Evaluating leadership development using the Most Significant Change technique

Deepening leadership identity development.

The demand for global leadership competencies has grown significantly as the global workforce has become increasingly interconnected. Thus, it is imperative that universities develop those global competencies in students who will soon be entering the workforce. This paper describes the design of a Global Leadership Development (GLD) course for undergraduate business students and demonstrates students’ growth in key global leadership competencies, without requiring international travel. The course utilized a variety of best practices in GLD, including traditional lecture and classroom activities, self-awareness and personal development plans, cross-cultural training via a platform called Cultural Wizard, and international exchange using collaborative online international learning (COIL) pedagogy. According to the results of the data, students enrolled in the GLD course had a significant increase from the start to the end of the semester in their overall intercultural effectiveness, and in two of the three dimensions on the IES measure: continuous learning and interpersonal engagement, but not for hardiness. The results, implications for practice, and future research are discussed.

This study assessed the correlation between educational leaders’ conflict management styles and the non – teaching employees’ organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) in A University. The respondents of the study were the 98 non – teaching employees from the various departments within A University. The study used adapted questionnaires that were customized to harmonize with the specific objective of establishing a relationship between conflict management styles and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) among non-teaching staff. For the evaluation of conflict management styles, the researcher employed a modified version of the Thomas-Kilmann Model questionnaire, incorporating avoidance, accommodation, compromise, collaboration, and competition as the variables. To gauge the OCB of non-teaching employees, the researcher adapted a 25-item instrument rooted in the OCB scale formulated by Podsakoff in 1990. This tool encompasses facets such as altruism, courtesy, civic virtue, sportsmanship, and conscientiousness. Based on the conclusions derived in this study, the following are the recommendations: The study recommends implementing a conflict management program within organizations to address issues and foster an ideal working environment. It suggests offering training programs for leaders to improve conflict resolution skills, promoting open communication and recognizing high-level organizational citizenship behavior. The program should also encourage cross-functional communication and teamwork, and incorporate conflict management training into leadership development courses. The goal is to create a conflict management program where issues are skillfully addressed, ensuring that employees from diverse backgrounds feel valued and motivated. This Proactive Conflict Resolution Program aims to prevent conflicts from escalating, promoting a positive work environment by implementing proactive conflict resolution strategies based on organizational citizenship behavior.

The issue of ethics in leadership has taken greater importance in the today's business world due to globalization and rapid advancement in information technology which has significantly transformed current business practices. Most universities in the United States (US) now have at least one course that includes ethics or related topics in their undergraduate engineering curricula. However, due to qualitative and abstract nature of the topic, the ethics course does not draw the same level of attention from students compared to other courses like physics and math. In this paper, we propose an innovative way of teaching ethics and leadership topics at the undergraduate level. In particular, the paper presents a case study of a senior level course in ethics and leadership development for an Industrial Distribution program at a major university in the Southwestern US. The course focuses on learning about personal leadership skills within the context of an organization. It examines the role and purpose of ethics in business and presents methods of moral reasoning in order to resolve ethical dilemmas. The paper describes how teaching based on "case study" approach has improved students understanding of the concepts and generated interest in the topic. We also discuss a sample case and overall course planning and execution framework, just in case any other instructor is considering teaching the similar course. Finally, student feedbacks are presented to demonstrate the successful implementation of the proposed teaching method.

