‘Multi-directional management’: Exploring the challenges of performance in the World Class Programme environment

Driven by the ever-increasing intensity of Olympic competition and the ‘no compromise – no stone unturned’ requirements frequently addressed by HM Government and its main agency, UK Sport, a change in culture across Olympic team landscapes is a common occurrence. With a focus on process, this paper presents reflections from eight current or recently serving UK Olympic sport Performance Directors on their experiences of creating and disseminating their vision for their sport, a vital initial activity of the change initiative. To facilitate a broad overview of this construct, reflections are structured around the vision’s characteristics and foundations, how it is delivered to key stakeholder groups, how it is influenced by these groups, the qualities required to ensure its longevity and its limitations. Emerging from these perceptions, the creation and maintenance of a shared team vision was portrayed as a highly dynamic task requiring the active management of a number of key internal and external stakeholders. Furthermore, the application of ‘dark’ traits and context-specific expertise were considered critical attributes for the activity’s success. Finally, recent calls for research to elucidate the wider culture optimisation process are reinforced

Present teaching stories as re-membering the humanities

he ways in which Humanities scholars talk about teaching tell something about how we interact with the past of our own discipline as well as anticipate our students’ futures. In this we express collective memories as truths of learning and teaching. As cultural artifacts of our present, such stories are worthy of excavation for what they imply about ourselves as well as messages they pass onto our successors. This paper outlines “collective re-membering” as one way to understand these stories, particularly as they present in qualitative interviews commonly being used to research higher education practice in the Humanities. It defines such collective re-membering through an interweaving of Halbwachs, Ricoeur, Wertsch and Bakhtin. It proposes that a dialogic reading between this understanding of collective re-membering and qualitative data-sets enables us to both access our discursive tendencies within the Humanities and understand the impact they might have on student engagement with our disciplines, noting that when discussing learning and teaching, we engage in collectively influenced myth-making and hagiography. The paper finishes by positing that the Humanities need to change their orientation from generating myths and pious teaching sagas towards the complex and ultimately more intellectually satisfying, articulation of learning and teaching parables

How Transformational Leadership predicts Employees’ Affective Commitment

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of transformational leadership (TL) on employees’ individual performance (IP) through the mediating role of affective commitment (AC). More specifically, it aims to understand how (a) TL relates to employees’ AC, (b) TL relates to employees’ IP, (c) employees’ AC relates to IP and (d) employees’ AC mediates the relationship between TL and employees’ IP. Design/methodology/approach - Four hundred and seventy-six Turkish healthcare professionals participated in this study. The mediation effect of AC in the relationship between TL and employees’ IP was tested by Structural Equation Modelling (SEM). Findings - The results indicate that AC mediates the relationship between TL and employees’ IP. In others words, transformational leaders promote employees’ AC which, in turn, increases their IP. Practical implications – This study suggests that organizations should select, develop and invest in leaders who adopt a TL style because they build a climate of admiration, loyalty, respect, participation and involvement for employees which will in turn enhance their commitment and performance. Originality/value – This study responds to calls for researches to explore the mediating mechanism in the TL process (Judge et al., 2006), as the mediation effects explain the conditions in which TL is related to the favorable outcomes.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

A Case Study of School Turnaround: How Leadership Behavior, Professional Learning, and Efficacy Building Can Impact Student Performance

The purpose of this study was to explore the phenomenon of school turnaround through an examination of educator perceptions of the implementation of Voelkel’s (2014) framework for professional learning communities (PLCs), collective efficacy, and transformational leadership, which provided the theoretical framework for the study. This study explored the processes that take place in one of the previously lowest-performing elementary schools in the state to explore the patterns of behavior and beliefs of the team engaged in the work of turnaround. During this study, 19 educators completed a 25-question survey instrument with a 5-point Likert scale that measured the aforementioned constructs of collective efficacy, PLCs, and leadership. Grade level, exceptional children (EC), and curriculum team focus groups with four to six members each were conducted to give breadth to the quantitative data. Quantitative and qualitative data collection and analyses were followed up by another review of the literature to determine congruent themes. The findings of this study show that data-based decisions made through strong PLC collegiality, along with strong administrative leadership, are cornerstones for school improvement at the studied turnaround school

Community development workers programme: mentoring for social transformation in the public service in post-apartheid South Africa

The new public sector community development workers (CDWs) programme was established in 2004 following ineffective service delivery through chronic under-spending on annual budgets in post-apartheid South Africa. CDWs receive training in learnerships within the National Skills Development Strategy to ensure access to and spending of local government poverty alleviation funding allocated for housing, childcare grants, and pensions and other services. As learnership mentors are mandatory, this research investigates the formal mentoring of CDWs after learnership programmes. CDWs and their mentors from two large municipalities participated. The main findings show inadequate formal mentoring of CDWs despite legislative requirements. Crucial mentoring for career development and psychosocial support is patchy and uneven. Social transformation of communities and access to government services and grants is likely to take longer than anticipated if CDWs are not adequately mentored during their training and in workplace learning