Personal Development Planning and Vertical Leadership Development in a VUCA World

To explore how personal development can be utilized as a tool for leaders to adapt to our VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous) world, a qualitative study was conducted on the narrative experiences of eight leaders who had successfully completed personal development plans. The emerging field of vertical leadership development, recognized as a unique developmental approach towards overcoming complexity and uncertainty, was connected to the key themes of personal development planning. Vertical leadership development and personal development planning were united across five conceptual themes: development and application of skills, self-awareness, self-efficacy, self-exploration, and continuous improvement. The experiences of the participants helped to inform how their plans connected with these themes, and how plan success and retention can be ensured overall. The study found that plans are at their most successful when they are thoroughly structured with the individual’s personal goals in mind, have direct application to the participant’s working life, and are supported by some degree of accountability and/or reflection. The study observed thematic connections between conventional personal development plans and vertical leadership development, highlighting potential connections between developmental approaches that are focused on boosting skills competency and capacity in times of VUCA. The findings help to inform how personal development plans can best serve as a resource towards managing complexity, uncertainty, and change.

Characteristics of Workplace Psychosocial Resources and Risk of Diabetes: A Prospective Cohort Study

Objective <p>To examine whether characteristics of <a></a><a>workplace psychosocial resources are associated with the risk of type 2 diabetes</a> among employees. </p> <h3>Research Design and Methods</h3> <p>Participants were 49,835 employees (77% women, aged 40-65 and diabetes-free at baseline) from the Finnish Public Sector cohort study. Characteristics of horizontal (culture of collaboration and support from colleagues) and vertical (leadership quality and organizational procedural justice) psychosocial resources were self-reported. Incident type 2 diabetes (n=2148) was ascertained via linkage to electronic health records from national registers. We used latent-class modeling to assess the clustering of resource characteristics. Cox proportional hazard models were used to examine the association between the identified clusters and risk of type 2 diabetes during 10.9 years of follow-up, adjusting for age, sex, marital status, educational level, type of employment contract, comorbidity and diagnosed mental disorders.</p> <h3>Results</h3> <p>We identified four patterns of workplace psychosocial resources: <a>‘unfavorable’; ‘favorable vertical’; ‘favorable</a><a></a><a> horizontal’</a>; and ‘favorable vertical and horizontal.’ <a>Compared with the ‘unfavorable’, ‘favorable vertical’ (HR=0.87 95%CI 0.78;0.97), ‘favorable horizontal’ (HR=0.77 95%CI 0.67;0.88), and ‘favorable vertical and horizontal’ (HR=0.77 95%CI 0.68;0.86) resources were associated with a lower risk of type 2 diabetes</a>, with the strongest associations seen in employees at age 55 or older (P_interaction=0.03). These associations were robust to multivariable adjustments and were not explained by reverse causation.</p> <h3>Conclusions</h3> <p>Employees working in a favorable level of culture of collaboration, support from colleagues, leadership quality, and organizational procedural justice have a lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes than those without such favorable workplace psychosocial resources.</p>

A qualitative analysis of vertical leadership development amongst NHS health-care workers in low to middle income country settings

Purpose The improving global health (IGH) programme is a leadership development programme that aims to develop leadership skills and behaviours alongside quality improvement methodology in National Health Service (NHS) employees in a global health setting. Through collaboration, experiential learning and mentorship, the programme aims to produce both vertical and horizontal leadership development in its participants. This paper aims to describe the programme and its impact, in terms of leadership development, in a sample of participants. Design/methodology/approach Open coding and thematic analysis of leadership development summaries (LDS) completed by 39 returned IGH participants were conducted. LDS are written on completion of the overseas placement; participants reflect on their personal leadership development against the nine dimensions of the NHS Healthcare Leadership Model (2013). Findings These IGH programme participants have reported a change in the way they think, behave and see the world. A development in sense of self and experience in developing team members are the two most commonly reported themes. Adaptability, communication, overcoming boundaries, collaborative working, “big picture” thinking and strategic thinking were also identified. Research limitations/implications The study is limited by the relatively low number of completed LDS. More work is needed to understand the long-term effect of this type of leadership development on the NHS. Other leadership development programmes should consider focussing on vertical and horizontal leadership development. Originality/value This more granular understanding of the leadership skills and behaviours developed and how it is the programme’s design that creates it, has not previously been described.

