Closed Loop: the art of succession planning

Complexity academic level This case is appropriate for students enroled in postgraduate programmes, such as a Master of Business Administration and Executive Education programmes. Although the case learnings are transferrable to more general leadership and change management studies, this case will be particularly useful to students with interests in entrepreneurship, leadership in tech startups and succession planning. Supplementary materials Teaching Notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email [email protected] to request teaching notes. Subject code CSS6: Human Resource Management.

‘Surviving to thriving’: Leading health professions’ education through change, crisis & uncertainty

Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic has caused huge change and uncertainty for universities, faculty, and students around the world. For many health professions’ education (HPE) leaders, the pandemic has caused unforeseen crises, such as closure of campuses, uncertainty over student numbers and finances and an almost overnight shift to online learning and assessment. Methods: In this article, we explore a range of leadership approaches, some of which are more applicable to times of crisis, and others which will be required to take forward a vision for an uncertain future. We focus on leadership and change, crisis and uncertainty, conceptualising ‘leadership’ as comprising the three interrelated elements of leadership, management and followership. These elements operate at various levels – intrapersonal, interpersonal, organisational and global systems levels. Results: Effective leaders are often seen as being able to thrive in times of crisis – the traditional ‘hero leader’ – however, leadership in rapidly changing, complex and uncertain situations needs to be much more nuanced, adaptive and flexible. Conclusion: From the many leadership theories and approaches available, we suggest some specific approaches that leaders might choose in order to work with their teams and organisations through these rapidly changing and challenging times.

Pedagogical Triage and Emergent Strategies: A Management Educational Program in Pandemic Times

This paper explores the post-pandemic strategic reorientation of a master in leadership and change management, investigating the conditions for its success and the side effects. The Master, which is part of the Defense Education Enhancement Plan recently approved by the Italian Ministry of Defense, led in partnership by the Center for High Defense Studies and the University of Salerno, aims at developing strategic leadership and change management competencies. The virtualization of the project work sessions that was caused by the pandemic emergency produced unexpected consequences that led the master directors to refocus the program as regards its format and method. The case-study, based on direct observation, unstructured interviews, and analysis of written documents and recorded audio, corroborates the literature regarding the emerging innovative, learner-centered approaches in management education, showing the effectiveness of an integrated educational approach based on traditional in-presence lectures, as well as experiential and project-based learning. It shows how the adjustments devised to cope with the consequences of teamwork virtualization proved to be synergistic, delivering positive outcomes in terms of participants’ satisfaction, learning, and impact. Future research avenues and practical implications are also highlighted, with a focus on the internal and external conditions for successful project-based learning in a distance learning environment.

Assistant Principal Mobility and Its Relationship With Principal Turnover

Assistant principals (APs) are important education personnel, but empirical evidence about their career outcomes remains scarce. Using administrative data from Tennessee and Missouri, we provide the first comprehensive analysis of AP mobility. While prior work focuses on promotions into principal positions, we also examine APs exiting school leadership and transferring across schools. We find yearly mobility rates of 25% to 28%, with 10% of APs leaving school leadership, 7.5% changing schools, and 7.5% to 10% becoming principals. We also document a strong relationship between AP mobility and principal turnover, where higher-performing APs are substantially more likely to replace their departing principal. Finally, principal transitions appear to increase the likelihood that APs exit school leadership and change schools.

Leading Changes: Why Transformation Explanation Fails

This critique is for the article entitled of “Leading changes: why transformation explanation fails” written by Dr. Mark Hughes, who constructs it to illustrate why identification of leadership errors in Kotter’s model fails to explain the failure in transformation efforts. Kotter’s model of change has developed from a business perspective, for this, the power is concentrated in the top management hands, so it forces people to follow the change or leave the organization. Unlike Kotter, Hughes was able to recognize the changeable world when he looks for organization and leadership changes. Also, Hughes concludes that the Kotter’s model does not encourage change rather calls for improvement and has suggested evaluating of his eight-step model especially he does not share his work methods. On the relationship side, Kotter was able to understand the map of relationships inside organizations and how to use it. Change is about influence and both leadership and change is about relationships. Hughes focuses on the reasons behind the change “why” and the goal of change “target”, while Kotter emphasizes on how the top management should carry the change. Hughes is more a scientist, but Kotter is more practical.