An Instrument to Measure Level 5 Leadership

The objective of this research project was to develop a validated scale to measure Level 5 Leadership using the Collins ( 2005 ) Level 5 attributes. An expert panel reduced the 99 attributes from Collins to 74. The 349 participants evaluated their bosses on a 10‐point semantic differential scale for each attribute. A review of the literature suggested that Level 5 leadership and servant leadership represent the same concept; thus the study used a 10‐item servant leadership scale to check for concurrent validity. Additionally, Collins proposed eight untested questions to determine if individuals qualify as Level 5 leaders. Principal component analysis resulted in two factors that explained 55.2% of the variance; these factors matched Collins's proposed personal humility and professional will constructs. The final instrument contains five attributes of personal humility and five attributes of professional will that yield Cronbach alphas of .83 and .83, respectively. The analysis also revealed statistically significant positive relationships between the Level 5 attributes, servant leadership, and a single factor that represented Collins's eight questions.     

Pervasive myths in leadership development: Unpacking constraints on leadership learning

Forty years ago, the questions most discussed among those who cared about leadership were “is leadership possible among those who don't have titles and positions?”; “what are the characteristics possessed by effective leaders?”; and “how do we find the people who are the best leaders and help them prepare for positions that will allow them to have an impact?” After many conversations, conferences, research studies, and books, the terrain has shifted among scholars. Now the conversations focus on questions such as “If leadership is a shared responsibility among members of groups, how can the full leadership potential of all be cultivated?”; “What role do collaborators play in empowering positive leadership and defending against those who misuse it?”; and “How can organizations cultivate cultures that support and encourage visionary leadership dedicated to benefitting all?” The shift in the questions that leadership educators now explore, coupled with the breadth and variety of the initiatives dedicated to nurturing it, demonstrate that leadership can be taught. More importantly, the practice of leadership demonstrates that many can pursue leadership and that they must if the opportunities of the 21st century are to be fulfilled. The conversations and the needs for leadership have both shifted and it is now incumbent on those who value leadership most to agree to unifying perspectives that can draw us together in common purpose. From your vantage point, what are the crucial conversations, next steps, and/or thoughts for consideration as we enter the second decade of the 21st century?     

Leadership learning: Crucial conversations,next steps,and thoughts for consideration

Forty years ago, the questions most discussed among those who cared about leadership were “is leadership possible among those who don't have titles and positions?”; “what are the characteristics possessed by effective leaders?”; and “how do we find the people who are the best leaders and help them prepare for positions that will allow them to have an impact?” After many conversations, conferences, research studies, and books, the terrain has shifted among scholars. Now the conversations focus on questions such as “If leadership is a shared responsibility among members of groups, how can the full leadership potential of all be cultivated?”; “What role do collaborators play in empowering positive leadership and defending against those who misuse it?”; and “How can organizations cultivate cultures that support and encourage visionary leadership dedicated to benefitting all?” The shift in the questions that leadership educators now explore, coupled with the breadth and variety of the initiatives dedicated to nurturing it, demonstrate that leadership can be taught. More importantly, the practice of leadership demonstrates that many can pursue leadership and that they must if the opportunities of the 21st century are to be fulfilled. The conversations and the needs for leadership have both shifted and it is now incumbent on those who value leadership most to agree to unifying perspectives that can draw us together in common purpose. From your vantage point, what are the crucial conversations, next steps, and/or thoughts for consideration as we enter the second decade of the 21st century?     

Leadership: A journey of sustained performance

Forty years ago, the questions most discussed among those who cared about leadership were “is leadership possible among those who don't have titles and positions?”; “what are the characteristics possessed by effective leaders?”; and “how do we find the people who are the best leaders and help them prepare for positions that will allow them to have an impact?” After many conversations, conferences, research studies, and books, the terrain has shifted among scholars. Now the conversations focus on questions such as “If leadership is a shared responsibility among members of groups, how can the full leadership potential of all be cultivated?”; “What role do collaborators play in empowering positive leadership and defending against those who misuse it?”; and “How can organizations cultivate cultures that support and encourage visionary leadership dedicated to benefitting all?” The shift in the questions that leadership educators now explore, coupled with the breadth and variety of the initiatives dedicated to nurturing it, demonstrate that leadership can be taught. More importantly, the practice of leadership demonstrates that many can pursue leadership and that they must if the opportunities of the 21st century are to be fulfilled. The conversations and the needs for leadership have both shifted and it is now incumbent on those who value leadership most to agree to unifying perspectives that can draw us together in common purpose. From your vantage point, what are the crucial conversations, next steps, and/or thoughts for consideration as we enter the second decade of the 21st century?     

