The complexity of leadership and organisations

The thesis contributes to the evolving process of moving the study of Complexity from the arena of metaphor to something real and operational. Acknowledging this phenomenon ultimately changes the underlying assumptions made about working environments and leadership; organisations are dynamic and so should their leaders be. Dynamic leaders are behaviourally complex. Behavioural Complexity is a product of behavioural repertoire - range of behaviours; and behavioural differentiation - where effective leaders apply appropriate behaviour to the demands of the situation. Behavioural Complexity was operationalised using the Competing Values Framework (CVF). The CVF is a measure that captures the extent to which leaders demonstrate four behaviours on four quadrants: Control, Compete, Collaborate and Create, which are argued to be critical to all types of organisational leadership. The results provide evidence to suggest Behavioural Complexity is an enabler of leadership effectiveness; Organisational Complexity (captured using a new measure developed in the thesis) moderates Behavioural Complexity and leadership effectiveness; and leadership training supports Behavioural Complexity in contributing to leadership effectiveness. Most definitions of leadership come down to changing people’s behaviour. Such definitions have contributed to a popularity of focus in leadership research intent on exploring how to elicit change in others when maybe some of the popularity of attention should have been on eliciting change in the leader them self. It is hoped that this research will provoke interest into the factors that cause behavioural change in leaders that in turn enable leadership effectiveness and in doing so contribute to a better understanding of leadership in organisations.

The relationship between transformational leadership and customer-orientated boundary-spanning behaviours:examining the role of compassion

Customer-oriented boundary-spanning behaviours (COBSBs) are critical to the success of service organisations. Transformational leadership, with its emphasis on the social elements of the leader-subordinate dyad, is a likely antecedent to COBSBs. Similarly, the interpersonal nature of services suggests leader compassion could have a significant effect on the saliency of the relationship between transformational leadership and COBSBs. This paper reports on a study of the moderating effect of leader compassion on the relationship between transformational leadership and COBSBs (service delivery behaviours, internal influence and external representation). Transformational leadership and compassion both have significant and positive influences on COBSBs. However, compassion plays no moderating role. These findings are discussed and avenues for further research are proposed.

The effect of transformational leadership and regulatory effect on creativity:testing two competitive models

Presentation of an abstract

The relationship between transformational leadership and innovative behaviour in a healthcare context:a team learning versus a cohesion perspective

The purpose of this study was to explore whether the relationship between transformational leadership and innovative behaviour is explained via the mediating role of team learning, or whether instead team cohesion mediates this relationship. Using survey data from 158 professionals within 21 teams in the Dutch healthcare context, we tested by means of hierarchical regression analyses: (a) the relationship between transformational leadership and innovative behaviour; (b) whether team learning or cohesion mediates this relationship; and (c) the relationship between team learning and cohesion, in relation to transformational leadership. Results showed that transformational leadership is positively related to innovative behaviour and that both cohesion and team learning mediate this relationship, with team learning being the strongest mediator. Addressing a neglected area, our study provides evidence to show that managers who enhance team learning are likely to maximise employees' scope for engaging in innovative behaviours. © 2012 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

Leadership and style in the French Fifth Republic:Nicolas Sarkozy’s presidency in historical and cultural perspective

This article contributes to the body of the developing theoretical research in leadership and presidential studies by adding analysis of what I have termed ‘comportmental style’ as a factor in leader/follower relations. Within institutionalism and the wider structure/agency debate in political science, one of the challenges as regards the study of leadership is to identify factors that offer scope to or else militate against leaders’ performance. The comportmental style of Nicolas Sarkozy (President of the French Republic 2007–2012), deployed in the context of the – changing – institution of the presidency, was a major factor in his extreme unpopularity, and contributed to his defeat in 2012. What this tells us about the nature of the changing French presidency and the role of style will be discussed in the conclusion.

Implicit leadership and followership theories 'in the wild':taking stock of information-processing approaches to leadership and followership in organizational settings

For over 30. years information-processing approaches to leadership and more specifically Implicit Leadership Theories (ILTs) research has contributed a significant body of knowledge on leadership processes in applied settings. A new line of research on Implicit Followership Theories (IFTs) has re-ignited interest in information-processing and socio-cognitive approaches to leadership and followership. In this review, we focus on organizational research on ILTs and IFTs and highlight their practical utility for the exercise of leadership and followership in applied settings. We clarify common misperceptions regarding the implicit nature of ILTs and IFTs, review both direct and indirect measures, synthesize current and ongoing research on ILTs and IFTs in organizational settings, address issues related to different levels of analysis in the context of leadership and follower schemas and, finally, propose future avenues for organizational research. © 2013 Elsevier Inc.

