The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between work locus of control, the quality of exchanges between subordinates and leaders (leader-member exchange) and job satisfaction. The research design of this study was a non-experimental, cross-sectional mediator design. A biographical questionnaire was used to ascertain the demographic information for the participants. Work locus of control was assessed using Spector’s (1988) work locus of control measure. Leader Member exchange was measured utilizing the member form of the leader member exchange scale LMX7. Job satisfaction of the employees was measured using The Warr 15-item Job Satisfaction Scale (JSS). The sample consisted of 115 employees from all levels of the organisation with the exception of members in top management. The sampling strategy that was utilised was non-probability sampling in which participants were recruited on the basis of their willingness to participate in the study. The study used correlations and regression analyses to analyse the data. The results of this study indicated that work locus of control had an inverse relationship with job satisfaction and leader member exchange. Mediation regression analysis indicated that leader member exchange partially mediated the relationship between work locus of control and job satisfaction. In view of the findings of this study, it is suggested that researchers on industrial relations could focus on ways in which South African organisations could improve employee-manager relations through the management of employee work locus of control, leader-member exchanges and workplace factors that contribute to employee job satisfaction

Bien que le leadership ait fait l'objet d'une profusion de travaux, aucune définition valide et partagée n'a pu émergé, à ce jour. Fuyant, changeant, révélé ou « asphyxié » par certains contextes, nous voici face à l'étude d'un concept polymorphe et polychrome. Ce travail doctoral vise à questionner le concept de leadership s'appliquant aux organisations publiques, pluralistes et non ordinaires, que sont les universités. La prise en compte du contexte mouvant dans lequel évoluent actuellement les établissements universitaires, constitue la dimension fondamentale de cette étude. Nous avons choisi de positionner cette recherche dans une approche processuelle, relationnelle et dynamique du leadership, dans laquelle s'articulent les perceptions qu'ont le(s) leader(s) et les followers  d'une même situation de changement. Cette recherche permet de présenter les caractéristiques des organisations universitaires et d'identifier les éléments d'une mutation, tournée vers une gestion plus « entrepreneuriale » au sens de Clark (2001). Dans cette perspective, l'analyse des voies de légitimation du leadership présidentiel, s'inscrivent dans des dimensions plus managériales, où l'expertise gestionnaire et l' « agir stratégique » deviennent nécessaires. Cette étude nous conduit également à compléter le concept de leadership universitaire et d'en appréhender les mutations en nous appuyant sur les convergences de représentations. L'évolution du système universitaire français nous amène à soulever la problématique de la différenciation des légitimités et de la distribution des rôles dans l'université, et des modalités d'organisation de ceux-ci au sein d'une gouvernance repensée. / Although academic leadership has been studied in numerous works, non valid and widely agreed upon definition has so far emerged. Here we have to cope with an eluding changing concept, revealed or suppressed by given surroundings, in short a polymorphic and polychromatic concept. This doctorate work aims at questioning the leadership concept applying to higher education. Taking in charge the highly changing environment in which universities evolve at the present time, makes up the true dimension of the present study. With a view to answering our questioning, we have chosen to make an approach of leadership in terms of processes, relationships and dynamism in which leaders and followers can perceive the same changing situation in a intricate way. This research allows us to present the characteritics of academic organisations and to identify the factors of a significant change leading to more entrepreneurial type of management as indicated by Clark (2001). In this respect, the analyses of the ways of legitimation of the presidential leadership takes place in a framework of increased management, in which managerial expertise and strategic action become necessary. This study leads us to complete the concept of academic leadership and to grasp the imperceptible change processes on the basis of convergent representations. The evolution of the French higher education system brings us to raise the problematic of the various legitimacies, the allotment of roles at the university and their relationship at the heart of a new practice of governance.

