Unravelling leadership potential: conceptual and measurement issues

Exploring the Motivation to Lead in a Demanding Environment: The Role of Achievement Values, Grit, and Psychological Capital

As leaders across organizational contexts continue to face volatile and often stressful environments, a greater understanding of the psychological underpinnings of the motivation to lead (MTL) in challenging circumstances is needed. Based on a sample of 242 cadets holding leadership positions in a military college, we utilized a distal and proximal conceptualization of MTL to test achievement values, grit, and psychological capital (PsyCap) as antecedents to the three factors of MTL. Controlling for gender, prior leadership positions, and leader tenure, regression modeling revealed grit and achievement values to be positively associated with affective/identity MTL, while PsyCap was positively associated with all three MTL factors. In addition, PsyCap mediated the relation between grit and all three MTL factors. Our findings suggest that PsyCap plays a critical proximal role in MTL in demanding environments, and further implications for research and practice are discussed.

Developing a leadership potential model for the new era of work and organizations

Purpose

Unprecedented transformations to the nature of work and organizations are compelling leadership and organization development scholars and practitioners to reexamine the relevance and utility existing models of leadership potential. While there exist several published leadership potential models, the range and intensity of environmental forces fundamentally changing the nature of work and organizations demands a revision of leadership potential. The purpose of this study is to develop a leadership potential model that reflects the current and emerging nature of work and leadership challenges while also providing organizations a practical tool for talent review processes, succession planning and leadership development practices.

Design/methodology/approach

This article presents a field study consisting of semistructured interviews with 45 leaders engaged in a highly complex, volatile and uncertain industry: US healthcare.

Findings

Our results illustrate a dynamic two-dimensional model of leadership potential that comprises both cognitive (analytical aptitude and learning agility) and behavioral (people savvy and leadership capability) competencies operating across micro- and macro-levels of influence.

Practical implications

The article concludes with a series of recommendations for how leadership and organization development professionals, executive teams and boards may utilize the model for leader assessment and selection practices, talent review and succession planning and talent development initiatives.

Originality/value

The proposed model of leadership potential offers several advancements to the field's existing theoretical frameworks. The proposed model highlights the criticality of competencies aligned with the changing nature of work, including collaboration skills, divergent thinking, environmental scanning and evaluating data in ambiguous contexts. The model diverges from the existing theory by establishing leader drive as a motivation to serve others and initiate sustainable changes in business operations.