This study documented the psychometric development of the Adaptive Leadership Competency Profile (ALCP). The ALCP was derived from a qualitative database from the National Science Foundation project (NSF 9422368) and the academic body of literature. Test items were operationalized, and subject matter experts validated 11 macro-leadership competencies and 65 items. Rasch rating scale measurement models were applied to answer the following questions: (a) How well do the respective items of the ALCP fit the Rasch rating scale measurement model for the 11 scales of the ACLP? (b) How well do the person's abilities fit the Rasch rating scale measurement model, using the 11 scales of the ALCP? (c) What are the item separation and reliability coefficients for the 11 ALCP scales? (d) What are the person separation and reliability coefficients for the 11 ALCP scales? This study also sought to discern whether the ALCP could predict leader effectiveness as measured by the likelihood ratio index and frequency of correct predictions indices. The WINSTEPS and LIMDEP programs were used to obtain Rasch calibrations and probit estimates, respectively. The ALCP profiles the frequency and intensity of leadership behavior. Composite measures were calculated and used to predict leadership effectiveness. Results from this study validated 10 competencies and 55 items.

Covid-19 is a virus that has been rapidly spreading throughout the entire world from the start of 2020 and continued even during 2021. In a little bit over a year Sweden had more than one million confirmed cases of Covid-19. This virus has caused companies to start working remotely, by distance, to minimize the spread of the virus, which has forced employees and managers to adapt to the new way of working. The quick change to working remotely, in virtual teams, can cause challenges that require managers to adapt or change their leadership to effectively handle the transition. In this study, the purpose is to examine leadership and how managers experience the way of managing by distance. This study will also seek an understanding of which challenges and changes in the leadership that are the main consequences and also how managers have changed their way of working with motivation, communication and monitoring during remote work. To conduct the study a qualitative research method has been applied where only one company has been studied to get a deeper understanding of this phenomenon and to collect data ten semi-structured interviews were conducted and six questionnaires were sent. The company in this study is anonymous, which means that when the company is mentioned it will be by a fictitious name. The findings showed that the leadership’s main challenges were the social distance, the lack of natural encounters, the sensitive conversations and to see employees’ well-being as well as their body language. Based on the empirical evidence, the focus of motivation was perceived to be more focused on maintaining relationships and to look after the employees' health and well-being. It seems that the communication has increased in view of regular meetings and reconciliations, but also to maintain the social contact. The reconciliations are used to create an overview, not to micromanage or exercise control but instead the managers rely on trust and competence. Their leadership also seems to have become more present and more engaged with the employees. Finally, this study concludes that some aspects that managers perceive as important in their leadership are reinforced when working remotely. These are for example communication, to be present and building relationships. Additionally, there are also aspects that are not as important (development) at the same time as new aspects (well-being) are highlighted more during leadership by distance. / Covid-19 är ett virus som har haft en snabb spridning över hela världen från början av 2020 och fortsättningsvis även under 2021. Inom lite mer än ett år hade Sverige mer än en miljon bekräftade fall av Covid-19. Viruset har gjort att företag behövt börja arbeta hemifrån för att minska smittspridning, vilket tvingat medarbetare och chefer att ställa om till det nya arbetssättet och virtuella team. Att arbeta på distans kan medföra några utmaningar som ställer krav på chefer att anpassa eller förändra sitt ledarskap för att effektivt hantera omställningen. I denna studie är syftet att undersöka ledarskap och hur chefer upplever att det är att leda på distans. Studien söker även efter en förståelse för vilka utmaningar och förändringar i ledarskapet som är de huvudsakliga konsekvenserna och även hur chefer förändrat sitt sätt att arbeta med motivation, kommunikation och översyn under distansarbetet. För att genomföra studien har en kvalitativ forskningsmetod applicerats där endast ett företag har undersökts för att få en djupare förståelse för fenomenet och för att samla in data har tio semistrukturerade intervjuer genomförts och sex frågeformulär skickats. Företaget i denna studie är anonymt, vilket betyder att när företaget nämns är det med ett fiktivt namn. Resultatet visade att ledarskapets främsta utmaningar var den sociala distansen, avsaknandet av naturliga möten, känsliga samtal och att se medarbetarnas välmående samt deras kroppsspråk. Utifrån respondenterna uppfattades motivationens fokus vara mer inriktat på att vårda relationer och även att se över medarbetarnas hälsa samt välmående. Det verkar som att kommunikationen har ökat med tanke på de regelbundna mötena och avstämningarna men också för att den sociala kontakten ska bibehållas. Avstämningarna används för att få en överblick, de använder sig inte av mikromanagement för att utöva kontroll utan istället förlitar sig cheferna på förtroende och medarbetares kompetens. Ledarskapet verkar ha blivit mer närvarande med ökad delaktighet med medarbetarna. Avslutningsvis drar denna studie slutsatsen att några aspekter som chefer upplever som viktiga i deras ledarskap förstärks under distansarbete. Dessa är exempelvis kommunikation, att vara närvarande samt bygga relationer. Vidare finns det även aspekter som inte är lika viktiga (utveckling) samtidigt som nya aspekter (välmående) lyfts mer vid ledarskap på distans.