Lots of companies recognize the need for leadership development. However, there is still not a consensus about what practices or bundle of practices can be used for the effective development of leadership competencies. Many existing methods are focused on emulation of characteristics of successful leaders or the development of personal competencies based, for example, on psychological traits tests. Therefore, a better understanding of the application of more holistic methods for leadership development is necessary. Such methods consider personality traits as well as the organizational context where leaders are inserted. Some recent theories that have contributed to this area include Authentic Leadership Development (ALD) and Positive Organizational Scholarship (POS). Furthermore, emotional and social intelligence continue to be highly relevant subjects for leadership development because of the correlation between these attributes and leaders` performance. This study proposes a leadership development program that encompasses fundamental concepts related to the implementation of practices that are considered suitable for organizations and individuals. The focus on the development of positive behaviors instead of the identification and resolution of imperfections is a characteristic of the proposed program. The research includes four steps: research motivation and goals definition, literature review, action research, and final considerations and conclusion. The action research step included two iterations in which the program was tested and optimized according to the learning process of the researcher. The program was offered to engineering students due to the necessity for leadership development for these future professionals and due to the lack of disciplines focused on leadership development in the engineering curriculum. Thus, the study aims to achieve a better understanding of leadership development and the implementation of practices for leadership development in engineering. Finally, a detailed syllabus of the proposed leadership development course and a method for evaluating the program is presented along with the insights acquired in the action research and recommendations for future research.

IntroductionAn ageing population, global pandemic and chronic staff shortage are culprits of the exhausted, burnt-out national health service (NHS). The NHS value of ‘working together for patients’ encourages interprofessional collaboration...

This project provides instructors seeking to integrate Service Learning (SL) into collegiate level courses a model for future use and adoption. Approximately 60 students in a collegiate youth leadership course and two collegiate student organizations participated in a SL project at an environmental center in West Philadelphia. The majority of students who participated were enrolled in either the youth leadership development course or in a special topics course on SL. In both instances students were exposed to service learning from an historical and operational perspective and participated in guided reflection at the completion of the project. The SL project allowed the instructors to model a unique experiential learning strategy that could be adopted by future agricultural education instructors, 4-H youth development educators, collegiate or youth organizations.

The structured 28-day mindfulness and contemplative journey presented in this book will help aspiring and current leaders to clarify their identities, and identify and reflect on their mental models to become more expansive leaders. The present moment demands new ways of being, doing, and relating with the world. To meet this moment, we need fresh, collective, inclusive, and interdependent models of leadership and new approaches to leadership development. This book goes beyond the ‘McMindfulness’ often seen in mindful leadership books, to offer a multi-faceted approach to develop a more interconnected sense of self and interdependence-centric mindsets needed for expansive leadership, through mindfulness practice. Through this practice, leaders can cultivate the ability to make deliberate choices using slow thinking and overcome any unconscious and implicit biases that are the result of fast-thinking processes. Anchored in insights from over ten years of teaching mindfulness-based leadership development courses, this book is an invitation to explore how to be a leader in an expansive, inclusive, robust, and resilient way. The reader will have an opportunity to define and refine their identity, uncover their personal mental models, and conclude by developing their own leadership philosophy. Leadership development professionals and teachers can adopt this for their students, coaching, and consulting clients.

