<p> This project examined the impacts of an organization identity intervention on workers&rsquo; commitment during large-scale transformational change at a financial services company. A 21-member information technology team was recruited for the study. Commitment was measured using a quantitative instrument and the events and data collected during the identity intervention were described. Participants generally enjoyed the intervention, although team members grew increasingly negative over the course of the event due to past experiences with similar interventions. Commitment was consistent across both groups and remained unchanged across the study period. The study organization is advised to assure that its leaders support and are prepared to respond to the results of any interventions conducted and take measures to nurture participants&rsquo; existing affective commitment. Continued research is needed to evaluate the impacts of the identity intervention on commitment. Such studies are advised to utilize a larger sample and to measure organizational commitment using mixed methods.</p>

<p> Although researchers have discovered many of the beneficial and positive consequences of employee engagement, little is known about the multitude of antecedent factors that lead to employee engagement. Previous research has demonstrated that an individual&rsquo;s gender is a factor in engagement, and that an employee&rsquo;s racioethnic similarity with a supervisor, job characteristics, and perceived organizational support, are all antecedents of engagement. The present study focused on individual personality, the perceived quality of employees&rsquo; working relationships with their supervisors, and their work roles as either managers or subordinates, to identify whether those variables contribute to employee engagement. This study&rsquo;s survey, administered to 96 respondents in the work force, using hierarchical multiple regression analysis, found that the personality sub-domain of conscientiousness, based on the Big Five model of personality, and the perceived quality of relationship with one&rsquo;s supervisor, based on Leader-Member Exchange (LMX) theory, were positively related to, and predicted employee engagement.</p>

<p> The purpose of writing <i>Adverse Childhood Experiences and Transformational Leadership at The Bowery Mission</i> was to develop an understanding of the relationship of between childhood trauma and leadership styles at that institution. </p><p> Chapter 1 begins by describing the Bowery Mission and its environs. It develops the association between the transformational leadership and the community then asks the question &lsquo;what exactly is the tangible relationship?&rsquo; Then there is the introduction of the MLQ and CTQ. </p><p> Chapter 2 provides literature and foundation for researching childhood maltreatment and leadership. It develops how childhood maltreatment causes numerous physical, psychological and spiritual effects later in life. Subsequently there is documentation on the literature relating adverse childhood experiences to transformational leadership as well as a section on transformational leadership at non-profits like The Bowery Mission.</p><p> Chapter 3 sets forth the qualitative and quantitative research methodology utilized in approaching the question of statistical relationships between childhood adverse experiences and transformational leadership amongst the leaders at the Bowery Mission. It discusses how and where the interviews were performed and demographics that help round out each individual&rsquo;s background. </p><p> Chapter 4 presents an analysis of data. Leaders are first analyzed individually and then as a group. Statistical data is presented depicting correlations between maltreatment and leadership style. There were no statistical correlations found between transformational behaviors and childhood maltreatments. A number of participants indicated that their poor experiences made them particularly suited to lead similarly hurting individuals.</p><p> Chapter 5 assesses the data. It concludes that transformation takes place despite the lack of statistical correlation. Further research might include a retest in six months with a larger participant group.</p>

<p> This phenomenological study seeks to explore the lived experiences that have led Millennials through a meaning-making process to discover their callings. The primary research question framing this study addresses what the relationship is between Millennials&rsquo; meaning-making process and the discovery of their calling. Secondary questions address how Millennials who have found their calling define and conceptualize the concept and sources of calling, what the lived experiences are that have led Millennials to discover their calling, and how Millennials make meaning of the experiences and influences that have led them to discover their calling. </p><p> Perceiving and living a calling is associated with various life and work outcomes such as life satisfaction/meaning, job satisfaction, and meaningful work. However, little is known about how callings develop. Furthermore, there remain conflicting views on the conceptualization and source of calling. In addition, the existing research on calling is focused primarily on previous generations, university students, and individuals of religious-based backgrounds. It is important for researchers and practitioners to understand how members of the Millennial generation develop a calling, because this generation is currently in the workforce and is reported to be the biggest U.S. generation yet. While there is significant research on the career expectations of Millennials and how they value meaning in their work, there is little known about what experiences lead them to develop their callings and how they make meaning of those experiences to discern their callings. Thus, this study extends the body of research beyond these groups to Millennials who are currently in the workforce and living their callings in order to ensure that their perspectives and experiences of calling are incorporated into the literature. </p><p> Eight Millennials who are currently living their calling were selected for participation in this interview-based study. The findings of the study are presented within the following three main themes: the conceptualization of calling, the lived experiences in developing a calling, and the meaning-making process as it pertains to developing a calling. Bases on these findings, conclusions were developed and implications and recommendations are suggested.</p><p>

