The Leading Traits of the Modern Corporate Leader: Comparing Survey Results from 2008 and 2018

This article deals with the evolution of leadership in the corporate business environment by presenting the results of comparative empirical studies conducted in 2008 and 2018. Based on an analysis of empirical research on the 2000 largest global corporations, obtained from the Forbes Global 2000, this work presents the changes that took place over a decade in the characteristics and competencies of contemporary leaders. The results allowed us to identify the desired characteristics, competencies, and character traits of contemporary leaders. In fact, the comparative analysis of these data showed the dynamics of change in the approach of global corporate leaders over the decade. The research results have important implications for the energy sector. Some of the companies participating in the study operate in the energy sector, therefore the opinions of these CEOs indicate significant determinants of modern leadership in this type of enterprise. When analysing the research results on the vision and scope of leadership impact in corporate business, we pointed, among other things, to the assessment of leadership traits, the evolution of leadership activities’ delegation, and the assessment of the importance of managers’ individual action areas and leadership factors.

"Directors' duties" imposed below board level

<p>Recently, the High Court of Australia considered the scope of the term “officer” in a case concerning the breach of a statutory duty under the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth). The equivalent duties prescribed by the New Zealand Companies Act 1993 are owed by an ostensibly narrower class. In considering how New Zealand law would apply to the same facts, this essay discusses the extent to which directors’ duties are, or should be owed by those below directorship level. It concludes that an expansive interpretation of the “director” definition is unnecessary and undesirable, and that explicitly extending directors’ duties to encompass certain senior managers would merely create uncertainties for courts and corporate leaders.</p>

"Directors' duties" imposed below board level

<p>Recently, the High Court of Australia considered the scope of the term “officer” in a case concerning the breach of a statutory duty under the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth). The equivalent duties prescribed by the New Zealand Companies Act 1993 are owed by an ostensibly narrower class. In considering how New Zealand law would apply to the same facts, this essay discusses the extent to which directors’ duties are, or should be owed by those below directorship level. It concludes that an expansive interpretation of the “director” definition is unnecessary and undesirable, and that explicitly extending directors’ duties to encompass certain senior managers would merely create uncertainties for courts and corporate leaders.</p>

Agile Scrum Pedagogy: Leveraging Collaborative Corporate Practices to Enhance Engagement

Accountability legislation such as No Child Left Behind and Every Student Succeeds Act ushered in an era of right-answer based reforms. Teachers, students, parents as well as community and corporate leaders lament the legislation’s negative impact on critical and creative thinking skills. Recent educational reform proposals focus on reversing the accountability trends. The change is propelling instructors at all levels to consider making contextually relevant pedagogical modifications. Business entities increasing resolve to adopt Agile Scrum principles offers educators an intriguing, authentic teamwork learning strategy. This article presents a business professor’s journey from content-driven to Agile Scrum’s context-embracing classroom instruction. Results from this action research affirm Agile Scrum principles that suggest engagement increases when instructors provide students flexibility, fast-paced opportunities to absorb content.

Employees Working Behavior under Different Shades of Destructive Leadership

Still, there is a lack of research on the dark side or destructive leadership. The purpose of this research is to add the literature on the two shades of destructive leadership, that are aversive and exploitative leadership, and their shadow in the form of counterproductive work behavior on the nursing professionals. Using 485 samples collected from the nurses of different hospitals of Pakistan, the model is tested through multiple linear hierarchical regressions, correlation analysis, and confirmatory factor analysis in Smart PLS software. The results reveal that people working under aversive and exploitative leaders are more likely to indulge in counterproductive work behavior. Still, proactive personalities have an essential impact which weakens the relationship between destructive leadership and counterproductive work behavior. Results of this study describe a vital requirement for corporate leaders to strengthen their recruitment process in such a way that people with aversive and exploitative attitudes ought to understand how to treat their subordinates before they enter top roles to discourage their workers from indulging in counterproductive behavior.

Gay Pride in the Urban New South: Politics, Neighborhood, and Community in Atlanta and Charlotte

Atlanta, Georgia, and Charlotte, North Carolina, serve as urban centers of the Southeast and archetypal New South cities. In the last decades of the twentieth century, city and corporate leaders in Atlanta often welcomed the growth of gay visibility and the resulting queer tourism. While Charlotte’s leaders promoted growth and longed to be like Atlanta, they rebuffed queer visibility. For many queer people, Atlanta lived up to an oft-repeated maxim; it was a city too busy to hate. Charlotte’s pattern of significant and sustained growth throughout the twentieth century led to its well-chosen Chamber of Commerce slogan, labeling the city as a great place to make money, which proved true for many queer people. Still, this financial success did not equal support. City politicians often set aside opportunities to exploit the burgeoning gay market while rejecting Charlotte’s queer citizens wholesale.

Strategic transformation to sustilience: learning from COVID-19

PurposeThe authors seek to stimulate and strengthen learning for both institutional and corporate leadership to transform society toward sustainability and resilience. The authors use sustainability in the broader socioecological sense, rather than meaning merely financial survival. Based upon experiences by various parties in dealing with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) or (C-19) during 2020 and into 2021, we are all driven to ask, “Which lessons shall we learn?”Design/methodology/approachBased upon a brief review of environmental and management literature, the authors compare experiences with C-19 and those of socio-ecological sustainability to-date and distill both sources for optimism as well as pessimism in the face of technical and socio-political challenges.FindingsHistorical experiences are not particularly encouraging, but there are many opportunities for great improvements if institutional and corporate leaders choose to learn from both C-19 experiences and earlier efforts toward sustainability.Practical implicationsProcrastination by major industrialized economies in not taking major positive actions to control and reduce carbon pollution and other environmental damage is leading to human crises–hunger and thirst followed by migration, conflicts and healthcare system collapses. Organizational executives need to develop flexibility and embrace precautionary principles regarding many stakeholders if humanity is going to have a good chance of flourishing in the future.Originality/valueThe authors adapt the “wedding cake” model of Sustainability Development Goals (SDGs) and their relationships to the concept of “dynamic materiality” in both an organizational as well as a macro perspective. In addition, the authors introduce the word sustilience to describe an organization's combined ability to achieve “sustainability” through relatively stable conditions as well as the “resilience” to rebound after major external shocks.