwide as a high-standard diploma programme that aims to cultivate students with the attitudes, knowledge, and skills of the 21st-century education. In the education management aspect, this programme requires extensive planning, organising, sound leadership, and monitoring of the schools’ systems to meet the standards set up by the International Baccalaureate Organisation (IBO). Due to the challenges that persist in each of the management functions, sustainability of the IBDP requires the exploration of both challenges and strategies from the perspective of leadership in relation to the context. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to explore and explain how educational leadership is practised to sustain the IBDP in a Malaysian premier public school. An in-depth qualitative approach was carried out to explore two major areas that consist of strategies and challenges, while semi-structured interviews were conducted with 20 participants comprising of top-level leaders and experienced teachers in the public IB school. These interviewees were chosen due to their instrumental roles as pioneers and leaders since the establishment of the programme in the school. Data analysis through open-coding, axial coding, and selective coding revealed that top-level leaders and experienced teachers of various subjects face various internal and external challenges in maintaining the sustainability of IBDP, such as student-related challenges, teacher-related challenges, teaching and learning processes, external assessments, school facilities, financial problems, and human resource management. Findings also listed various strategies taken by the principal to sustain the IBDP in the Malaysian premier public school. For the purpose of transferability and implication to the context of IB in a Malaysian premier public school, future leaders who are taking over the helm of leadership in the organisation would need to learn from both failures and successes of strategies in relation to their internal and external challenges to continually sustain and thrive in the future.

Being Smart Is Not Enough: Personality Traits and Vocational Interests Incrementally Predict Intention, Status and Success of Leaders and Entrepreneurs Beyond Cognitive Ability.

Three separate studies demonstrate that socio-emotional skills add incremental validity beyond cognitive ability when predicting leadership and entrepreneurship intention, emergence as well as success. Study 1 uses a longitudinal approach and tests the cognitive ability and vocational interests of 231 students to predict their leadership and entrepreneurship intention. It demonstrates that cognitive ability predicts their intention to become a business leader or entrepreneur 2 years in the future. Importantly, the vocational interests “enterprising” and “social” increase this ability-driven prediction of leadership and entrepreneurship intention (ΔR2Lead.Intent. = 15%, ΔR2Entre.Intent. = 9%). Study 2 investigates 123 business leaders and shows that those with higher cognitive ability more likely emerge as top-level leaders, receive more income and get slightly better supervisor-ratings on their performance. The leaders’ Big Five traits (openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, emotional stability) added validity beyond cognitive ability when predicting these criteria (ΔR2Income = 9%, ΔR2Lead.Level = 8%, ΔR2Perform. = 15%). Finally, Study 3 includes 155 participants and demonstrates that cognitive ability predicts a person’s entrepreneurial status but not performance. Additionally, considering the Big Five traits improves the prediction of who becomes an entrepreneur and successfully performs as such (ΔR2Status = 7%, ΔR2Perform. = 18%). Importantly, selected Big Five traits and vocational interests boost the importance of cognitive ability in the field of leadership and entrepreneurship. Concluding, this series of studies suggests that it is the combination of personality traits or interests with cognitive ability which is most powerful when predicting leadership and entrepreneurship intention, emergence and success.

Analyzing the Impact of Different Transport Governance Strategies on Climate Change

The transport industry is one of the few sectors in which emissions continue to grow, contributing 26% to the global CO2 emissions. Transport agencies everywhere in the world are focusing on mitigation strategies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Policy-makers are under pressure to tackle the issue of climate change and approach sustainable transport by promoting more sustainable practices and altering behavior. This paper attempts to explore the impact of transport on climate change through the lens of governance by establishing a systematic review framework. The results showed that developing nations should be influential in managing their public transport agencies to achieve economic transformation. They require a functional, reliable, and effective transport system and these can only be derived by properly formulated and implemented policies with the aid of all relevant private, academic, and government bodies working together. This study concluded that developing nations need to manage their pricing methods, using them to facilitate transport systems that are unlikely to affect the climate. To this end, transport policy and governance need to be reviewed to take into account climate change and natural disaster concerns. Additionally, guidelines and strategies should be proposed for every actor involved, i.e., transport community, top-level leaders, and all governmental levels and private sectors.

Leadership Style Paradigm Shift in Hospital Industry: Need of the Day, in Comparison with Hospitality Industry

Importance: Current hospital leaders struggle to find leadership style which is beneficial and suitable to face the challenges present in the organization. Limited literature and lack of evidence on leadership styles related to the hospital and healthcare industry leave them directionless. Scarcity of training from the leadership point of view and lack of leadership models and lack of evidence on ‘which leadership style is most suitable and beneficial’ in the hospital industry, especially in the Indian context, increase the need for the current study. Objective: To understand and compare the leadership styles adopted by the top and middle level leaders from the hospital and hotel industry. Methodology: Quantitative study design, that is, survey, was used in this study. Survey tool consisted of structure items on 10 leadership styles with five-point Likert scale. A total of 41 top and middle level leaders from hospital and hotel industry participated in this study. Results: The study addressed issues pertaining to leadership, suggesting a paradigm change in hospital industry in relation to leadership style. Results showed that male leaders dominated the top and middle level leadership positions in both industries. Hospital leaders were older and more qualified and experienced as compared to those in hotel industry. Leaders reported using all 10 leadership styles from low to high levels. As each leadership style has its own strengths and weaknesses, adopting a combination of multiple leadership styles as per the need strengthens the overall output. Conclusion: Mixed leadership style needs to be adopted by the hospital leaders.

Integration of Social Capital and Organizational Learning Theories to Improve Operational Performance

This study focuses on integrating the premises of social capital theory and the theory of organizational learning to improve the operational performance of firms nurturing the buyer–supplier relationship. Social capital theory highlights the importance of developing social relationships between firms to create valuable resources and collectively access critical resources. Organizational learning theory highlights that the learning capacity of an organization strongly depends on top-level leaders’ behaviors, organizational structure, culture, and flexibility, and uncertainties in the environment in which the organization functions. Though many studies have focused on the impact of social capital on performance improvements in the buyer–supplier relationship, the interlinkages between social capital and organizational learning have not been given much attention. Based upon these theories, a system-focused perspective, which showcases the antecedents and outcome of the relationship between collaborative communication and learning, has been proposed in this study. A literature review has been carried out to support the linkages in the proposed conceptual model. Findings suggest that transformational buyers support creating cognitive capital with suppliers. This cognitive capital influences the structural capital, which supports improving the understanding of each party’s processes in the buyer–supplier relationship when parties have high long-term orientation. Improved learning capability reshapes organizations into flexible systems capable of responding quickly to customer requirements, and consequently, they realize a higher performance level.

Professional identity versus gender identity: Empirical study among top-level leaders and managers in Hungarian sport

Professional identity versus gender identity: Empirical study among top-level leaders and managers in Hungarian sport