Reviewed by: College Student Leadership Development by Valerie I. Sessa Paige Haber-Curran College Student Leadership Development Valerie I. Sessa New York, NY: Routledge, 2017, 213 pages, $49.95 (softcover) Informed by her research on college student leaders, Valerie I. Sessa focuses College Student Leadership Development on how students can learn leadership and develop as leaders. The book serves as a resource to college students, providing a learning model for intentionally guiding one's leadership development. In acknowledging that many skills-based models of leadership exist, Sessa aims to focus less on what one should learn (i.e., skills and behaviors) and more on how one can learn leadership. Sessa has a background in industrial and organizational psychology and has experience as a faculty member in academia, a research scientist and director at the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL), and an organizational consultant. The definition of leadership presented in the book, "accomplishment of three tasks: direction, alignment, and commitment" (p. xiv), is influenced by the CCL's approach to leadership. This definition allows for individuals, regardless of whether or not they hold a positional role, to participate in the tasks of leadership through developing direction and vision, working together through alignment, and committing to the vision by making it a priority. [End Page 255] The author bases this book on research she and her colleagues conducted on college student leaders (Sessa, Morgan, Kalenderli, & Hammand, 2014). In their study, Sessa et al. (2014) sought to extend research on the leadership competencies and skills learned by successful business executives, which was conducted by CCL researchers in the 1980s (Lindsey, Homes, & McCall, 1987), by replicating the study with college students. The study focused on key developmental events that college student leaders said they experienced and key learning lessons gained from these events. Such events included tackling challenging assignments, receiving mentorship, taking a leadership course, and engaging with peers. The first three chapters in the book set the foundation of learning and leadership for the rest of the book by introducing the reader to the concept of leadership and helping the reader connect with the topic, presenting key fundamentals about learning and specifically learning leadership. Sessa emphasizes four leadership learning outcomes: learning about oneself as a leader (i.e., leader identity); learning about different ways to think about leadership and leaders, learning key leader skills and competencies, and learning formal leadership knowledge (i.e., models, theories, language). The next five chapters are framed around the ReAChS model for leadership development, which includes the four components of reflection, assessment, challenge, and support. Sessa developed the model by integrating components of CCL's Assessment, Challenge, and Support Model of leadership development (McCauley, VanVelsor, & Ruderman, 2010) and a systems analysis organizational learning model that she and a colleague developed (London & Sessa, 2006). The ReAChS model is meant to be a tool for students to "take control of [their] leadership learning and development while in college and beyond" (p. 38) and includes four components. Reflection focuses on stepping back from an experience in order to examine it and make meaning of it. Assessment involves learning more about oneself including one's strengths, developmental needs, leadership effectiveness, motivation, self-efficacy for leadership, and personality or character traits. Challenges are described as "learning triggers" that are new experiences requiring skills or perspectives that haven not yet been used or developed. Support focuses on the network of people who can assist in one's learning process. The ReAChS chapters include a range of reflection prompts, exercises, self-assessment exercises, and other tools. These interactive components invite readers to make meaning of their experience, personalize the content, and consider how they can intentionally craft their leadership development journey. There are also many examples from student leaders and excerpts from Sessa et al.'s (2014) research. The book closes with a chapter on synthesizing and communicating one's leadership story. Sessa provides guidance on creating a leadership learning and development portfolio that includes many components such as accomplishment stories; verbiage about jobs, positions, experiences to highlight on a resume; and a personal statement on leadership. The hands-on and interactive exercises can help readers better understand their own leadership learning and effectively communicate...

<p style="text-align: justify;">A National Science Foundation-funded Mathematics and Science Partnership program, <em>Leadership for Educators: Academy for Driving Economic Revitalization in Science</em><em> </em>(LEADERS), aimed to develop science teacher leaders who would influence the quality of science teaching in their respective schools. To fulfill a need to evaluate leadership abilities of teachers within LEADERS, a Teacher Leadership Instrument was developed based on our previous work. This paper examines the performance of teachers as outlined in the Teacher Leader Model (TLM) Standards following their enrollment in three teacher leadership courses aligned with these Standards. The study employed a qualitative approach to analyze peer professional development sessions provided by teacher leaders, and to rate leadership behaviours and practices. Results indicate that 31 of the 37 functions were exhibited by the teacher leaders, with most observations occurring at a developing level. Behaviours related to effective presentation and facilitation were observed most frequently, but the teacher leaders also incorporated research-based practices, information about assessments, and links to the community in their sessions. Further, these behaviours linked back to the intended outcomes of the three leadership courses. The results demonstrate one manner in which teacher leaders perform the functions of the TLM Standards in the context of professional development sessions.</p>

There is a dire need for moral leaders in today's society. Even when we have high hopes, reality frequently falls well short of our expectations. Although some leadership development courses include ethical instruction, they frequently use one of two oversimplified or obscure approaches. This book fills the void in educating ethical leaders by introducing numerous ethical theories and offering extensive examples to aid in decision-making. Several leadership approaches that emphasise ethics are also discussed. The Five Components of Leadership Model is used to provide a consistent case analysis that helps readers get a deeper grasp of what it means to be an ethical leader.

