The Global Economic Crisis after One Year: Is a New Paradigm for Recovery in Developing Countries Emerging?

One year into the global economic crisis, it has become clear that the paradigm for international development has changed irrevocably. With leadership, moral authority and the capacity of the West in international development diminishing, developing countries. recovery and future growth will critically hinge on their own initiatives, solutions and leadership. This policy brief summarizes the global responses to the crisis over the past year, points to their shortcomings and argues that a new paradigm for recovery in developing countries is emergingfinancial crisis, developing countries, development finance, financia

The Leadership Catalyst: A New Paradigm for Helping Leadership Flourish in Organizations

This thesis codifies a leadership paradigm that was born out of my experience as a naval officer, a corporate manager, and a director in a non-profit program and is informed by my study of leadership over the last 30 years—culminating in my completion of the Organizational Dynamics program. The basis for my model is a declaration that a good leader is someone who develops, creates, or otherwise inspires leadership abilities or improved performance in others—a leadership catalyst. My premise is that by becoming leadership catalysts, people can become force multipliers in their organizations by helping to exponentially improve the organization’s leadership capability. In a chemical solution, the catalyst creates a reaction that enables the original materials to become more than they are capable of becoming by themselves. Likewise, a person who is being a leadership catalyst enables others to become more than they are capable of becoming by themselves. My model melds concepts from neuroscience, cognitive psychology, ontology, and even quantum physics to describe how a person can become a leadership catalyst by being mindful, connected, intentional, generative, and heretical. Each of these five components represents particular intentions by the leader and serves as a guide for the leader to be authentic, generous, and effective at producing results

"Gumboots and grassroots" : exploring leadership for social change at a grassroots level in New Zealand : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Business Studies in Management at Massey University, Albany, New Zealand

The primary aim of this study was to explore the motivations underpinning three agri-women’s involvement in grassroots associations. The research investigated leadership processes within the groups and sought to understand the impact of three specific projects in the context of grassroots leadership for social change. Grassroots associations have been described as innovative networks of people sharing common goals and vision, that recognise and respond to local community needs, often motivated by a need to create societal and environmental change. Future climatic and sustainability challenges predicted for New Zealand’s agri-sector provide the impetus to support and increase this collective leadership capacity. Voluntary groups such as these have largely been ignored by leadership scholars, however their informal, decentralised structures and collective decision-making processes offer unique opportunities to view leadership in a different way, a way that may be essential in the complex world of the 21st century. Furthermore, the context of this research in rural and provincial New Zealand provides a fresh perspective relevant to rural and urban alike, for a country largely reliant on its primary sector for economic prosperity. A qualitative multiple case study design was chosen for its ability to achieve a holistic result, rich in content and meaning, through employing multiple data collection techniques in a naturalistic setting. Thematic analysis was used to draw out themes from the data, which combined with existing theory in an abductive approach adding new contributions to the current limited knowledge of grassroots leadership processes. Key findings were the participants’ voluntary altruistic principles and their passion, persistence and commitment to their causes. Leadership processes within the groups confirmed an outdated leader-follower influence paradigm and strong parallels with elements of Complexity Leadership Theory, especially in terms of enabling leadership to create adaptive space. However, the major contribution from this study was an adapted framework demonstrating how philosophical foundations, leadership practices and activities of grassroots associations can build community power in the creation of social capital contributing to community resilience for unknown and unknowable future events

Implementing new leadership paradigm using the 6 Box Leadership diagnostics: some data patterns

Investment in, and awareness of, leadership development and its importance have increased significantly in recent decades. Despite this, tangible progress has been patchy. Based on an extensive research, this article argues that such a disparity becomes less of a surprise if one analyses data on organizational climate, compared with that for individuals; and explores the mindsets that underpin common approaches to organisational management. The 6 Box Leadership diagnostic system has been developed on the basis of many years of interdisciplinary research to enable organisations to discover hidden strengths and weaknesses in the areas of Culture, Relationships, Individuals, Strategy, Systems and Processes, and move towards leadership based on collaborative culture, purpose and autonomy. This article presents research background to the 6 Box Leadership Model and associated diagnostic tool, it discusses its diagnostics capability, and it provides an example of data patterns obtained from three case studies. The results show that scores for organisational culture are lagging behind scores for an individual mindset, which may explain the slow implementation of the emerging leadership practices in organisations

An investigation into the Conceptualisations of Leadership Among Early childhood Teachers in Ireland.