Cell competition is a form of cell-cell signalling that results in the elimination of less fit cells from a tissue by their fitter counterparts. I take advantage of an established in vitro model of cell competition using Madin-Darby canine kidney (MDCK) cells to shed insight into the molecular basis of cell competition in epithelial cells. In this system, silencing of the tumour suppressor scribble (scribKD) results in a 'loser' phenotype whereby scribKD cells are specifically eliminated from the monolayer by surrounding wild-type cells. More specifically, scribKD cells are compacted into tight clones through activation of a directed, collective migration in the wild-type population: scribKD are 'mechanical losers' and delaminate and die due to an intrinsic hypersensitivity to high cell density. Remarkably, p53 activation is both necessary and sufficient for this mechanical loser cell status. I first investigate the role of E-, N-, and P-cadherin in the directed migration between scribKD and wild-type cells and in scribKD cell loser status. I show that differential expression of E-cadherin between scribKD losers and wild-type winners is required but not sufficient for directed migration and has no impact on loser cell status. I also show that elevation of neither E-cadherin nor N-cadherin is sufficient to induce directed migration or loser status, but that P-cadherin may play a role in both. I next focus on translating findings about the molecular details of competition from the scribKD set-up into a system where p53 differences alone drive the formation and elimination of mechanical losers. I show that the ROCK - P-p38 - p53 pathway activated in response to mechanical compaction in scribKD cells is conserved in p53-driven losers. In the latter part of my thesis, I characterise the directed migration observed during MDCK competition by drawing parallels to canonical leader-follower migration. Canonical leader cells emerge when epithelial sheets are wounded and, by becoming migratory, drive collective cell migration of follower cells, which results in wound closure. It was not known what confers the leader cell fate. I show that p53 and its effector p21 (and potentially other cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitors) are the key drivers of leader cell migration. I demonstrate that p53-induced leaders use the same molecular pathways that have been shown to drive leader cell migration during wound healing and, in fact, p53 and p21 are also elevated in leaders generated by wounding. Importantly, I establish that p53 activity drives efficient wound closure. Lastly, I show that leader cells are often eliminated by cell competition in the final stages of wound closure, as their elevated p53 mediates their hypersensitivity to density. The model incorporating these data proposes that cellular damage during wounding generates cells with elevated p53, which become leaders and drive wound healing, but these are then cleared once the wound is closed because their high p53 levels cause them to become mechanical losers.

This thesis deals with the "trinity" of kindergarten director roles. The aim of work is treated general study supported by professional literature, legal standards, practical experience, crucial documents dealing with the level of education, research in undergraduate dissertations and thesis and requirements with a focus on the role of director of a kindergarten in leadership, management and teaching. The treated study supported by research calls for a reassessment of the existing status and re-evaluation of the various roles while maintaining synergy in their entirety, not just in relation to the threat of quality and effectiveness of each role undertaken, but also in the context of reflection on the possible standardization of kindergarten director, as is already existing abroad. The benefit of this work is part of the research that has been given to the identification of relevant knowledge about the proportion of time that kindergarten directors devote and demand for education, management and leadership and also to determine what benefits would be created by changing the distribution of proportions of time in his three roles - leader, manager and executor.

This thesis explores the effects of gender-based leader stereotypes on leader-follower relations in terms of the implications of shared identity between the leader and the followers (team and/or gender). Four experiments assessed followers’ attitudes toward their leaders when the leaders’ genders were under conditions of stereotype threat as compared to advantage (Studies 1 and 2), no-threat (Study 3) or control (Study 4). Experimental conditions were invoked using text-based stereotype manipulations. In Study 1 (where stereotypes favoured male leaders, thus implicitly representing threat for females) and Study 2 (where stereotypes manipulated advantage/threat for both genders), undergraduates in mixed-sex teams rated team leaders’ presentations. In Study 3, undergraduates in single-sex teams (under conditions of stereotype threat or no-threat) predicted their team leader’s performance, indicated leader-follower proximity (leader’s prototypicality, leader identification and collective threat), and reported perceived self-efficacy for leadership. Similar measures were obtained in Study 4, where corporate employees selected an effective leader from their work experience, prior to exposure to stereotype manipulations (threat or control). The student studies had three main findings. First, male leaders benefitted from the ratings of high team identifiers (a) in the context of male advantage/ female stereotype threat and (b) when males were under threat relative to the advantage condition. The benefit of team identification was not evident for female leaders. Second, male leaders benefitted from female followers’ ratings under threat compared to the advantage condition. In contrast, female leaders under stereotype threat were downgraded by female followers relative to advantage or no-threat conditions. Third, stereotype threat negatively affected high team identifiers’ self-efficacy for leadership. In the corporate study, male respondents’ choice of an effective leader was more likely to be a male whereas there was no gender difference in the leaders chosen by female respondents. Drawing on role congruity theory and a social identity framework, the thesis analyses and finds evidence suggesting that stereotype threat as collective threat contributed to followers’ relatively negative attitudes toward female leaders in terms of leader-follower relations.

