In recent years, leadership training programs have addressed various needs at the executive level. In such programs, facilitators teach with the expectation that participants will adopt a transformational leadership (TL) mindset and enact commensurate behaviours within the home organizational environment. This is a short-term solution when addressing leadership needs. Instead, a deep understanding of one's personal level of development is necessary to unlock potential TL abilities. The purpose of this case study was to explore the relationship between TL and stages of ego development. The TL framework and constructivist developmental theory were used to explore this relationship. Accordingly, the primary research question posed was what relationship exists between a leader's TL ability and his or her stage of ego development? Four secondary research questions were also posed, relating the “4 I's” of the TL theory (e.g., intellectual stimulation, individualized consideration, inspirational motivation, and idealized influence) to stages of ego development. This exploratory case study was conducted within a non-profit sport organization in the Northeast US. Four leaders and their direct reports (n = 20) comprised the purposive sample. A mixed methods case study design was implemented whereby the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ) and the Washington University Sentence Completion Test (SCT) provided quantitative data, and in-depth interviews provided a rich trove of qualitative data. As the results yielded significantly different “snapshots” of leadership behaviours, it was found that a wide variety of relationships exist between TL ability and these leaders' respective stage of ego development. While the results were mixed, conceptual, quantitative, and qualitative relationships established helped provide a platform from which to further explore the complexities of TL theory. These findings lend a beginning understanding to how one's TL effectiveness may or may not be related to one's stage of ego development. Moreover, a deeper understanding is reached of why various TL behaviours may exist and/or why others may be compromised when connected to manifest behaviours of one's stage of ego development. As the sole empirically based study exploring such a relationship, these findings help address the theoretical gap existing in the management literature. Future research initiatives, limitations, delimitations are presented herein.

<p> <i><b>Problem:</b></i> A range of developmental models have been applied in research on leader development. Such applications often advocate &ldquo;whole&rdquo; person approaches to leader growth. They seek to expand social, cognitive, and behavioral capacities, and often reference perspective taking. Many of these approaches define developmental levels in terms of specific content, ideas, and domain-specific capacities. In some models, people are said to be at a given level because they demonstrate a certain kind of perspective taking, and they are also expected to demonstrate that kind of perspective taking because they are at a given level. This circularity largely prevents the investigation of how different capacities change together (or not) over time. </p><p> <i><b>Purpose:</b></i> Using an approach that avoids this kind of circularity it was possible to examine perspectival skills and developmental level independently. I tested three hypotheses about the relationship between change in developmental level and change in perspective taking, seeking, and coordination. It was predicted that these constructs would exhibit patterns of synchronous and asynchronous change, with the former being most prominent. </p><p> <i><b>Method:</b></i> The sample consisted of 598 civil leaders who completed a developmental assessment called the Lectical&trade; Decision Making Assessment (LMDA) up to 4 times over a 9-month leadership development program. The LDMAs yielded separate scores for Lectical level&mdash;a domain-general index of hierarchical complexity&mdash;and perspective taking, seeking, and coordination. Perspective taking and seeking scores were disaggregated into component scores for <i>salience, accessibility,</i> and <i> sophistication.</i> Ten scores were analyzed with Latent growth modeling techniques. Four types of models were fit to these data: (a) Univariate latent growth curve models, (b) multivariate parallel process models, (c) univariate latent difference scores models, and (d) bivariate latent difference scores models. </p><p> <i><b>Results:</b></i> All hypotheses were partially confirmed. Change trajectories for most scores were non linear, characterized by dips and spurts. The rate of change in perspective scores was not related to rate of change for Lectical score or initial Lectical score. Initial Lectical score was positively related to initial perspective scores. Lectical score was a leading indicator of subsequent change in seeking and seeking salience. Lectical change positively impacted seeking change, whereas Lectical score positively impacted seeking salience change. </p><p> <i><b>Conclusions:</b></i> The relationship between change in these constructs is more complex than typically portrayed. Evidence suggests that these variables change more independently of each other than claimed in earlier research. Patterns of asynchronous change were three times more common than synchronous change, and Lectical score predicted change in only some aspects of perspectival capacity. Implications for theory, method, and pedagogy, along with study limitations and avenues for future research are discussed.</p>

<p> Today&rsquo;s&nbsp;organizations&nbsp;must meet the external and internal challenges of&nbsp;continuous change.&nbsp;Most traditional organizational models, however, are designed for stability, including forms of leadership that use top-down, command-and-control hierarchy to steer direction and work. This study explores an alternative phenomenon observed in practice, collaborative leadership culture (CLC). In CLC, organizations determine where they are going, coordinate work, and sustain commitment through broad participation, collaborative practices, and emergence. Scholars&nbsp;study&nbsp;similar phenomena using different names, including&nbsp;in the emerging area of relational leadership and in constructive-developmental theory, a stage theory of adult development. What has not been well researched is how these forms of leadership develop. The research that does exist emphasizes senior leaders as participants versus taking a whole systems approach. This study explores how CLC develops in organizations, aiming for a multi-level, systemic collection of data. </p><p> This research is a single case study that uses critical incident interviews (CIIs) to understand how a 100-person catering company in suburban Chicago, Tasty Catering, developed CLC. The study draws on CIIs with 30 members representing diverse company areas and roles. All participants completed the Leadership Maturity Assessment (MAP), a measure of human development. Participants also completed a preliminary Direction, Alignment and Commitment (DAC) survey intended to understand the extent to which participants perceive leadership outcomes are produced by their current form of leadership. Study findings were captured in a proposed conceptual model of how CLC develops. The conceptual model includes individual behaviors, or levers, that contribute to six organizational drivers that create the conditions for CLC. The data also indicate that complex individual development of members and/or formal authority holders as measured by the MAP is not a prerequisite for developing CLC in an organization. The study presents practical implications for organizations, leaders, teams, and leadership educators, as well as recommendations for future research.</p>

While careers are often conceptualized as individual paths through occupations—propelled by internal drive and (for the lucky ones) passion—this research takes a more social and political perspective, understanding careers as coordinated by forces external to people and their immediate local settings. In particular this study uncovers ways that imperatives and activities associated with contemporary regional economic development have uneven consequences for young workers depending on socioeconomic status. For this dissertation I undertook a three-year longitudinal study of a much publicized initiative by top administrators of a state university to entice more college students to remain in that northeast US state to work upon graduation. Using the theoretical framework and methodology of institutional ethnography, a mode of analysis designed to "explore a regime of social policy from the standpoint of those subject to it," (DeVault 2008: 2) this research is anchored in the actual experiences of young students and workers transitioning into careers—potential young professionals. Through extensive observations of the activities of those involved with the initiative, interviews of business leaders, students, and recent graduates, analysis of initiative documents, as well as analysis of related practical and academic texts, I mapped the complexes of career-related social relations around students and workers that have material consequences on their everyday lives. According to the leaders of the university initiative "young professionals"—a category applied rather freely—were the creative, energetic, hard workers needed by the state for economic growth. This research investigated the "work"—paid and unpaid—that goes into performing as a "young professional," and reveals the disjunctures between the idealized images of young professionals and their actual lived experiences. It is much easier for some to perform the work of young professionalism than others, given structural inequities in economic, social, and educational structures. The dissertation concludes with a discussion of the consequences of these findings, including implications for university professors who work to prepare college students for their future careers. Despite the prevalence of young professional discourse in the United States, there is very little careers research specifically focused on young professionals and their careers. This research addresses that gap and also adds a needed contextual, longitudinal perspective to that body of management scholarship.