Tortoise or hare? Supporting the chronotype preference of employees with fluctuating chronic illness symptoms

Objective: Our aim is to understand how to facilitate the job retention of employees with chronic illness. We focus on multiple sclerosis (MS) as a criterion chronic illness. Design: An opportunity sample of 20 individuals of working age (13 female; 7 male) were recruited who had been in paid employment for over 28 months with a concurrent diagnosis of MS. Participants took part in one of three focus groups with a topic guide comprising eight keywords: work, coping, performance, support, future, expectations, and sharing symptoms. Data were analysed using dialogical analysis. Main outcome measures: As a qualitative study, no outcome measure was used. However, the specific focus of interest was to search for differential patterns of ‘timespace’ – chronotope - that people with chronic illness utilize to manage their condition in the workplace. Results: Participants oriented to two distinct chronotope types: unsustainable epic (characterized by condensed time) and temporary idyll (characterized by condensed space). Perceived managerial discretion was identified as possibly influencing participants’ chronotope preference. Conclusion: Identifying chronotope preference has practical implications for health psychologists and related professionals who provide and advise on support to facilitate people with chronic illness to thrive in the workplace

Leading for gold: social identity leadership processes at the London 2012 Olympic Games

© 2014, © 2014 Taylor & Francis. This paper adopted a social identity approach to explore the media data of leadership figures at the London 2012 Olympic Games. Media data in the form of interviews, speeches/team announcements, and blog posts from leaders integral to the London 2012 Olympic Games were analysed from 100 days prior to, during, and for 30 days following, the Olympic Games. Leaders included Lord Seb Coe, Andy Hunt, and performance directors of TeamGB athletics (Charles van Commenee), cycling (Sir David Brailsford), rowing (David Tanner) and swimming (Michael Scott). An inductive and deductive thematic analysis identified five higher order themes: creation of team identities, team values, team vision, performance consequences and ‘we’ achieved. The analysis makes a contribution to extant leadership literature by highlighting novel contextually relevant themes surrounding leadership at the London 2012 Olympic Games. Thus, opportunities for future research and application are outlined

Authentic Leadership:Getting back to the roots of the 'root construct'?

In their 2011 review paper Gardner et al concluded that the Authentic Leadership (AL) construct was still in the first stage of evolution, that of concept introduction and evaluation. At that time, the field was characterized by two types of contribution: conceptual expositions and largely quantitative research seeking to map out its antecedents and consequences, moderators and mediators. The current review aims to: 1) critically evaluate the development of the AL construct to the present time; and 2) taking this evaluation as a point of departure, propose the need for a radical re-grounding of our understanding of AL aimed at countering what we believe to be the substantive flaws in both its philosophical underpinnings and empirical grounding. We propose that these shortcomings have arisen due to the failure of existential and other critiques of the dominant (normative and functionalist) discourse of AL to gain traction, and due to an absence of practice-based, qualitative research. As a strategic platform for the potential re-grounding and relaunch of AL we propose a radical return to the existential and practice roots of authenticity as the basis for a broader understanding of ‘authentic leadership’ as a ‘central organizing principle’ in leadership studies. Despite the flaws identified in the AL construct, we suggest that the notion of authenticity may still have a valuable role to play in the study of leadership: that role, however, can only be determined through a thorough understanding of authentic leadership as a practice-based phenomenon

Work ability of employees in changing social services and health care organizations in Finland

Objectives: In this study, we examined the connection between organizational changes and employees own evaluations of their work ability. Materials and Methods: In early 2010, we asked employees (n = 2429) working in the Finnish social services and health care industry to identify all the organizational changes that had occurred at their workplaces over the previous two years, and to evaluate their own work ability and whether different statements related to the elements of work ability were true or false at the time of the survey. For our method of analysis, we used logistical regression analysis. Results: In models adjusted for gender, age, marital status, professional education and managerial position, the respondents who had encountered organizational changes were at a higher risk of feeling that their work ability had decreased (OR = 1.49) than the respondents whose workplaces had not been affected by changes. Those respondents who had encountered organizational changes were also at a higher risk of feeling that several elements related to work ability had deteriorated. The risk of having decreased self-evaluated work ability was in turn higher among the respondents who stated they could not understand the changes than among those respondents who understood the changes (OR = 1.99). This was also the case among respondents who felt that their opportunities to be involved in the changes had been poor in comparison to those who felt that they had had good opportunities to be involved in the process (OR = 2.16). Conclusions: Our findings suggest that the organizational changes in social and health care may entail, especially when poorly executed, costs to which little attention has been paid until now. When implementing organizational changes, it is vital to ensure that the employees understand why the changes are being made, and that they are given the opportunity to take part in the implementation of these changes

Perception of managers’ influence depending on status, power, and company performance

This research examines others’perception of the influence of managers working in successful or unsuccessful companies who possess or lack status (to berespected by others) and power (control of valued resources). Study 1 shows that high-status managers were judged as more influential in thefirm thantheir low-status peers, regardless of the company’s situation. Study 2finds that in a context of economic uncertainty, a manager with high status and poweris perceived to be more capable of affecting thefirm. The effect of power seems to be secondary since when a manager has low status, having high powerdoes not significantly benefit the influence attributed to him or her. Furthermore, dominance (assertive behavior), not warmth, mediated the relationshipbetween status and the attributed influence. Overall, thesefindings confirm that status is a very potent source of social influence, status and power aredistinct constructs with different effects, and dominance rather than warmth is a key personal dimension linked to successful leadership