Leadership and management research in Africa:a synthesis and suggestions for future research

Although we are aware of some positive cases of leadership and management emerging on the African continent, very little empirical or theoretical work has addressed leadership and management in Africa. This raises a challenge for African nations in that ultimately a country's economic performance is contingent on the effectiveness of its leadership and management practices that serve to unlock the potential of its workforce to effectively implement the strategic goals of organizations. Against the backdrop of an increasingly knowledge-dependent global marketplace, the centrality of leadership and effective management systems as drivers of individual and organization performance has never been more critical. This special section brings together a compendium of papers that advances the science of leadership and management within the African context. Our principle goal was to examine what is unique, what generalizes, and what does not generalize from the West and East to Africa, as well as within different regions of Africa and then offer ideas to guide future research and practice. The papers in this section provide a broad and indeed innovative approach to studying leadership and management in Africa by including historical, philosophical, economic, and socio-political perspectives, as part of the analyses of leadership and management in the African context. Our editorial provides an integration of this work and a launching point for some audacious goals for future leadership and management science and practice in Africa and beyond. ©2011 The British Psychological Society.

Political leadership and the politics of performance:France, Syria and the chemical weapons crisis of 2013

This article draws upon developments in UK research on political rhetoric and political performance in order to examine the incident in 2013 when French President François Hollande committed French forces to a US-led punitive strike against Syria, after the use of chemical weapons in a Damascus suburb on 21 August. The US-led retaliation did not take place. This article analyses Hollande's declaration on 27 July and his TV appearance on 15 September. His rhetoric and style are best understood as generic to the nature of the presidential office of the Fifth Republic. The article concludes by appraising how analysis of the French case contributes to the developing literature on rhetoric, celebrity and performance.

Beyond the particular and universal:dependence, independence, and interdependence of context, justice, and ethics

This article reflects on context effects in the study of behavioral ethics and organizational justice. After a general overview, we review three key challenges confronting research in these two domains. First, we consider social scientific versus normative approaches to inquiry. The former aims for a scientific description, while the latter aims to provide prescriptive advice for moral conduct. We argue that the social scientific view can be enriched by considering normative paradigms. The next challenge we consider, involves the duality of morally upright versus morally inappropriate behavior. We observe that there is a long tradition of categorizing behavior dichotomously (e.g., good vs. bad) rather than continuously. We conclude by observing that more research is needed to compare the dichotomous versus continuous perspectives. Third, we examine the role of “cold” cognitions and “hot” affect in making judgments of ethicality. Historically speaking, research has empathized cognition, though recent work has begun to add greater balance to affective reactions. We argue that both cognition and affect are important, but more research is needed to determine how they work together. After considering these three challenges, we then turn to our special issue, providing short reviews of each contribution and how they help in better addressing the three challenges we have identified.

Conceptualizing leadership perceptions as attitudes:using attitude theory to further the understanding of the relation between leadership and outcomes

Leadership is one of the most examined factors in relation to understanding employee wellbeing and performance. While there are disparate approaches to studying leadership, they share a common assumption that perceptions of a leader's behavior determine reactions to the leader. The concept of leadership perception is poorly understood in most theoretical approaches. To address this, we propose that there are many benefits from examining leadership perceptions as an attitude towards the leader. In this review, we show how research examining a number of aspects of attitudes (content, structure and function) can advance understanding of leadership perceptions and how these affect work-related outcomes. Such a perspective provides a more multi-faceted understanding of leadership perceptions than previously envisaged and this can provide a more detailed understanding of how such perceptions affect outcomes. In addition, we examine some of the main theoretical and methodological implications of viewing leadership perceptions as attitudes to the wider leadership area. The cross-fertilization of research from the attitudes literature to understanding leadership perceptions provides new insights into leadership processes and potential avenues for further research. (C) 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved

