Thesis--Wisconsin. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [118]-120).

Thesis (M.S)--Ohio University, June, 2005. / Title from PDF t.p. Includes bibliographical references (p. 57-62)

Thesis (M.A.)--Eastern Illinois University, 1967. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves [164-172]).

The purpose of this study was to examine ethical responses to problematic school situations among public school superintendents nationwide. An additional goal was to compare responses of the proposed study with those of school superintendents in an earlier study (Fenstermaker, 1994) in order to determine whether there has been a significant change in the attitudes and ethical behavior of superintendents over the past 20 years. A pilot study was conducted in order to update and validate the current survey. Fenstermaker's survey, including his scenarios, were distributed to seven local school superintendents to determine if these scenarios are still valid and to suggest other possible scenarios that would address current educational issues that may or may not have existed 21 years ago. The response to the pilot study was that the scenarios are relevant to today's school superintendent. In the current survey. I used suggestions offered by current superintendents regarding dilemmas faced by today's superintendents. A survey instrument was randomly given to a sample of 419 superintendents who were members of the American Association of School Administrators.(AASA). A total of 297 surveys were returned, a response rate of 70.1%. The survey questions were updated from the survey questions originally used by Fenstermaker in his survey. The survey questions asked for answers to dilemmas that were of a borderline type. The 2007 AASA Code of Ethics were used to determine the correct responses. The current study examined whether superintendents' responses were an `actual' response (in other words, respondent is answering from the perspective of having been in this situation - or a similar one - prior) or a `hypothetical' response (respondent imagines being in the situation, but never actually experienced anything like it). In the current study, more of the ethical responses are indicated as hypothetical. Overall, non-ethical decisions appear to be made more by superintendents who had actually experienced the situation. The findings of research question one denote that there has not been much change since 1991. Fenstermaker recorded 1306 ethical responses out of a possible total of 2701, or an overall score of 47 percent. With equivalent criteria, the present study documented 1485 ethical replies out of a possible total of 2951, a total score of 49.8. The bulk of the responses to both surveys were unethical, with variation less than three percentage points from Fenstermaker's (1994) study to the present. The finding then would be that there has been no significant change since 1991. Overall, this study confirmed the results found in Fenstermaker's study. Fenstermaker did not examine race. Interestingly, this study found that Blacks scored consistently higher in correct ethical responses than Caucasians. In general, I conclude that ethics play a heavy role in the decision-making practice of superintendents. Preparation programs for superintendents should emphasize ethics training as well as legislative studies. Certainly, the consistent low scores indicate that there is a need for ethical training among superintendents and a need for more studies such as the one presented.

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This thesis concerned with understanding what makes young people as future leaders. It sets out to explore leadership development for secondary school students (12-to-18-year), focussing on what makes young leaders and how they become future leaders. The fundamental purpose of this explanatory and exploratory qualitative study was to investigate leadership development at the age of adolescence. There are three key objectives for this study: (1) to explore and investigate what contributes to forming young people as future leaders; (2) to clarify and understand how young people become future leaders; and (3) to create a multidimensional and holistic framework for developing secondary students as future leaders. These aims were achieved via conducting qualitative in-depth interviews (N=46) with established leaders (N=19) and university professors (N=27) in both the UK and the kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). Additionally, as this study focuses on adolescence, it was important to conduct three focus groups with secondary school students in KSA (N=27). Succinctly this study aims to deepen our understanding of the issue of developing young people as future leaders. This study used multi-levels of analysis and multi-domains of purposive sampling via using maximal variation sampling, both leaders and academics are categorised into six domains (business, education, social, voluntary sector, YLD programmes directors, and developmental psychologists). The secondary school students were selected from government school, private school, and gifted students. Due to the extensive sample gathered (46 interviews and 3 focus groups) and significant data generated (287.000 words), the author’s study produces both emergent themes and abundant numerical results. However, these large quantities can encourage various quantitative studies in the future. There are several key contributions of value in this study; (1) creating and conceptually testing a comprehensive framework to develop young people as future leaders; (2) the theoretical contribution as the qualitative analysis has generated massive number of new emergent themes related to the research questions; (3) analysis of the empirical contributions revealed lots of variables, factors, criteria, tools; (4) a cross-cultural YLD which verify that there are both differences and similarities between the UK and KSA; (5) the findings proved that leadership for young people is learnable to a great extent; that adolescence is a critical period for developing leaders; that sparking the motivation to lead is important at this age; there are serious obstacles facing YLD; generic leadership is more applicable for YLD; and finally, one of the significant contributions of this study is its focussing of attention on a long-term approach for young people leadership development. The further contribution of this study is creating a multi-dimensional and holistic framework for YLD based on theories of adult leadership and intensively reviewing the literature review on YLD. It has been developed via pilot study and finally developed and validated throughout a cohort of stablished leaders and university professors (N=41). This study’s findings can benefit policy and practice to a great extent since it focuses on the secondary school students; as they are the future leaders, this study can be of significant help to the strategic planning of policy makers in the Ministry of Education, Youth Ministry, and generally within the political context, family business. This study inspires me to establish a leadership-based academy, which focuses on high-school students and develops them as national leaders.