<p> This phenomenological study sought to understand the life experience of retired Flag/General Officers who transitioned from highly visible and accomplished careers in the US Military into executive leadership roles in other sectors. Participant selection was limited to those executive military leaders with a minimum of three years (for those currently employed) or five years (for those fully retired) of executive level leadership experience in the civilian sector and was focused on bringing clarity to the challenges they faced. Specifically, it explored how their leadership style and professional identity may have been influenced by the change in culture and mission and, most importantly, what they learned about themselves as a result of the lived experience. </p><p> Twelve participants were purposefully selected across all branches of the US military and a semi-structured protocol was utilized in accordance with Barnard's (1988) recommendation. Individual profiles were developed and interview data was analyzed using Moustakas' (1994) phenomenological analysis method. Through phenomenological reduction, five themes and seventeen sub-themes emerged.</p><p> The leadership transition experience of the participants was captured by crafting structural and textural descriptions, by integrating structural-textural descriptions, and by synthesizing the emergent meanings and essences of the phenomenon as a whole.</p><p> This study offers the following five conclusions: </p><p> 1. The experience of career transition is expressed in terms of boundaryless opportunity and professional transformation </p><p> 2. The ability to adapt to a new organizational culture is dependent upon ones openness to accept and embrace change </p><p> 3. Success is rooted in a commitment to ones core leadership principles and an intuitive willingness to flex ones leadership style as needed </p><p> 4. Professional identities adjust in response to new environments, new networks of relationships, and new role expectations </p><p> 5. Professional transformation is a process of self-discovery and self-renewal </p><p> The conclusions that emerged from the findings of this study illuminate the meaning and significance of the career transition experience of the twelve participants and contribute to the career transition literature.</p>

<p> Poor executive leadership of organizations over the last 20 years has resulted in the destruction of stakeholder value, loss of jobs, and in some cases, risk to the entire enterprise. An executive search firm database, encompassing 16,000 leaders from 300 organizations, was analyzed to determine if the commonality and transferability of leadership competences could be used to improve executive assessment. Implicit leadership theory, where leaders are gauged by the individuals that surround them, served as the theoretical foundation. The study also relies on a leadership competency model used by the executive search firm that constructed the database and is based primarily on behavioral-event interviewing method of assessment. Inferential statistics were used to analysis the data with analysis of variance and Tukey post-hoc methods for testing mean differences, and with correlation and regression analysis to test for associations and explained variances. The executive roles were found to show a commonality of competency profiles and transferability across the disciplines studied, with the exception of the chief executive officer (CEO) role. These findings suggest that a new CEO should not be sourced directly from the other executive functions inside or outside the firm. The Outstanding leader database indicates a strong universality and interchangeability of leaders at this higher-ranking level, regardless of discipline and industry; the database is a source of new potential CEOs. Results Orientation is by far the strongest developed of the competencies for all leaders. Social change will result from better selection of top executive leaders with a positive impact for employees and all the stakeholders of the corporation or institution.</p>