Leadership and organisational outcomes in healthcare

This research examined to what extent and how leadership is related to organisational outcomes in healthcare. Based on the Job Demands-Resource model, a set of hypotheses was developed, which predicted that the effect of leadership on healthcare outcomes would be mediated by job design, employee engagement, work pressure, opportunity for involvement, and work-life balance. The research focused on the National Health Service (NHS) in England, and examined the relationships between senior leadership, first line supervisory leadership and outcomes. Three years of data (2008 – 2010) were gathered from four data sources: the NHS National Staff Survey, the NHS Inpatient Survey, the NHS Electronic Record, and the NHS Information Centre. The data were drawn from 390 healthcare organisations and over 285,000 staff annually for each of the three years. Parallel mediation regressions modelled both cross sectional and longitudinal designs. The findings revealed strong relationships between senior leadership and supervisor support respectively and job design, engagement, opportunity for involvement, and work-life balance, while senior leadership was also associated with work pressure. Except for job design, there were significant relationships between the mediating variables and the outcomes of patient satisfaction, employee job satisfaction, absenteeism, and turnover. Relative importance analysis showed that senior leadership accounted for significantly more variance in relationships with outcomes than supervisor support in the majority of models tested. Results are discussed in relation to theoretical and practical contributions. They suggest that leadership plays a significant role in organisational outcomes in healthcare and that previous research may have underestimated how influential senior leaders may be in relation to these outcomes. Moreover, the research suggests that leaders in healthcare may influence outcomes by the way they manage the work pressure, engagement, opportunity for involvement and work-life balance of those they lead.

The role of law and ethics in developing business management as a profession

Currently, business management is far from being recognised as a profession. This paper suggests that a professional spirit should be developed which could function as a filter of commercial reasoning. Broadly, management will not be organised within the framework of a well-established profession unless formal knowledge, licensing, professional autonomy and professional codes of conduct are developed sufficiently. In developing business management as a profession, law may play a key role. Where the idea is that business management should be more professsionalised, managers must show that they are willing to adopt ethical values, while arriving at business decisions. The paper argues that ethics cannot survive without legal regulation, which, in turn, will not be supported by law unless lawyers can find alternative solutions to the large mechanisms of the official society, secured by the monopolised coercion of the nation state. From a micro perspective of law and business ethics, communities can be developed with their own conventions, rules and standards that are generated and sanctioned within the boundaries of the communities themselves.

Remote learning and laboratory center over Internet and ISDN

Recent advances in telecommunications technologies have transformed the modes of learning and teaching. One potentially vital component in the equation will be Remote Education or Remote Learning, the ability to compress time and space between teachers and students through the judicious application of technology. The purpose of this thesis is to develop a Remote Learning and Laboratory Center over the Internet and ISDN, which provide education and access to resources to those living in remote areas, children in hospitals and traveling families, with audio, video and data.^ Remote Learning and Laboratory Center (RLLC) is not restricted to merely traditional education processes such as universities or colleges, it can be very useful for companies to train their engineers, via networks. This capability will facilitate the best use of scarce, high quality educational resources and will bring equity of services to students as well as will be helpful to the Industries to train their engineers. The RLLC over the Internet and ISDN has been described in details and implemented successfully. For the Remote Laboratory, the experiment procedure has been demonstrated on reprogrammable CPLD design using ISR Kit. ^

The relationship between staff perceptions of principal leadership and school performance

The climate of a school can be defined as the set of internal characteristics that distinguishes one school from another and influences the behavior of its members (Hoy & Hannum, 1997). Schools with a positive climate have been shown to positively impact students (Hoy, 1972). A principal’s leadership style influences the climate that, in turn, impacts student performance. ^ In this work, the researcher investigated Miami-Dade County Public Schools in order to determine if there was a relationship between instructional staff members’ perceptions of their school’s principals, a derivative of the district’s school climate studies, and their schools’ grades. ^ Eight School Climate Survey items were inter-correlated. The smallest intercorrelation was .83, which is still a large intercorrelation, and the largest intercorrelation was .96. Pearson’s correlation analysis (Healey, 2004) was run to determine the relationship between schools’ earned points and averaged survey responses. Survey items 8, 9, 12 and 13 had weak (less than .30) positive correlations to schools’ earned points. Survey items 7, 10, 11 and 14 had moderate (above .30) positive correlations to schools’ earned points. ^ The researcher created a composite variable (Pallant, 2007) from all the School Climate Survey responses. This composite variable, titled Principal Leadership Score, allowed the researcher to determine that approximately 9% of the variance in the points earned by schools in 2009 can be accounted for by how teachers in this study perceived the leadership of their principals. ^ This study’s findings of a moderate positive correlation between teachers’ perceptions of principal leadership and school performance supports earlier research linking school climate and school performance. Due to the fact that the leadership of the principal affects, either positively or negatively, the learning and working environment of students and teachers, it is recommended that principals use the eight School Climate Survey items examined within this study as guides (Pepper & Thomas, 2002). Through focusing on these survey items, principals may be propelled to self-identify their leadership strengths as well as leadership weaknesses.^