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For many years there has been a gap in knowledge about female and male leadership. Although the debate on gender is very tangible, the topic still remains an unfinished debate and challenge. Due to the unequal distribution of power, there is an endeavour to understand the differences between the leadership styles of women and men, but as of yet there are no direct and clear answers to this. The study was conducted due to the fact that women historically have had less access to leadership positions, and to fill the existing knowledge gap in research on this area. The purpose of this study was to examine and compare leadership styles between women and men, and to compare perceived influencing factors on leadership. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews consisting of both competency-based and semi-structured questions. A total of six interviews were conducted, three with women and three with men. The results of the study showed minimal differences in leadership styles, without a specific gender pattern. Instead, it appeared that the differences in leadership styles were individual-based, which raises questions about why there is an overrepresentation of men in leadership positions. However, the image of the stereotypical leader was challenged by the fact that the men in this study tended to adopt more stereotypically feminine characteristics. The results also showed how previous experience and feedback were perceived as important influencing factors by the majority of the respondents. Finally, based on the results of the study, suggestions for future studies were presented in terms of exploring and challenging the image of the stereotypical leader.

“much of what we know about leadership is today redundant because it is literally designed for a different operating model, a different context, a different time” (Pascale, Sternin, & Sternin, p. 4). This thesis describes a project that was designed with a focus on exploring ways to enhance leadership capacity in non-government organisations operating in Christchurch, New Zealand. It included 20 CEOs, directors and managers from organisations that cover a range of settings, including education, recreation, and residential and community therapeutic support; all working with adolescents. The project involved the creation of a peer-supported professional learning community that operated for 14 months; the design and facilitation of which was informed by the Appreciative Inquiry principles of positive focus and collaboration. At the completion of the research project in February 2010, the leaders decided to continue their collective processes as a self-managing and sustaining professional network that has grown and in 2014 is still flourishing under the title LYNGO (Leaders of Youth focussed NGOs). Two compelling findings emerged from this research project. The first of these relates to efficacy of a complexity thinking framework to inform the actions of these leaders. The leaders in this project described the complexity thinking framework as the most relevant, resonant and dynamic approach that they encountered throughout the research project. As such this thesis explores this complexity thinking informed leadership in detail as the leaders participating in this project believed it offers an opportune alternative to more traditional forms of positional leadership and organisational approaches. This exploration is more than simply a rationale for complexity thinking but an iterative in-depth exploration of ‘complexity leadership in action’ which in Chapter 6 elaborates on detailed leadership tools and frameworks for creating the conditions for self-organisation and emergence. The second compelling finding relates to efficacy of Appreciative Inquiry as an emergent research and development process for leadership learning. In particular the adoption of two key principles; positive focus and inclusivity were beneficial in guiding the responsive leadership learning process that resulted in a professional learning community that exhibited high engagement and sustainability. Additionally, the findings suggest that complexity thinking not only acts as a contemporary framework for adaptive leadership of organisations as stated above; but that complexity thinking has much to offer as a framework for understanding leadership development processes through the application of Appreciative Inquiry (AI)-based principles. A consideration of the components associated with complexity thinking has promise for innovation and creativity in the development of leaders and also in the creation of networks of learning. This thesis concludes by suggesting that leaders focus on creating hybrid organisations, ones which leverage the strengths (and minimise the limitations) of self-organising complexity-informed organisational processes, while at the same time retaining many of the strengths of more traditional organisational management structures. This approach is applied anecdotally to the place where this study was situated: the post-earthquake recovery of Christchurch, New Zealand.

