Leadership development: an experiential learning approach for engineering students

The Problem. There is an urgent need for leadership development in today’s turbulent, organizational context. Methods that support leadership development in collaborative and peer settings as well as spaces and environments where leaders can develop, learn and grow through their collaborative interactions are critical. The Solution. This article explores how an online action learning set established as part of a large-scale management and leadership development intervention provides a space where leadership learning can flourish. The article draws on a theory of practice known as Cultural Historical Activity Theory to identify the micro level details of what occurs when leaders work with others in an online action learning set. The Stakeholders. Human resource development (HRD) researchers, scholars, organizational leaders, practitioners and others interested in contributing to HRD theory.

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.

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.

The purpose of this phenomenological narrative study was to examine Texas regional university librarians’ perceptions of leadership development experiences in order to provide better library services to patrons from all backgrounds. The selected ten academic librarians were interviewed either face-to-face or virtually with in-depth questions about leadership development. The interviews were analyzed to understand the essence of the participants’ experiences and divided into different themes to find patterns. The findings revealed the participants’ perceptions regarding the need for leadership development, their participation in leadership opportunities, and the obstacles to attaining leadership development. Implications included the need for more administrative support and for changes to library school curricula.

The present article attempts to examine the relationship between learning agility and authentic leadership development. The recent rise in the cases of fraud involving leaders at various levels in the organizations, and the resulting distrust among the employees towards their leaders, points to the need to have authentic leaders, given the positive organizational outcomes associated with this leadership approach. Further, scholars have suggested that leadership development is possible through learning from one’s life experiences. The developmental definition of authentic leadership also reflects the importance of learning from past experiences. Yet, studies have largely overlooked to explore the association between learning agility and authentic leadership development. This paper further tries to analyze the moderating effects of learning goal orientation and organizational culture on this relationship. Therefore, based on the existing research, the associations among these factors have been delineated and a conceptual model has been presented along with several propositions. Implications for future research and limitations of this work have also been discussed towards the end.

Just as part 1 of this article (Armitage and Taylor, 2012) introduced the concept of management and leadership, specifically within the context of the ambulance service, part 2 will stimulate further discussion in connection with the development of leadership related knowledge, skills, experience and behaviours among paramedics. Throughout the piece, the need for leadership development at an organisational and professional level will be promoted, and the authors will explore why leadership and leadership development is a key component to paramedic practice, as well as considering how ‘human factors’ and ‘non-technical’ skills are central to a sucessful process of leadership. The NHS Leadership Framework will be reviewed and the authors will consider how it can be used by individuals, organisations and the paramedic profession as a whole to drive leadership development in the future.

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.

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.

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.

Evaluating leadership development using the Most Significant Change technique

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...

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...

An empowering action research study was undertaken to evaluate and strengthen the implementation of shared governance. One aim was to identify factors that acted as aids or barriers to effective decision-making by clinical leaders. As a work-based learning approach, action research was expected to lead to integration of learning into practice by researcher and participants alike. Shared governance replaces traditional hierarchies and requires and develops clinical leaders. Strategies are needed to maximize learning from introduction of such initiatives at the individual, group and organizational level. Participant-observations and interviews were undertaken with shared governance council members from one model in north-west England. Leadership skills and knowledge and shared governance practices were significantly enhanced. Preparation for council roles was considered inadequate. Increased structured time for reflection and action planning was indicated. Implementation of shared governance has succeeded in developing leadership capacity. Evaluation findings have led to improvements in the overall shared governance model. Action research has been found to have great utility at optimizing work-based learning. Nurse Managers need to develop their coaching and facilitating skills and recognize there is no "quick fix" for developing clinical leaders. Implications include the need to support learners in identifying and implementing changes arising from work-based learning activities, the significant resource implications and the need to optimize the organizational climate if work-based learning approaches to leadership and management development are to succeed.

This chapter discusses leadership development (LD) of Polish managers during the process of economic transformation since 1989. The first part of the chapter discusses the Polish managers’ leadership capabilities and their characteristic features and behaviours as contrasted with managers from other Central and Eastern European countries (CEE) and from Western European countries. In the second part changes in the approaches to leadership training and development in Poland are analysed. In addition to discussing company-based LD, the second part of the chapter describes the typical features of management and LD programmes at Polish universities. It can be concluded that there was some progress in leadership competence development over the years. LD is based mostly on Western training models; in addition, Polish managers are learning from their Western counterparts while working on global markets and interacting with MNCs operating in Poland.