Leadership in an Irish Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) context is a new and emerging ideology at a policy and practice level. This study aimed to gain an understanding of the conceptualisations of leadership held by early childhood teachers who work directly with children in Ireland. This study explored the associations of leadership held by participants, recognition of leadership potential and attributes of effective leadership; through an interpretivist paradigm. Within this paradigm, a qualitative research design was selected to capture the lived experiences of leadership of participants. Six semi-structured interviews we completed with early childhood teachers from rural Ireland. The findings were extracted from the data collected using a thematic analysis, the themes which were established were shared leadership, development of others, characteristics of effective leadership, relational leadership and challenges of the profession. Overall the study identified a conceptualisation of leadership as a shared entity or co-leadership among early childhood teachers, which is reflective of the national policy agenda currently. Furthermore, the reciprocal nature of relationships was also a key factor in effective leadership in ECEC settings

Why Principal Positive Leadership Is Important: It’s Mediating Effect on the Relation between the School Context and Student Academic Achievement

“Deficit remediation” as an educational governance paradigm has given rise to many problems, whereas principal positive leadership under the “strengths development” paradigm has the potential to give new impetus to school development. Based on large-scale survey data within a provincial region, this study investigates how the school context and principal positive leadership impact student academic achievement using structural equation models. Research findings show that principal positive leadership as a structural latent variable has positive impacts on student academic performance and significantly mediates the effects of the school context on student academic results; and that the patterns of the impacts of principal positive leadership differ according to the variations of the school’s autonomy in operation

Governing Networks and Rule-Making in Cyberspace

The global network environment defies traditional regulatory theories and policymaking practices. At present, policymakers and private sector organizations are searching for appropriate regulatory strategies to encourage and channel the global information infrastructure (“GII”). Most attempts to define new rules for the development of the GII rely on disintegrating concepts of territory and sector, while ignoring the new network and technological borders that transcend national boundaries. The GII creates new models and sources for rules. Policy leadership requires a fresh approach to the governance of global networks. Instead of foundering on old concepts, the GII requires a new paradigm for governance that recognizes the complexity of networks, builds constructive relationships among the various participants (including governments, systems operators, information providers, and citizens), and promotes incentives for the attainment of various public policy objectives in the private sector

A 'novel' approach to leadership development : using women's literary fiction to explore contemporary women's leadership issues : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Business Studies in Management at Massey University, Albany, New Zealand

The central aim of this thesis is to investigate how women’s literary fiction can be harnessed for the purpose of exploring contemporary women’s leadership issues. This thesis argues that literary fiction is a valuable source of interdisciplinary and ‘artful’ consciousness-raising material for proactively addressing at the interpersonal level a wide range of critical concerns related to women’s leadership experiences. Having identified a significant ‘gap’ in the extant literature – the underutilisation of women’s novels, short-stories and plays in leadership studies – this thesis adopts an interdisciplinary approach to demonstrate how literary works can be used to examine women’s contemporary leadership issues. For this research project I adopted an interpretive qualitative research paradigm informed by critical leadership studies and a multiplicity of feminist perspectives. I developed a systematic method for long listing and short listing appropriate texts and analysed selected works in response to a five-point conceptual framework of critical concerns arising from a review of the women and leadership literature. I also kept a reflective blog to track the iterative nature of the research process and to record my learning during this study. The findings demonstrate that women’s literary fiction offers a rich repository of thought-provoking illustrations of women’s leadership concerns, including gender binaries, power-play, socially constructed perceptions and gendered expectations, and women’s diverse range experiences as both leaders and followers. The extended analysis provides a number of in-depth examples and reflective questions, revealing myriad opportunities for critical theorising, illustrative analysis and critical reflection. Subsequently, this thesis argues that fictional stories are a viable and potentially transformative ‘artful’ intervention for addressing complex leadership issues concerned with gender within the context of women’s leadership development programmes. My recommendations for future studies include a focus on ethical leadership, the evaluation of participant ‘book club’ interventions and an extension of the reading lists to include more culturally relevant New Zealand authors. To my knowledge, there are no studies that utilise women’s literary fiction for the purpose of exploring contemporary women’s leadership concerns and questions. Consequently, my thesis makes an original contribution to the leadership and humanities field, as well as providing an innovative and creative product that can be used for critical and interdisciplinary approaches to women’s leadership development

Leadership is Passion: Understanding the changing experiences of women student leaders at a co-educational liberal arts institution

The traditional definition of leadership emphasizes the actions of individual leaders with culturally-ascribed masculine personality traits and behaviors who control all aspects of an organization. A new post-industrial paradigm, in contrast, defines leadership as interpersonal relationships. This evolving paradigm, with its emphasis on culturally-attributed feminine traits such as collaboration and participation, has allowed for a broader conceptualization of leadership that brings forth discussions on women leaders and their experiences. According to current research, while there is increasing involvement and empowerment of women leaders, their experiences continue to be hindered by gender stereotypes. This study attempts to explore the experiences of women student leaders at a co-educational liberal arts institution and to capture the changing conceptions and expectations for these women in the 2010s. The nine women interviewed equate leadership with passion; usually self-identify themselves as campus leaders after they have been identified as such by their peers; do not experience negative gender stereotypes during their collegiate years; but do foresee facing gender stereotypes and discrimination when exercising leadership once they have left the college setting and entered the workforce. The results of this study support and enhance the post-industrial paradigm, which emphasizes leadership as collaborative rather than individualistic