Bullying and toxic leadership in the U. S. Army disrupt bonding processes between leaders and subordinates, which may jeopardize military operations, threaten resiliency initiatives, inhibit leader development, and stifle innovation. Little research, however, has looked at the role of informal leaders who operate outside the formal power structure in military environments. Using social exchange theory as the foundation, the purpose of this case study was to explore the activities of informal leaders who mediated the normal and disrupted leadership bonding processes in an Illinois Army National Guard Infantry Brigade. The research questions explored the informal leaders' influence and behaviors to gain a greater understanding of the bonding processes. A maximum variation purposeful sampling was used to select 25 informal leaders from 8 company size units in an Illinois Army National Guard Infantry Brigade. Publicly available archival data were also considered. All data were coded inductively and then subjected to Braun and Clark's thematic analysis procedure, revealing the perception that informal leaders improved bonding between soldiers and leaders and reduced stress associated with military service. The implications for positive social change include recommendations to the Illinois National Guard to provide support for using informal leaders as a mechanism to promote more cohesive relationships between leaders and subordinates and to explore the use of informal leadership to reduce stress.

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Community colleges have developed into vital resources for affordable, easy access, high quality education. Community college instructors with previous leader experience possess the credentials needed to teach their curricula and to lead learning experiences in the classroom. Researchers have found that instructors who display transformational leadership qualities can influence student actions, awareness, and learning outcomes. This study was conducted to explore community college faculty who possess transformational leadership qualities in relation to student extra effort, student perception of instructor effectiveness, and overall satisfaction with the instructor. The conceptual framework is the full range leadership theory which is one of the most broadly used comprehensive leadership theories. The measurement tool used was Avolio and Bass's (2004) Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ), which measures nine factors of leadership skills through a quantitative survey. These findings present support for the recognition of the value of transformational leadership in the community college environment. Consistent with the findings of this study, transformational leadership has been viewed as the most revered leadership model in the full range leadership theory. Instructors have the ability to integrate critical components of transformational leadership behaviors to impact the student experience in the classroom, resulting in higher levels of student outcomes of extra effort, effectiveness, and satisfaction. The findings add to the body of literature and provide insight into the leadership skills of community college instructors from previous business experience.

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No description available.

From 2001 to 2010, a lack of documented standards within ethics programs inhibited decision making, management practices, and corporate strategies for corporate leaders in the United States. Seminal theories in transformational, charismatic, servant, spiritual, and ethical leadership formed the conceptual framework for this phenomenological study, whose intent was to explore how senior leaders of Fortune 500 companies in Washington, DC integrated ethics into daily business decisions and the role in organizational performance. A convenience sample of 20 Fortune 500 leaders participated in face-to-face semistructured interviews to explore the assessment, definition, and documentation of various ethical standards in the company; the different mechanisms for ensuring ethical standards influenced decision making; and whether a senior leader's moral code influences the development of a code of ethics, ethical standards, or organizational culture. Using Saldana's coding process as an exemplar, 6 themes emerged from this investigation: ethical standards, organizational culture, ethics training, role modeling, values, and moral dilemmas. Findings revealed the need for scenario-based ethical training to guide senior leaders through dilemma-oriented problems. Implications for positive social change include benchmarks for ethical integration successes in business strategy that improve corporate social responsibility and change hiring practices to help build ethical corporate cultures.

Although there were numerous leadership development programs throughout the country, most ignored the small producers located throughout the south. In order to address the needs of these traditionally underserved individuals, the “National Small Farmer Agricultural Leadership Institute” was created to address the concerns of small farmers in rural communities. This research specifically targeted the effectiveness of leadership development over a period by exploring the factors that motivate the program participants to enhance their leadership skills and the ability to transform that motivation into effective leadership. The group involved in this study is a convenience population of small farmers and ranchers from across the Southern United States, who graduated from the National Small Farm Leadership Institute. These participants represent 2 graduating classes from 2007 and 2009. A retrospective post survey methodology was used to conduct this study. The instrument is divided into a knowledge base before they took the program (pre) and a retrospective post assessment. Each of the questions allowed the participants to rate their ability on a 5 point Likert-Type scale. The responses ranged from 1 to 5 with the following responses Very Poor, Poor, Fair, Good and Very Good. The survey research examined four educational constructs that were covered during the leadership development program. These were Leadership Skill Development, Leadership Theory, Agricultural Skill enhancement and the Transformation of their leadership skills. Through analysis of the four educational constructs the research reveals substantial increases in knowledge and skills such as Group Problem Solving, Consensus Building, Team Building, Group Decision Making and Obtaining information to help in decision making. Participants were definitely found to have increased their leadership skills through teaching of Leadership Philosophy, linkages to Federal and agricultural resources, the appreciation of different styles of leadership and awareness of agricultural policy issues. The study revealed that in each of the four educational construct areas of the National Small Farm Leadership Institute that there were substantial increases in knowledge and changes in behavior such as: understanding and explaining personal leadership philosophy, increased awareness of Agricultural Policy Issues and transferring the leadership back to the community.

