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This chapter describes the change efforts and action research projects at a Dutch multinational which, over a period of 25 years, produced in one of its businesses a zigzag path toward collaborative leadership dynamics at the horizontal and vertical interfaces. The chapter also identifies the learning mechanisms that helped achieve this transformation. Changing the patterns at the vertical interfaces proved to be a most tricky, complex, and confusing operation. The data show that organizations need hierarchical interfaces between levels, but are hindered by the hierarchical leadership dynamics at these interfaces. The data furthermore show that competitive performance requires more than redesigning horizontal interfaces. A business can only respond with speed and flexibility to threats and opportunities in the external environment when the leadership dynamics at agility-critical vertical interfaces are also changed.

This chapter presents two stories of inspiring women political leaders, Jacinda Ardern, Prime Minster of New Zealand, and Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany, to shed light on the dire importance of using feminine leadership models (i.e., embodying kindness, empathy and concern for others) during the COVID-19 pandemic as well as everyday practice. I use a multi-dimensional theoretical conceptualization grounded in gender stereotyping and the theory of androgyny to emphasize the transition from historical masculine leadership ideals (‘think manager, think male’ – Schein & Davidson, 1993) to leadership discourse that symbolizes inclusivity of leadership with an emphasis on using kindness, regardless of whether you identify as a male or female leader.

In Ontario Canada, being a vice principal is not considered a career goal. Rather, school principals are drawn from the ranks of practising vice principals. Potential administrators must first pass the principal qualification program and spend several successful years in the interim position of vice principal (known as assistant principal, deputy principal, and assistant headmaster in other countries) before applying for the principalship itself. The current system appears to be replete with inherent challenges both for vice principals and the educational stakeholders they serve. Administrator training is based on a quantitative paradigm, but the vice principal role is highly qualitative in nature, requiring strong interpersonal skills to address conflict for which no training is provided. The current system addresses the dual role of management and leadership but from the perspective of the principal, not the vice principal. Training also favors management over leadership, yet hiring processes for vice principals place a high value on demonstrated leadership. Facility with ethical decision-making is central to the vice principal role yet absent from qualification programs. Qualification programs use classroom-based learning with no “in-role” field experience. Mentoring systems designed to provide new vice principals with help are inadequate for supporting daily tasks. As a consequence, newly appointed vice principals find themselves in a role for which they have not been trained.

The contemporary life of an Australian academic has changed in almost every way imaginable in response to the challenges and opportunities emerging from global and national policy agendas. In this context, the subject coordinator11A subject coordinator may also be referred to as a Unit Chair, Unit Coordinator or Course Coordinator at different universities. represents the frontline of a move towards increasingly distributed forms of leading and learning. The knowledge that managing teaching responsibilities does not provide a clear route to promotion (with active research status providing a more well established path) means that academics may proactively minimise the time they spend on the discretionary tasks of leading and managing teaching well. Tasks that include adopting a proactive longer term of curriculum development, team building and teaching innovation, in addition to the more immediate needs for compliance and measurable outcomes. Research from an Australian Learning and Teaching Council (ALTC) project provides evidence that despite lack of formal recognition for many of the discretionary responsibilities of subject coordination, coordinators believe they are executing their job well. This chapter discusses factors that impede discretionary academic leadership behaviours in Australian higher education and suggests strategies to empower leadership and thus improve engagement with discretionary teaching and learning responsibilities.

School library media specialists (SLMSs) often struggle with assuming leadership roles. Discrepancies existed in perceptions of SLMSs of their leadership preparedness, their opportunities to exert leadership, and their assumption of leadership roles. The purpose of this quantitative study was to explore the perceptions of SLMSs regarding their instructional leadership and to examine the extent to which they practiced instructional leadership. The study was designed to determine whether there were differences between SLMSs perceptions of the importance of their leadership roles and their opportunities to practice those roles. The results of the study indicated that SLMSs perceived all of the leadership roles to be more important than they were able to carry out in practice and that supportive administrators were the most essential factor in providing SLMSs the opportunity to practice and expand their roles as instructional leaders.