La société contemporaine est en évaluation permanente dans une rapidité toujours plus accrue, une concurrence toujours plus forte qui crée de plus en plus un malaise chez les personnes à responsabilité qui travaillent dans une atmosphère de grande incertitude, de perte d’humanité et de repères. Pour les dirigeants aujourd’hui, le challenge est de trouver la paix, la sérénité et la confiance au travail chaque jour ; de trouver des alternatives pour leur bien être et un meilleur rendement de leur leadership. C’est par ce biais qu’intervient la spiritualité. Cette recherche a mis en évidence la manière dont la spiritualité participe à améliorer et à maintenir la performance du leadership dans les organisations. Par la construction d’une théorie du Leadership spirituel englobant, nous comprenons pourquoi, comment et dans quel but le spirituel intervient dans la vie des dirigeants. La spiritualité se présente comme moteur d’efficacité du leadership des dirigeants, essentiellement par un rapport à soi, à l’altérité, à la croyance, au transcendant, aux religieux et à la foi. C’est «la prédominance de l’esprit sur le corps ». Le dirigeant trouve dans la spiritualité un cadre de pensée et d’action qui passe par le sens, l’introspection, l’optimisme et la confiance. Le leader prend exemple et incarne l’exemple, il est moins vulnérable et plus productif. Sa « compétence spirituelle » influence ses choix, son état d’esprit et ses interactions, lui permettant d’aller au bout de ses réalisations via l’« amour » d’« autrui ». / The contemporary society is in permanent evaluation in a speed always more greater, a competition always stronger and creating more and more a faintness at the people with responsibility who work in an atmosphere of big uncertainty, of loss of humanity and marks. For the leaders today, the challenge is to find the peace, serenity and confidence in the work every day; to find alternatives for their good to be and has to better yield one their leadership. It is by this way that intervenes the spirituality. This search highlighted the way the spirituality participates to improve and to maint performance of the leadership in organizations. By the construction of a theory of the Including Spiritual Leadership, we understand why, how and in which purpose the spiritual intervenes in the life of the managers/leaders. The spirituality appears as engine of efficiency of the leadership of the managers/ leaders, essentially by a report to one, to the otherness, to the belief, to the transcendent, to the religious order and to the faith. It is « the ascendancy of the spirit on the body ». The manager/leader finds in the spirituality a frame to think and of action which through by the sense, the introspection, the optimism and the confidence. The leader takes example and embodies the example, he is less vulnerable and more productive. His « spiritual competence » influences its choices, its state of mind and its interactions, allowing him to go at the end of its realizations through « love » of « others ».

