The Complex Case of Noncredit Credential Innovation in Public Universities

Four-year public institutions of higher education (IHEs) face increasing pressure to innovate with noncredit credentials. The chapter aims to develop leaders' mental models for navigating unique complexities associated with offering programs that do not award academic credit. First, a review of noncredit literature and organizational science principles explains that noncredit programming is often unaligned with IHE organizational culture and structure. Then, two metaphors for leaders' roles in overcoming barriers to innovation are introduced and critiqued: Buller's organic leadership concept and Christensen and Eyring's higher education DNA concept. Complexity leadership theory is next presented as a mental model to understand three complementary leader roles for fostering innovation with a complex organizational environment. Finally, the chapter's case features three vignettes from public IHE continuing education leaders that exemplify the complexities related to pursuing noncredit credential innovation. Strategies and discussion questions are included.

From the Cottage to the Cage – Exploring the Efficacy of Complexity Leadership Theory in Addressing 21st Century Workplace Toxicity.

The issue of workplace toxicity constitutes a major problem for employers, employees and society at large. Toxicity in a workplace context relates to damaging behaviours perpetrated by individuals and organisations that netatively impact on the health and wellbeing of others. Workplace toxicty is habitually associated with activities such as bullying, harrassment, unethical and even illegal acts. In this article, today’s workplace is likenened to a cage where ambition and greed drive people to engage in toxic behaviour to fight for whatever scarce rewards are on offer. Set against a backdrop of continuous demands on employees in a era of constant change and challenge, leadership practice in the 21st century is understandably seeped in complexity. Whilst conditions of scarcity are in fact constructed by employers in today’s lean environments, workplace toxicity has significant implications for organisational leaders in terms of work place disputes, absenteeism and litigation etc. Twentieth century hierarchial and autocratic leadership models are now deemed to be both obsolete and wholly inadedgate to inform leadership practice in the knowledge era. This conceptual article looks at the efficacy of complexity leadership theory (CLT) in empowering today’s leader to better understand and address 21st century workplace toxicity.

Importing Complexity Leadership Theory Into Bureaucratic Organizations in Non-Western Environments

Criticisms of bureaucratic leadership in the public sector literature are increasing, and as such, a growing number of scholars in public administration are calling for a more complex and conceptually sound theoretical models of leadership that are collaborative and reduce the power of the leader and create hybrid governance models. With a multifaceted perspective, detailed conceptual underpinning and a growing body of empirical study support complexity leadership theory (CLT) as a potential to address many of the issues where an individual is seen to possess all the knowledge in the organizational goals. The intent for proposing the importation of CLT in PSOs is to offer a paradigm for thinking about leadership to explore issues that confound those from the traditional view to the shared and adaptive leadership process. In conclusion, the HR practitioners within the entity should be seen to be responsible for their actions. Therefore, adopting complexity leadership theory in today's PSOs will enhance the performance of employees.

Leader Readiness in a Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, and Ambiguous Business Environment

Organizational leaders in the 21st century face relentless changes in the business environments in which they operate. The diversity, intensity, and rapidity of these changes create volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA), which challenge leaders on ways to lead effectively as existing methods prove inadequate. The problem in this study was that of inadequate leader preparedness to lead and win in VUCA environments. The purpose of this hermeneutic phenomenological study was to explore the lived experiences of 15 Nigerian corporate executives about their VUCA business environment and the strategies they employed for VUCA-readiness and success using open-ended interview questions. The conceptual framework guiding this study was a combination of chaos theory and complexity leadership theory. Through Ricoeur’s theory of interpretation, member checking, and contextual triangulation, 11 key themes emerged to highlight key coping and readiness strategies for leaders operating in turbulent environments. The key recommendations for practice are to inculcate VUCA-readiness and organizational resilience principles in line with this study’s findings. The study findings may contribute to positive social change in providing strategies for organizational sustainability, firm success, business readiness, responsive leadership, and enhanced employee well-being.