Entrepreneurship education as a new model for leadership education

Forty years ago, the questions most discussed among those who cared about leadership were “is leadership possible among those who don't have titles and positions?”; “what are the characteristics possessed by effective leaders?”; and “how do we find the people who are the best leaders and help them prepare for positions that will allow them to have an impact?” After many conversations, conferences, research studies, and books, the terrain has shifted among scholars. Now the conversations focus on questions such as “If leadership is a shared responsibility among members of groups, how can the full leadership potential of all be cultivated?”; “What role do collaborators play in empowering positive leadership and defending against those who misuse it?”; and “How can organizations cultivate cultures that support and encourage visionary leadership dedicated to benefitting all?” The shift in the questions that leadership educators now explore, coupled with the breadth and variety of the initiatives dedicated to nurturing it, demonstrate that leadership can be taught. More importantly, the practice of leadership demonstrates that many can pursue leadership and that they must if the opportunities of the 21st century are to be fulfilled. The conversations and the needs for leadership have both shifted and it is now incumbent on those who value leadership most to agree to unifying perspectives that can draw us together in common purpose. From your vantage point, what are the crucial conversations, next steps, and/or thoughts for consideration as we enter the second decade of the 21st century?     

The leadership labyrinth

Forty years ago, the questions most discussed among those who cared about leadership were “is leadership possible among those who don't have titles and positions?”; “what are the characteristics possessed by effective leaders?”; and “how do we find the people who are the best leaders and help them prepare for positions that will allow them to have an impact?” After many conversations, conferences, research studies, and books, the terrain has shifted among scholars. Now the conversations focus on questions such as “If leadership is a shared responsibility among members of groups, how can the full leadership potential of all be cultivated?”; “What role do collaborators play in empowering positive leadership and defending against those who misuse it?”; and “How can organizations cultivate cultures that support and encourage visionary leadership dedicated to benefitting all?” The shift in the questions that leadership educators now explore, coupled with the breadth and variety of the initiatives dedicated to nurturing it, demonstrate that leadership can be taught. More importantly, the practice of leadership demonstrates that many can pursue leadership and that they must if the opportunities of the 21st century are to be fulfilled. The conversations and the needs for leadership have both shifted and it is now incumbent on those who value leadership most to agree to unifying perspectives that can draw us together in common purpose. From your vantage point, what are the crucial conversations, next steps, and/or thoughts for consideration as we enter the second decade of the 21st century?     

Expatriate or local bosses? HCN subordinates' preferences in leadership behaviour

This article explores host-country national subordinates’ preferences in leadership behaviour comparing expatriate bosses and local bosses. From a sample of 240 middle managers in Hong Kong with experience with both local Chinese bosses and expatriate bosses from a broad spectrum of Western and Asian countries, it was found that the subordinate managers assessed the leadership behaviour of their expatriate bosses to be significantly closer to that of their perceived ideal boss. American leadership behaviour was the most preferred and Japanese leader style was the least preferred, with British leadership style comprising a middle group. Implications of these findings for international business firms and future academic research are discussed.     

Fiscal reform,bank solvency,and the law of unintended consequences: a CGE analysis of Mexico

Whether due to random economic shocks or deliberate policy measures, sudden relative price changes can lower bank solvency. Whereas “winners”—i.e., those sectors experiencing improved net prices for their output—aren’t obliged to share their good fortune with banks, “losers” my share their bad fortune by electing to default on bank loans. This paper presents a disaggregated dynamic computable general equilibrium model, used to analyze specifically how current policy proposals to stimulate savings might affect solvency in different sectors. We find surprising capital losses in pesos for two of the three policies simulated, which would leave domestic currency debtors substantially worse off.     

Can leadership compensate for deficient inclusiveness in global virtual teams?

Although the number of global virtual teams has been growing rapidly, it is still a great challenge to achieve internal collaboration across geographic, cultural, and linguistic barriers. Two factors that have been identified to improve productivity are inclusive group attitudes in the team and the right leadership from the team leader. Although there are strong indications that each of these concepts would have a favourable effect on team member performance, we set out to explore how they function in combination. More specifically, we hypothesise that inspirational motivation from a team leader can compensate for a lack of inclusive group attitudes in the form of team openness to language diversity. We also predict the positive effects of “inspirational motivation” leadership to be stronger than those of the “management by exception” style of leadership. Using responses from 174 team members and their 23 team leaders in the research and development department of a Danish manufacturing organisation, we confirm our hypotheses. This provides clear guidelines for HRM interventions in organisations using global virtual teams.     

When territory matters: Employer associations and changing collective goods strategies

Recent research shows employer associations strategically responding to external challenges, from collective bargaining decentralisation, by altering their offerings of “selective” goods (to directly address threats to membership levels) and of “elective” goods (to revenues). Implicit is that traditional “collective goods” are irrelevant for achieving sustainability. That literature also suggests that territorial associations are more vulnerable than sectoral ones. In this qualitative, longitudinal comparative case study, we explore why and how two territorial associations, the largest each in Italy and Australia, have pursued sustainability by also innovatively enlarging their collective goods activities. This has involved shifting from bargaining leadership to promoting economic dynamism within their territories. Using metaorganisation theory and the resource‐based view, we explain how these associations realised their strategic advantages. Our evidence suggests that innovatively developing new collective goods may be another important way associations can improve their competitive positions.     