When integrating sustainability, companies are often overlooking the changes needed in their organisational culture. This hinders organisations’ core business to efficiently embed sustainability and dooms corporate sustainability initiatives to be superficial. A possible solution is for organisations to develop a sustainability- oriented organisational culture that engages employees with the sustainability change and that develops a leadership supportive of the engagement of their employees. As a result, this thesis aims at exploring how organisations can change their organisational culture in order to fully integrate sustainability by engaging employees and managers. Specifically, it studies how employee engagement can contribute to transforming organizational cultures to fully embed sustainability. Additionally, this paper analyses how managers can support employee engagement with sustainability. The thesis conducts a literature review to set the theoretical foundations; it further resorts to semi-structured interviews and document analysis conducted in a Swedish public company, which has begun to integrate sustainability into its culture. The study finds that organisations’ cultures are being changed at the artifact levels and, partially, at the values and beliefs level of their cultures. Additionally, the thesis establishes that organisations are failing to create the conditions for employee engagement. It finally shows that leadership in companies is not efficiently supporting the engagement of employees to integrate sustainability into their culture.

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Syftet med studien är att visa hur olika arbetssätt som är till synes oförenliga, det kreativa och problemlösande samt det stabila och produktionsmässiga, kan förenas inom samma verksamhet, med hög kvalitet och intern nöjdhet för de båda arbetssätten. Dagens organisationer är mer komplexa och med medarbetare som har högre kompetens, detta ställer krav på hur organisationer behöver struktureras och styras. För att svara mot studiens syfte används teori kring organisationer, ledarskap, processer och offensiv kvalitetsutveckling för att ta fram ett lösningsförslag. En fallstudie har genomförts på en stor svensk organisation i en del av verksamheten där olika arbetssätt behöver förenas, för det problemlösande och kreativa arbetet samt för att hantera den produktionsmässiga processen i verksamheten, en process för automatiserad datahantering. Processen för automatiserad datahantering har identifierats vara ett förbättringsområde i verksamheten och är fokus för fallstudien. Fallstudien har genomförts genom att kartlägga nuläget, önskat läge, hinder och resurser, för att slutligen ta fram en lösning för verksamheten. Enkät, workshops och intervjuer har genomförts för kartläggningarna. Studien visar att det går att förena de två arbetssätten genom en ambidexter organisation, alternativt en administrativ ad hoc-krati. Ett ledarskap som passar dessa typer av organisationsstrukturer är adaptivt ledarskap, som kan förena en kultur av hierarki och ad hoc-krati. För att höja den interna nöjdheten i verksamheten för det studerade området föreslås den produktionsmässiga processen ledas enligt offensiv kvalitetsutveckling och processledning. / The purpose of this study is to show how seemingly incompatible work processes; the creative and problem-solving, and the stable and production-related, can be merged within the same workplace and business unit, with high quality and internal satisfaction for both. Organizations of today are more complex, with a highly competent work force, which place demands on how organizations need to be structured and managed. Theory about organizations, leadership, processes and offensive quality development is used to find a solution. A case study has been carried out at a large Swedish organization, where a part of the business needs to find ways to merge the problem-solving and creative processes with its production process. The process has been identified as an area in need of improvement and is the focus of the case study. The case study has been carried out by mapping the current situation, desired situation, obstacles and resources, in order to find a solution. A survey, workshops and interviews were carried out for this case study. The study shows that it is possible to combine the two ways of working through an ambidextrous organization, alternatively an administrative adhocracy. A leadership that suits these types of organizational structures is adaptive leadership, which can reconcile a culture of hierarchy and adhocracy. To increase internal satisfaction for the studied area, it is suggested that the production process be managed according to offensive quality development and process management.