Den här studien undersöker implicita (underförstådda) bilder av ledare och syftar till att, utifrån ett svenskt följarperspektiv, ta reda på vilka egenskaper som kännetecknar ”en effektiv ledare i en tänkt arbetssituation”, samt undersöka huruvida bilden av denna varierar utifrån ett antal sociala skiljelinjer. Utgångspunkten är att de egenskaper som anses vara kännetecknande för en effektiv ledare också är egenskaper som studiedeltagarna prefererar (föredrar) och därför helst ser hos en sådan ledare. Studien omfattar 198 deltagare och använder sig av ett särskilt ILT-verktyg (implicit leadership theory) för att fånga de underförstådda bilderna. Skiljelinjerna består i kön, ålder, social bakgrund, socioekonomisk position samt ett antal attityder kopplat till bland annat arbete och ideologi. Resultaten visar att huvuddelen av skiljelinjerna kan förutsäga preferenser för vissa ledaregenskaper, men att de flesta i grund och botten är överens om vilka egenskaper som kännetecknar, respektive inte kännetecknar, en effektiv ledare. Störst enighet råder kring de egenskaper som ses som mest kännetecknande, medan uppfattningarna kring de minst kännetecknande egenskaperna skiljer sig desto mer. Män, lågutbildade och de som har arbetaryrken anser i högre utsträckning att ”negativa” egenskaper är kännetecknande för en effektiv ledare medan högutbildade och de som arbetar med professionella yrken i genomsnitt skattar flera av de ”positiva” egenskaperna högre. Ytterligare ett antal noterbara resultat framträder också. Studien bekräftar därigenom flera tidigare fynd inom ILT- och preferensforskningen, men tillför också nya tänkbara förklaringsvariabler. Inte minst bidrar studien till att ge en dagsaktuell bild av det svenska följarperspektivet och de skillnader som det rymmer. Kopplat till det läggs också stor vikt vid att diskutera det mätverktyg samt den ledardefinition som används.

Aufgrund des internationalen War for Talent ist es eine Herausforderung für Unternehmen, hochqualifizierte Mitarbeiter an sich zu binden. Ein immaterieller Anreizfaktor für den Verbleib im Unternehmen ist das Verhalten der Führungskraft, wie z. B. wertschätzender Umgang und Anerkennung der Leistung. Es wird untersucht, inwiefern sich die Umsetzung von Diversity Management durch die Führungskraft auf die Einstellung des Mitarbeiters zum Arbeitgeber, d.h. das Selbstbild der Employer Brand, und auf seine Bindung an das Unternehmen auswirkt. Das verhaltenstheoretische Stimulus-Organismus-Response-Modell dient zur Erklärung dieser Zusammenhänge. Unter Diversity Management wird der Einfluss, die Kontrolle und die Organisation des Verhaltens vielfältiger Personen durch einen Vorgesetzten verstanden. Im Mittelpunkt steht die Diversity Dimension Gender, das durch soziale und kulturelle Umweltbedingungen konstruierte kulturelle Geschlecht. Die erhobenen Mitarbeiterdaten stammen aus internationalen Standorten der Robert Bosch GmbH.

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a major shift towards remote work and its practices are predicted as here to stay. It entails many challenges since both the physical and psychosocial working conditions vastly differ from an office-setting, posing a threat for employee well-being. Leaders have the ability to control employee well-being through activities and their leadership style, emphasizing the importance of exploring the topic from a leader’s perspective.  Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to explore employee well-being in a remote work setting from a leader perspective, including the leadership activities used to manage it and how leaders adapt their leadership to the remote setting.  Method: The primary data is collected from ten in-depth, semi-structured interviews with leaders in both public and private organizations. The data have been analyzed and interpreted using an explorative approach and inductive thematic analysis.  Conclusions: This study adds multiple aspects within the common theoretical themes of the social context, communication, work-life balance and stress identified as affecting employee well-being remotely. Moreover, it expands the knowledge of leader activities used to enhance employee well-being remotely such as providing opportunities for social interactions. Lastly, the study suggests leaders to balance remote work’s demand for employee independence by providing job resources such as support and adapt their leadership not only to the employee readiness, but also the expectations set on them, their own readiness and the remote situation.