The purpose of this study was to consider the development of social consciousness in female nonprofit leaders. The problem undergirding the study is that we do not know enough about social consciousness to know how it is learned, if it can be taught, if it is stable over a lifetime, and what factors and life events shape its unique expression. A further concern is understanding how people come to enact caring about social justice causes and why they enacted caring about certain causes but not others. The research investigated learning related to the social consciousness of female nonprofit leaders who work with organizations focused on social justice issues. The research method utilized, life history collage, employed a combination of art and life history to investigate this phenomenon. Once collages were made, participants were interviewed to further explore emergent themes and these themes were analyzed using the learning theory enactivism to understand how learning influenced each woman’s social consciousness. Findings indicate that organizing structures emerged in childhood that both enabled and shaped the potential of each woman’s social consciousness. This “potential” was inherent in the structure of each woman’s world view, but was enacted in the way this structure coupled with opportunities in her environment. In other words, each woman’s social consciousness coemerged within environments that shaped her social consciousness and that were shaped by her social consciousness. Thus, social consciousness and environment are mutually specifying.

Ineffective communication is a chief contributor to business leaders' ineffective leadership. The purpose of this multiple case study was to explore the communication strategies that 4 business leaders in the retail industry used to improve employee motivation. The business leaders, including owners and senior leadership from 3 organizations in the retail industry in the Baltimore-Washington Metropolitan Area, were purposefully selected for study participation. Transformational leadership theory shaped the conceptual framework of this study. Transformational leaders use effective communication to influence employee motivation positively. Data were collected from semistructured interviews with the business leaders, public reports, organization documents, and text message correspondences. Data analysis involved identifying reoccurring phenomena and coding meaningful and common keywords, phrases, and statements to form themes. Data analysis also involved triangulating information. Through data analysis, 5 themes emerged, including the following: respectful communication, 2-way communication, and charismatic communication. Business leaders' practice of effective communication strategies could contribute to social change by enhancing the well-being of employees, which might promote the improvement of economic conditions of individuals, families, and communities.

In the Denver metropolitan area, many elementary school principals have been focused more on management than on instructional leadership issues, even though school administrators have been charged with overseeing academic achievement based on state and federal standards. According to research, participating in these 2 disconnected roles hinders principals' ability to achieve the academic and social success of their students. Guided by Bandura's self-efficacy theory and Hallinger's distributed leadership theories, this qualitative study explored factors that influenced 6 principals' adoption of the instructional leadership role to learn how principals might shift from managing the school to becoming its instructional leader. The selection criteria for the participants were that each principal was based in a linguistically and culturally diverse, low-income community and led successfully as noted in the School Performance Framework. Data from individual interviews and a focus group were triangulated with observational data (3 observations of participants in their work role at their individual school sites) and researcher field notes. Data analysis used open coding, from which 3 core themes emerged: voice, focus, and alignment of resources. Based on these findings, the proposed project, presented as a position paper, recommends the development of a district-level policy directed toward the building of a school-site infrastructure that supports elementary principals in the role of instructional leader. The implications for positive social change at the local level include providing recommendations that might enable administrators as the instructional leader to develop and oversee an infrastructure conducive to the academic and social success of the students they serve, thus increasing the number of successful schools throughout the district study site.

Faculty members at a rural elementary school in a southeastern U.S. state have implemented a student leadership program called Leader in Me (LIM) in order to address increased behavioral disruptions and declining academic achievement scores and also better prepare students for the workforce. To determine the efficacy of the intervention, a mixed methods bounded case study of LIM was conducted. Watson's and Hull's theories of behaviorism support the objectives of the program. The focus of the research questions was on determining whether students' behavior, academic achievement, and leadership skills had changed based on their participation in the program. Quantitative data consisted of standardized test scores in the areas of reading and mathematics, administrative records, and a faculty survey. Qualitative data consisted of 10 interviews, which were conducted with a stratified purposeful sample of 3rd through 5th grade teachers participating in the program at the school. Quantitative data were analyzed using analysis of variance while qualitative data were coded and analyzed for common themes. Using these methods, a significant decrease in the instances of negative classroom behaviors was noted in relation to an increase in leadership behaviors of students in the LIM program. Interview data revealed the presence of a positive culture of leadership and learning in the classroom. Based on study findings, a policy recommendation paper advocating adoption of the leadership program was created. Adoption of the LIM program may help educators in better preparing students to be responsible individuals who use their leadership skills to positively impact their own learning and school and community cultures.