What helps? Women engineers' accounts of staying on

We have considerable understanding of the obstacles that women engineers encounter and the reasons that they leave the field, but we know less about what enables them to remain. Adopting an interpretivist approach, this article examines how a group of British women engineers in two FTSE 100 companies account for “staying on” in their male‐dominated work settings. We delineate four specific forms of help that facilitate women's retention in the field. We argue that exposure to help leads to women developing a habitus that enables them to continue working in engineering. To conclude, we draw on our findings to outline HR practices that will facilitate supportive relationships in the workplace and pave the way towards developing more positive organisational climates.     

An application of Pitman-efficiency to acceptance sampling procedures*

As an exercise the concept of Pitman-efficiency has been applied to the decision problem whether to use acceptance sampling “by attributes” or “by variables”. The Pitman-efficiency has been calculated in the two cases that the variance of the underlying normal distribution is known and that it is unknown. Rather surprisingly the difference between these two cases proves to be considerable, even asymptotically. The asymptotic result is compared with the exact values of the relative efficiency in the case that s? is unknown. The asymptotic approximation appears to be rather good. The results derived also help to determine a suitable choice of the null hypothesis in order to increase the Pitman-efficiency.     

Claiming the corner office: Female CEO careers and implications for leadership development

Drawing on evidence from a unique data set of in‐depth qualitative interviews with 12 female CEOs (and 139 male CEOs) of global corporations, we explore what enables some women to become CEOs. By drawing on our data from male and female CEOs, we set the scene by comparing the advice they would give to young women as they start their careers. We then focus the rest of our article on the experiences and career trajectory of the 12 female CEOs. We make three theoretical contributions: We identify, at the individual level, how women can take active ownership of their careers as part of a self‐acceptance process; how they can embrace gynandrous leadership as part of a self‐development process where both feminine and masculine leadership behaviors are embraced, with the feminine being dominant to help move beyond gender stereotypes, and finally, how they translate leadership—rather than combine—gender‐based behaviors as part of a self‐management process to develop their unique leadership style. For each of these theoretical contributions at the individual level, we also provide two practical recommendations for HR practice and policy, one relating to the intraorganizational context and the second having institutional‐level implications. We conclude by discussing implications for future research.     

Exploring the dynamics of value and fit: Insights from project management

The strategic management literature has struggled with how to recognize, measure, and even understand the concept of “fit” between strategy, structure, and environment. Nevertheless, the concept of fit was fundamentally important from the beginning of the Value of Project Management project. In this article, we compare the “fit” construct defined by Miles and Snow (1984) with our concerns with value direction (Thomas & Mullaly, 2008). A comparative analysis of these two constructs provides insights into how both dimensions improve overall organizational understanding. We demonstrate that while each of these dimensions independently provides useful information, it is their intersection that provides a means of interpreting not just current realities but appropriate future actions.     

Men and women as managers: A significant case of no significant difference

What does it all mean? We've reviewed five studies involving almost 2,000 people compared on a total of 43 scales. We've studied matched pairs and controlled for level of managerial achievement. And after all is said and done, we have detected a total of two overall differences between male and female managers. One of these, involving managerial work motivation, favors females: Their work motivation profiles are more “achieving” than those of their male counter-parts. The other difference, pertaining to interpersonal competence, favors the male managers: They are more open and candid with their colleagues than are females. Add to these the more titillating than significant anomalies of differing back-up style preferences and we are left with one conclusion: Women, in general, do not differ from men, in general, in the ways in which they administer the management process.Managers themselves and their subordinates concur. It seems that the disproportionately low numbers of women in management can no longer be explained away by the contention that women practice a different brand of management from that practiced by men. Whereas this may amount to good news in some quarters, we ought not be prematurely elated by discovering that women manage just the way men do. Carolyn Sherif has pointedly called attention to the fact that all is not necessarily well in today's male-oriented management activities.We of course view management in its more global aspects: The important issue to us is how an individual manages in relation to achievement criteria. Individual achievement and organizational health ultimately depend on the way management is practiced. And we now see that the way management is practiced is not related to the sex of the manager — the issue is generic rather than gender-bound.     

Innovative Leadership as Enabling Function Within Organizations: A Complex Adaptive System Approach

Innovation is vital for organizational thriving in the complex reality of the 21st century. Leadership that flourished in stable environments may need to adapt to support thriving in a new globalized era. What does this type of leadership look like, and how does it function? The current article suggests that such an adaptation may be best expressed through leadership “as enabling function” within the organization as a complex adaptive system.     

I Don't Need Leadership: An Exploration of the Societal Discourse of Leadership

Even with a myriad of definitions of leadership, we still know little about the discourse of leadership in which those of us without formal leadership education and development are embedded. Through a discourse analysis of interviews with a broad cross‐section of 12 “followers,” the current study begins exploring the idea of a societal discourse of leadership and how that discourse complements and conflicts with the academic and workplace discourses. Analysis shows that although individuals define leadership in a similar fashion to the academic discourse, they identify heroic figures as leaders, and they neither look for, nor feel they need, leadership in their own lives.