<p> Deviant leadership is pervasive and destroys value and lives while leadership and followership are indispensible dyadic components of organizational performance and value in post-industrial, globalized, and complex competitive environment. Deviant leadership is an understudied destructive sub-optimal force by misapplication of organizational leadership resulting in loss, underperformance, and adverse individual impact in the modern complex organizational environment. Deviant leadership is leadership behaviors, traits, or styles that destroy organizational performance and value, and impact followers&rsquo; followership, well-being, and engagement. The emerging crucial knowledge of deviant leadership within the broader field of complexity-based leadership is oriented at destructive sub-optimal actions of leaders; contrary to the corpus of leadership literature on positive traits, theories, styles, and applications. The knowledge and application gap between destruction and loss created by deviant leadership and strategies, mitigations, and awareness for eliminating or reducing the phenomenon created a need for the exploration of deviant leadership from the follower perspective. The study of the experience of deviant leadership for followers and followership is a parallel-interrelated field of leadership study, as new organizational imperatives have resulted from a complex, connected, information-based global economy in the post-industrial age. Complexity leadership theories use complex adaptive systems as basic whole units of studying the continual dyadic relationships and interactions of leaders, followers, and followership as the interconnected symbiotic system that creates organizational value. Despite the huge volume of modern literature and knowledge on positive leadership, the serious problem of deviant leadership was unabated, understudied, and pervasive in modern complex organizations, and was addressed through rich, deep qualitative phenomenological exploration. The purpose of the study was enhanced understanding of deviant leadership for crucial awareness in maximizing effort and minimizing loss in complex adaptive organizational systems within the global economy with added information, strategies, and interventions. The meaning, essence, and invariant nature of deviant leadership was explicated from 12 organizational followers in the United States who compete in the global competitive environment. Collected and processed data enabled the qualitative phenomenological determination of how deviant leadership exists. Deviant leadership was found to be a pervasive phenomenon affecting followers and their followership in the global competitive environment.</p>

<p> The aim of this study was to investigate the perceptions of organizational workers to identify (1) To what extent do the perceptions of support staff in the financial industry regarding the leadership behaviors of direct supervisors affect their levels of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, (2) What motivational techniques used by transactional and transformational leaders appear to be most effective at motivating support staff in the financial industry. The research questions were investigated through qualitative in-depth interviews with 14 employees in the financial industry. Analysis of data shows a close relationship with transformational leaders and positive intrinsic employee motivation and with transactional leaders a positive relationship with extrinsic employee motivation. The results of this study indicate that when intrinsic motivation is available without any extrinsic motivation, people are motivated intrinsically, but the feelings of motivation diminish quickly. When intrinsic motivation is present with extrinsic motivation, intrinsic motivation is significantly undermined. The large difference in the generational cohorts was the most substantial finding from this study. Over eighty three percent of the younger generational cohort (22-28 years old) preferred a transactional leader and just over 83 percent of the older generational cohort (43-54 years old) preferred a transformational leader. The results of this study have implications for recruiting and selection, and leadership development.</p>

<p> Stemming from the perception of trust and communication in a remote work environment, the experiences of the employees were analyzed based on three factors of self-efficacy, personal engagement, and interpersonal relationships with their leaders. Using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA), the study employed semi-structured interviews to gain experiential data from nine qualified remote employee participants who had worked remotely one day per week for a minimum of one year. The data were coded and the four themes that surfaced were: (a) the desire to succeed is key to the feeling of mastery in a remote role, (b) performance in a remote role is the result of feeling independent, support from others, and productivity due to less distractions, (c) communication in a remote work environment is vital for justification of role and understanding perceived distances in relationship development, and (d) trust is an essential element in the perception of relationships in a remote work environment. Findings of this study concluded trust and communication are vital components of the perception of self-efficacy, personal engagement, and interpersonal relationships. This study contributed to understanding the psychological conditions necessary to be successful in a remote work environment for both academic and practical knowledge of remote employment.</p><p>

Education Reform has legislated school governance councils to promote site-based decision making. School teams have been suggested in special education as a pre-referral resource and assistance to teachers working with special needs students. Cross-constituent groups must be brought together to restructure schools and provide instructional support. The site-based teams require evaluation. Several performance activities, variables, and levels of training and support have been suggested in studies from states where there have been attempts to implement site-based decision making. Few of these reports have attempted to quantify the activities and variables suggested for team functioning. Through a thorough literature review of the subject and an extensive survey of site teams in the public schools in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, a set of team activities and variables was identified and quantified by the author. The collected data was utilized to develop an evaluation instrument. The resulting questionnaire was administrated to evaluators and team members of school site teams. A statistical analysis was performed to assess the significance of these performance descriptors in estimating the overall functioning of school site teams. The results of the statistical analysis and literature review provide the immediate supervisor with a set of variables to gain insight in the assessment of team functioning. These results can also be used to develop a self-assessment instrument to enhance team functioning. The model developed by the author can be generalized to management settings other than education. Customization of the evaluation tool is suggested as a means for future application of this study. The results of the research focus on the importance of team process and group dynamics, as well as specific product variables germane to the organization in the development of an evaluation instrument that can be used to assess overall team functioning.