Leadership Matters, But So Do Co-Workers: A Study of the Relative Importance of Transformational Leadership and Team Relations for Employee Outcomes and User Satisfaction

In recent decades, public administration has taken a great interest in leadership. However, this interest has been met with concerns that the effects of leadership are overestimated compared to other relevant organizational factors. In this article, we explore the relative importance of formal, vertical leadership, specifically transformational leadership, and horizontal relations, that is, the internal team relations, for different employee outcomes and user satisfaction. We argue that both factors may work through public service motivation (PSM). Based on survey data collected in Danish nursing homes linked with a user satisfaction survey and employee sickness absence data, we find that the internal team relations have the strongest association with some outcome measures, whereas others are more substantially related to vertical leadership. We further find that the relationship between transformational leadership and these outcome measures is fully mediated by PSM, whereas this is not the case with the internal team relations.

Vertical or shared? When leadership supports team learning for educational change

University teacher teams can work toward educational change through the process of team learning behavior, which involves sharing and discussing practices to create new knowledge. However, teachers do not routinely engage in learning behavior when working in such teams and it is unclear how leadership support can overcome this problem. Therefore, this study examines when team leadership behavior supports teacher teams in engaging in learning behavior. We studied 52 university teacher teams (281 respondents) involved in educational change, resulting in two key findings. First, analyses of multiple leadership types showed that team learning behavior was best supported by a shared transformational leadership style that challenges the status quo and stimulates team members’ intellect. Mutual transformational encouragement supported team learning more than the vertical leadership source or empowering and initiating structure styles of leadership. Second, moderator analyses revealed that task complexity influenced the relationship between vertical empowering team leadership behavior and team learning behavior. Specifically, this finding suggests that formal team leaders who empower teamwork only affected team learning behavior when their teams perceived that their task was not complex. These findings indicate how team learning behavior can be supported in university teacher teams responsible for working toward educational change. Moreover, these findings are unique because they originate from relating multiple team leadership types to team learning behavior, examining the influence of task complexity, and studying this in an educational setting.

Composing Peace

The book explores how diversity in United Nations’ peace mission composition affects peacekeeping effectiveness. It identifies four key dimensions of composition: Blue Helmets’ field diversity, top mission leadership diversity (between Force Commander and Special Representative of the Secretary General), vertical leadership distance (Leadership-Blue Helmets), and horizontal distance with the local population. Each dimension of diversity of mission is measured as linguistic, geographical, and religious distance. Our book conceptualizes original mechanisms—i. resolve commitment; ii. informative trust; iii. informative communicability; iv. skilled persuasion—through which diversity can shape mission effectiveness such as trust, communicability, deterrence, and persuasion. It then evaluates each dimension separately through three pathway case studies—the UN missions in Lebanon, in Mali, and in the Central African Republic—and quantitative analyses based on a global dataset of peacekeeping operations deployed since the end of the Cold War. The book finds that diversity of Blue Helmets and diversity of top leadership may increase the mission’s capacity to reduce battle-field violence and civilian victimization. At the same time, the effects of diversity are contextual and contingent. In fact, looking at the relation between peacekeepers and Force Commanders, proximity between them is generally associated with better performances. Furthermore, homogeneity between local populations and peacekeepers, or low distance between them, is also related to low levels of hostility and casualties. This book crucially demonstrates why diversity of mission composition is a key variable to consider when trying to enhance peacekeeping effectiveness.