Leadership development trends and challenges in the twenty-first century: rethinking the priorities

Leadership emotion: how leaders influence employee wellbeing and performance in the disaster and emergency management context

Leaders play a unique role in the disaster management context as they address the safety needs of communities and manage the complexities of the response and recovery task. Leaders who effectively navigate the challenges of leading in this unique context bring hope and positivity, uniting the efforts of community and government to address the needs of those seeking safety and support. Positive affect is one aspect of effective leadership that receives considerable attention in the academic literature but has, as yet, received little attention in the disaster and emergency management area. This paper draws on contemporary literature on the understanding of positive affect in leadership, bringing together the limited current literature in the area of leader affect in the emergency management context and identifying a significant gap. It calls for a research focus on positive affect in the unique context of disaster and emergency management and consideration of the implications for wellbeing and performance.

The impact of digital leadership on sustainable performance: a systematic literature review

Purpose

In today's constantly changing workplace, leaders encounter new challenges consequent to rising digitization. Tackling these problems effectively requires digital leadership, a prominent idea in discussions about what abilities the managers need to be developed in the digital age. The study analyses the leadership elements needed and determines the impact of digital leadership on sustainable performance. The aim of this systematic literature review (SLR) is to identify the relationship between digital leadership concepts and leadership development by proposing digital leadership for management development to ensure sustainable performance in an organisation.

Design/methodology/approach

ROSES (RepOrting Standards for Systematics Evidence Syntheses) was used as the publication standard for this systematic literature review, which incorporated a variety of research approaches. For this study's article selection, one of the most important scientific databases, Scopus, was used. Only articles published between 2001 and 2021 were reviewed. The focus of the article was on digital leadership and performance.

Findings

This review identified five main themes: leadership styles, measurements of leadership, antecedents to good leadership, outcomes of good leadership and gaps in current research areas. An additional ten sub-themes were derived from the five primary topics.

Originality/value

This paper systematically reviewed two decades of literature related to digital leadership and its impact on sustainable performance. The findings allow leaders to better understand the leadership trend and develop appropriate leadership practices to overcome future challenges for sustainable performance.

The long-term impact of coaching in an executive MBA program

Purpose

The purpose of this qualitative study is to conduct an exploratory investigation of the impact and sustainability of coaching on career and leadership development of students and later, alumni, in an Executive Master of Business Administration (EMBA) program.

Design/methodology/approach

The sample for this qualitative study consisted of 14 alumni of an EMBA program at a private university in the Southwestern US who graduated between January 2012 and May 2019. Eleven alumni participated in the focus groups, and three alumni participated in personal interviews.

Findings

The open coding of the data resulted in three emergent themes (personal development by overcoming personal deficiencies, coaching translates to learning about leadership and coaching motivates sustained change) that confirmed the positive long-term effect of coaching as part of an EMBA program.

Practical implications

By participating in an executive coaching engagement, the EMBA students learned a development process that they could repeat for themselves after graduation and transfer to others. In addition, the EMBA students were able to leverage knowledge gained from the coaching experience for the development of others.

Originality/value

While the positive impacts of coaching are well-documented, its long-term impact on EMBA students/alumni has not yet been studied. This study builds on other evaluative studies to identify the benefits of executive coaching.

Impact of leadership practices on manager’s pathways to goal attainment: the mediating effect of emotional intelligence

Purpose

While the relationship between some leadership styles and emotional intelligence has been studied, leadership practices and emotional intelligence have not been studied for an understanding of how both variables enable a leader to look for pathways to goal attainment. This study aims to examine the impact of leadership practices on pathways to goal attainment while considering the mediating effect of emotional intelligence.

Design/methodology/approach

This study was empirical with an associative strategy. The type of study was explanatory, and latent variables design was followed. The sample consists of 496 Colombian managers, obtained through a non-probability sampling (purposive sample), who work in companies located in Bogota, Colombia. For measuring the variables, three instruments were used, Leadership Practices Inventory, Adult Dispositional Hope Scale and Wong and Law Emotional Intelligence Scale.

Findings

Results from this study suggest that the relationship between leadership practices (model the way, inspire a shared vision and enable others to act) and pathways to goal attainment is mediated by emotional intelligence. Also, leadership practices and emotional intelligence explained 45.60% of the variability of the pathways to goal attainment.

Originality/value

The effectiveness of leadership practices can be explained through the hope they have about the future by using emotional intelligence as an influencing strategy. This study aims to explain how emotional intelligence helps leaders to look for pathways to goal attainment.

Leadership development evaluation (LDE): reflections on a collaboratory approach

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to report on the experience of attempting a “collaboratory” approach in sharing knowledge about leadership development evaluation (LDE). A collaboratory intertwines “collaboration” and “laboratory” to create innovation networks for all sorts of social and technological problems.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors, alongside a variety of public and private sector organisations, created the collaboratory. Within the process, the authors collected various forms of qualitative data (including interviews, observations, letter writing and postcards).

Findings

The findings show key areas of resonance, namely, the ability for participants to network, a creation of a dynamic shift in thinking and practice and the effective blending of theory and practice. Importantly, there are some critiques of the collaboratory approach discussed, including complications around: a lack of “laboratory” (hence bringing into question the idea of collaboratory itself), and the need to further develop the facilitation of such events.