The field of industrial-organizational psychology has been unable to convince business executives that our science is able to effectively predict who will become valuable managers, let alone that our knowledge leads to measurable economic returns. The academic literature provides little guidance to a practitioner looking for guidance in regard to leadership development. We believe that leadership is complex and therefore requires a complex model to understand it and in turn aid leadership selection and development. We recommend focusing on defining specific leadership skills according to a leader's responsibilities and expected results or work outcomes to build taxonomy of leadership roles and work outcomes. To demonstrate the business case for engaging our field's services, we propose our field would be aided by adopting some concepts of a discipline widely accepted by executives, total quality management (TQM). An example of how TQM can be applied to leadership selection and development is presented.

Through his call to “reverse the lens” in leadership, Shamir (2007) helped trigger the emergence of followership theory as a new field of study in leadership research. While followership theory brings exciting new opportunities to leadership studies, it also introduces theoretical and conceptual challenges for researchers. In this chapter we address these challenges by showing how followership can be positioned fully within the leadership construct. We extend Shamir’s (2007) call for a balanced view in leadership by showing how followership theory adds new perspectives on the ways in which we can study leadership as a dynamic, fluid, relational process. The alternative views we present (e.g., position, role, identity, constructionist, and co-creation) approach leadership study from a range of paradigmatic perspectives that allow us to more fully capture the behaviors, interactions, relational dynamics, and processes through which leadership and followership are created and constructed. We conclude by reflecting on Shamir’s legacy as a scholar, and the contributions he made through his willingness to not only open his mind, but also to constructively challenge alternative perspectives and views.

Mentoring has been shown to positively affect student engagement, confidence, leadership, and skills. It is through the development of relationships, knowledge sharing, increased engagement, and a sense of belonging that mentors gain confidence and build leadership skills. However, little is known about the types of leadership, practices, and behaviors that mentors develop when undertaking the mentorship role. The purpose of this study is to examine the development of exemplary leadership practices that the mentoring role nurtures in undergraduate female student mentors. In particular, this study adopted the Kouzes and Posner (2002) transformational and servant leadership practices model to collect data from undergraduate female mentors (n = 94) and mentees (n =142). Results demonstrated significant correlations among all Student Leadership Practices Inventory Scale (S-LPI) subscales – Inspite a shared vision, Model the way, Challenge the process, Enable others to act, and Encourage the heart – and provided evidence for the association of the mentoring role with the development of transformational and servant practices. However, among the five transformational leadership practices, Inspire a shared vision was not correlated with the mentoring role. Based on the findings of this study, it is recommended that curriculum developers of undergraduate programs create curricula containing an array of peer teaching/mentoring experiences based on clear roles and job descriptions for mentors. Further research is recommended to explore the impact of mentoring programs with a wider sample of students from diverse backgrounds.

This chapter seeks to theoretically answer the question: under which circumstances do groups succeed under female leadership? Further, is it possible to conceptualize the engineering of groups such that group success under female leadership is a likely outcome?

In this chapter, I draw on identity control theory (Burke & Stets, 2009; Stets & Burke, 2005) and role congruity theory (Eagly, 2003) to discuss the implications for female leaders of the discrepancy between the female gender identity and the leader identity. Next, I draw upon status characteristics theory (Berger et al., 1972) to further illustrate the negative consequences of being a female leader. Then, drawing on group processes research, I make the explicit link between the negative expectations for female leaders on group performance through the endorsement of group members. Finally, I utilize innovative research using institutionalization of female leadership to propose a possible solution for improving group performance.

I present nine testable hypotheses ready for empirical test.

I propose that training materials underscoring the skills that females have as leaders can subvert the development of conflictual expectations facing female leaders, thus removing the deleterious effects on group performance. That is, if group members receive training that emphasizes the competencies and skills women bring to the group’s task and to the leadership role, then group performance will not be threatened.