Public health nurses (PHNs) are vital in the local implementation of the provisions of the Universal Healthcare (UHC) Act of 2019. However, they need adequate competencies in health systems approach to successfully implement the provisions of the law. In response to this, a leadership development course for public health nurses (LDC-PHN), anchored on the building blocks of health systems, was developed and implemented. This paper aims to describe the extent to which training participants have applied the competencies acquired from the LDC-PHN as manifested by the workplace application of their capstone projects. Following Kirkpatrick's Model of Evaluation, we used a multi-method study design to evaluate the extent of the participants' workplace application of acquired competencies. Sources of data included the Workplace Application Plan (WAP) accomplished by each participant, a questionnaire to determine the perceived implementation status of the participants' capstone project, interviews, and focus group discussions (FGDs) conducted with selected participants and their supervisors, and observation visits. Data were collected from May to December 2022. Data from the semistructured interviews and FGDs were analyzed through content analysis, while the participants' perceived status of their capstone project implementation was summarized as frequencies. Majority of the participants (61.9%) reported partial implementation of their capstone project while 16.77% reported full implementation. Capstone project implementation was facilitated by the support received from their supervisors and local chief executives. Barriers identified included the demands of the COVID-19 pandemic and the challenges imposed by the events before and after the 2022 Philippine National elections. Major themes emerged from the interviews conducted among participants and their supervisors. The workplace application of the training program outcomes, based on participants' perspectives, yielded increased capacity to lead and innovate, improved ability to advocate for capstone project implementation, transferability of acquired skill sets, and improved population outcomes. From supervisors' perspectives, workplace application of training program outcomes include increased ability of PHNs to deliver health services, and visible enhancement of leadership and supervision skills among PHNs. Given ample support and opportunities, and despite the barriers and challenges they faced, LDC-PHN participants, in general, utilized and applied the competencies they gained from the course in their actual work setting. Course graduates participated in health systems strengthening at various capacities by acting upon their capstone projects that addressed UHC challenges within their particular work settings.

Rates of suicide in the Active Component of the military have significantly increased since 2010, with particularly high rates among Army service members. One element of the Army's approach to suicide prevention relies on noncommissioned officers (NCOs) as gatekeepers who have regular contact with soldiers. NCOs receive suicide prevention training, but there is limited evidence that such training leads to behavior change. We surveyed 2468 Army NCOs participating in leadership development courses to determine (a) if training on suicide prevention and soft skills (e.g., active listening) was associated with gatekeeper behavior and use of soft skills; and (b) whether that association was explained by two potential barriers, stigma and perceptions of efficacy. Both the number of suicide prevention training topics and soft skills trained were associated with increased gatekeeper behavior; these relationships were explained in part by lower stigma and higher efficacy for use of soft skills. The use of interactive training methods and receiving coaching after training were not associated with stigma or efficacy, though both methods were associated with more frequent use of soft skills. Results suggest that the content and format of training is important to preparing NCOs to fulfill a gatekeeper role.

AimsPractical leadership skills have never been more important in healthcare professionals than over the last year, during the global COVID-19 pandemic. In response we transformed a four-day face to face...

The number of recognized leadership development programs in institutions of higher education is rapidly nearing 1,000. This includes all three forms of leadership programs-training, education, and development, as outlined by Ayman, Adams, Hartman, and Fisher (chap. 11, this volume; also see Mangan, 2002; Sorenson, 2000). Yet, relatively few of these programs are curricular-based undergraduate programs offering academic credit in the form of a bachelor’s degree, academic minor, or certificate. The purposes of this chapter are (a) to provide an overview of the historical and conceptual development of undergraduate leadership studies programs, (b) to connect college-based leadership studies programs withthe larger literature on leadership development via a model, (c) to provide guidelines for undergraduate curricular programs, and (d) to provide specific examples of leadership studies curricula with a liberal arts focus.