Originality/value

The originality is to ultimately question whether the network actually achieved the collaboratory in reality. This study concludes, however, that there were some distinct benefits within our collaborations, especially around issues associated with LDE, and this study provides recommendations for academics and practitioners in terms of trying similar initiatives.

Exploring the leadership development journey of SME owner-managers

Purpose

This research aimed to investigate influences on and opinions of leadership development in small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) business owner-managers. Therefore, the objective of this study was to respond to the research question – How do SMEs’ founder-owner-managers develop their leadership over time?

Design/methodology/approach

This study applies a history narrative qualitative method to explore the leadership development journey of SMEs’ founder-owner-managers throughout their lifetime. Fifteen founder-owner-managers were interviewed.

Findings

Five main themes emerge reflecting a social contextual process starting from early childhood: (1) the dominant influence of parents on leadership qualities and behaviours; (2) the importance of sports activities in shaping leadership qualities and identities; (3) the dominant influence of role models especially bad role models on leadership perceptions and behaviours; (4) the importance of self-learning, experimentation and self-reflection in developing entrepreneurship capability and (5) the importance of community-based social networks in gaining support and practicing leadership capability.

Originality/value

The originality of this research lies within the methodology used whereby a history narrative qualitative method is employed to develop data for analysis purposes. Using this methodology, this study contributes to a broader understanding of SMEs’ founder-owner-managers’ leadership development journey by taking a more expansive view to explore the development process throughout their lifetime.

A conscious leadership competency framework for leadership training

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to propose a conscious leadership competency framework to be used in business training as well as in managerial study programs.

Design/methodology/approach

First, using literature review, the current state of knowledge in conscious leadership competency frameworks was examined. Subsequently, a framework analysis on a specific topical book was conducted to find competencies that determine a conscious leader. The output of this analysis was compared with a comprehensive leadership competency framework to propose a conscious leadership competency framework. This conscious leadership competency framework was then verified in interviews with conscious leaders.

Findings

Until now, a conscious leadership competency framework has not been proposed. Yet, there are competencies specific to conscious leaders that are not included in existing leadership competency frameworks. A new conscious leadership competency framework including possible ways of how to train and develop the conscious leadership competencies is suggested for future discussion.

Research limitations/implications

Research limitations are discussed in this paper. More research in this area and further development of the conscious leadership competency framework are suggested.

Practical implications

The proposed conscious leadership competency framework can be further discussed and developed, therefore becoming an effective tool for companies as well as educational institutions.

Social implications

More consciousness in leadership will help tackle many current societal challenges.

Originality/value

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the proposed conscious leadership competency framework is the first of its kind.

Reflections from the field (mountain, cityscape and park): walking for management development and links to being-in-the world, belonging and “Ba”

Purpose

The purpose of this paper, based on reflections from practice, is to shed light on the realities of using walking as a tool for learning and development. This is done through an initial analysis of longitudinal reflective data spanning seven years and connecting these reflections to the concepts: being-in-the-world, belonging and Ba.

Design/methodology/approach

This research takes a practice based phenomenological and reflective approach. The value of this approach is to seek a new understanding, through three distinct conceptual frames, of the effective use of walking within management development.

Findings

The findings connect three conceptual approaches of being-in-the-world, belonging and “Ba” to the practicalities of delivery, thus encouraging practitioners and designers to deeply reflect on the role of walking in management development.

Research limitations/implications

A limitation is that this is largely a personal story exploring the impact of an intuitively developed set of interventions. Despite this, the paper represents a unique and deep interpretation of walking as a mechanism for management development.

Practical implications

The paper concludes with three recommendations to practitioners wanting to use walking in management development programmes. These are: facilitators need to be familiar with their surroundings; they should look for spaces and places where participants can connect and build relationships; and organisers and sponsors need to recognise how walking not only consolidates knowledge but can help create knowledge too.

Originality/value

This is a unique, seven-year longitudinal study that broadens the theoretical focus of walking as a mechanism for management and leadership development that combines the theoretical lenses of being-in-the-world, belonging and “Ba”, the authors believe, for the first time in research on management development.

Linking ethical leadership to administrative innovation in Ethiopian banks: the mediating role of knowledge process capabilities

Purpose

This paper aims to examine the mediating role of knowledge process capability (KPC) between ethical leadership (EL) and administrative innovation (AI) in the banking sector of Ethiopia.

Design/methodology/approach

The study was conducted by a standardized questionnaire survey to collect the data from 266 employees of Commercial Bank of Ethiopia in 93 branches. The study employed structural equation modeling approach with Analyzing Moment of Structures 23.0 to test the hypothesized mediation model.

Findings

The results of this investigation disclose that EL has a significant and direct effect on AI and KPC. KPC also influences AI significantly.

Originality/value

The study revealed that KPC plays a partial mediating role in linking EL to AI, which is a new contribution to the existing literature of EL. This dimension can provide new dimensions to design organizational leadership which is based on sustainability paradigm. This can strengthen the organizational capabilities aiming to increasing innovative behaviors in order to have a deep-seated strategy.