There is currently a gap in performance among Swedish schools. Statistics show some schools demonstrating great results, while others are facing significant challenges. This study focuses on schools that have been underperforming and managed to turn this negative trend around. This is what is known as a turnaround, which occurs when an organization manages to improve negative results to positive through various measures. Turning an organization around requires extensive efforts, time and resources from its leadership and employees. Breaking down existing routines and practices to impose new ones may create discomfort and uncertainty among those that these changes are exerted upon. This especially when the organization in question does not view itself as in need of change. Calling for turnarounds to be enacted requires the organization to be aware of its shortcomings or even crises that they face. Awareness of underperformance is the main contention this thesis explores and its relation to a turnaround process. This study delves into schools that have demonstrated awareness of underperformance and acted upon it.

The impact of the 2008 global financial crisis, shifting market demands, and prolonged underperformance has forced organizations to devise and implement turnaround strategies or risk business failure. Researchers have pointed to the importance of leadership in the turnaround process, yet there are a limited number of research studies identifying characteristics of successful turnaround leaders. Using the full range leadership model, the purpose of this nonexperimental, ex post facto study was to examine the leadership style of Gil Hodges, manager during the 1969 New York Mets successful turnaround season and explore the organization's culture and climate. Data were collected using the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire, Denison Organizational Culture Survey, and Organizational Climate Measure. A small response rate of 7 yielded low statistical power which led to treating the findings as exploratory. The findings suggest that Hodges's leadership showed strong transformational and transactional characteristics, and that the players perceived an agile organizational culture and a climate in which leaders stressed high levels of performance. Results from multiple linear regression analysis and Spearman correlations showed a strong positive relationship between transactional leadership and the consistency culture trait, yet no association between leadership and organizational climate. Findings also showed the adaptability culture trait had a strong positive influence on the pressure-to-produce climate dimension and a significant negative correlation with the effort dimension. The findings from this study may affect positive social change by providing insights into successful turnaround leadership styles and organizational strategies to support such efforts.