This research is a comparative evaluation between leadership in business and leadership in the Church to discover principles of Christ-like leadership that would help leaders lead effectively in any environment. Church leaders distrust business leadership and business leaders cannot see any relevance that the Church has towards business. This research seeks to challenge this thinking. To consider this the following hypothesis was made: If business and Church leaders are going to be exceptional in their leadership, and live to their full leadership potential, they will have to be faithful to, develop and live by Christ-like leadership principles emerging out of the character, life, teaching and leadership of Jesus Christ – principles that transcend the differentiation often made between secular and sacred. Towards this end descriptive research was carried out by drawing on a number of sources. First, the aim was to determine the praxis by considering the leadership practices of respected leaders in business and the Church. It was discovered that there are definite crossover points with common understandings of what it takes to be an exceptional leader. It was also noted, however, that there are particular areas that relate exclusively to spiritual leadership. Thereafter, theory was considered by looking at literature that has been written about business and Church leadership. Again there was common ground, which led to the description of three circles of leadership: the inner circle, the middle circle and the outer circle. The next chapter took a look at the Gospels, with particular reference to Mark’s Gospel. Here principles were discovered that have a direct or indirect bearing on leadership. Finally, quantitative research was carried out to test praxis and theory. To accomplish this, questionnaires were sent to leaders that hold or have held leadership responsibility in business and the Church. The overall result was that 73% of leaders said that there was no substantial difference between leading in business and leading in the Church. However, going deeper into the results, it was seen that there are differences in emphasis between business and Church leadership. In conclusion, no changes were made to the hypothesis. The spiritual dimensions of leadership as expressed throughout the dissertation recognise that Christian leaders, in business and Church, have the same Spirit indwelling them to help them become exceptional Christ-like leaders. / Dissertation (MA (Practical Theology))--University of Pretoria, 2008. / Practical Theology / unrestricted

Does a relationship exist between leadership decapitation and the abuse of civilians during a civil war? This project creates a new data set in combination with existing data on leadership change and civil war termination to determine whether leadership decapitation in rebel groups that use terrorist strategies affects the likelihood of civilian abuse. A study is done on 44 cases of decapitation where the leader of a rebel group was arrested, killed, or replaced during the course of their respective nation’s civil war. This project also conducted a case study on the behavior of a rebel group in the country of Algeria during their civil war. The results show that most groups utilize the same strategies before and after the decapitation of their leader and also attack the same targets. Looking at the short term after the date of decapitation, groups are more likely to utilize the same attack method and attack the same targets. The results also indicate that leadership decapitation does not alter the tactic utilized by a group during a civil war after the date of decapitation. Leadership decapitation also does not increase the likelihood of civilian abuse within one, two, or three months after the date of decapitation. If a group was abusing civilians before the death, arrest, or replacement of their leader, then they will continue to abuse civilians after the date of decapitation. Ultimately, understanding the causes behind the violent methods used by terrorist and rebel groups will help promote conflict resolution and prevent the use of violent means against civilians.

This qualitative study was designed to explore the career development of Black female chief nurse executives. Although a small proportion of Black female nurses have achieved positions at the nurse executive level, there remains a paucity of Black female nurse executives in this crucial position which raised the question of what factors contributed to this lack of advancement, but, more important, what factors have contributed to the success of the few who have achieved such level of success in healthcare organizations. The purpose of the study was to explore the career paths of Black female chief nurse executives with a view of understanding the factors which both facilitate and hinder the career development of these leaders in healthcare organizations. The guiding research question was, How do Black female nurse executives in this sample describe their career development? The participants in this study were Black female chief nurse executives located throughout the United States who, for the most part, were raised in segregation with a strong family foundation. To collect data, semistructured telephone interviews were conducted with 10 Black female chief nurse executives throughout the United States. The transcripts from the interviews were transcribed, coded, and analyzed. Using Super’s (1990, 1996), and Gottfredson’s (1981, 1996, 2002, 2005) career development theories and critical race theory (Crenshaw, 1995; Delgado, 2000) as the theoretical framework, the researcher found that the participants’ career development was influenced by (a) strong support system, (b) guidance, (c) influence of diversity, and (d) servant leadership. The findings help us understand the factors that have contributed to their successes as Black chief nurse executives. With the increasingly diverse population and concurrent increasing diversity in nursing and concerns about healthcare disparities, it is imperative that organizations attract, hire, develop, retain, and advance qualified Black nurses. Future studies addressing not only the career development of Black nurses but nurses in general might be informed by the present study’s findings. Recommendations are offered for nursing practice, education, and organizational policy.

Retail small business leaders face the challenges of retaining their employees. Retail small business leaders are concerned with ineffective retention strategies, which can increase employee turnover and collapse their businesses. Grounded in Herzberg's two-factor theory the objective of this qualitative multiple case study was to explore small retail business leaders' strategies to retain employees. The participants comprised 5 small retail business leaders from Minneapolis, Minnesota, who had 5 to 10 years of employee retention experience. Data were collected from semistructured interviews and business documents. Data were analyzed using Yin's 5-phase process; 5 themes emerged to include frequent communication between management and employees, employee compensation and welfare, employee engagement, employee recognition, and employee advancement. The implications for positive social change include the potential small business leaders to explore effective retention strategies, which can result in stable employment for employees and their families.