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Successful visionary educational leaders promote a shared vision with great commitment and manage to connect other organizational members to it. In spite of this, the source of their personal commitment to the organizational vision has not yet been the subject of extended study. The purpose of this paper is to correct this by investigating leaders' personal ethos; the personal experiences and values which form their motives and personality. This paper furthermore considers the influence of personal ethos on the content of the vision promoted in educational organizations. Finally, it explores the link between leaders' personal vision and the organizational vision they promote.

Semi‐structured interviews were conducted with visionary educational leaders. These interviews were narrative in nature and aimed to explore the development process and the interrelation of personal and organizational vision in an educational framework.

Data indicate that visionary educational leaders do not separate their personal vision from their organizational vision. Furthermore, the educational leaders interviewed told of formative experiences which affected their worldview and shaped their personal ethos. Personal ethos proved to be a key element in formulating the leaders' personal and organization vision. Four prominent factors emerged as central to the personal ethos of educational leaders: identity, culture and values, professional experience, and family.

The findings suggest that educational leaders should engage in a process of self‐reflection in order to form a significant personal vision to which they can fully commit. Furthermore, the insights of leaders about what is important to them can enable an open dialogue with other organizational members and the development of a shared vision.

The purpose of this paper is to offer a theoretical contribution to explicate the various factors and aspects that influence Senge's five disciplines and their outcomes.

The paper develops a conceptual framework for the analysis of antecedents and outcomes of Senge's five disciplines, and offers moderators to explain the prospect associations, employing a multi‐level analysis to explore issues, from the individual level (personal mastery) through the collective level (team learning, mental model) up to the organizational level (shared vision, systems thinking). Based on this theoretical framework, the paper offers a set of propositions in the shape of a causal model that links the constructs of the model together.

The development of the model manifests wide areas of relevance to the learning organization and points out significant interdependences and interactions among the various constructs associated with Senge's five disciplines of the learning organization.

The paper proposes a causal model that links variables in the learning organization that would be instrumental for organizations to achieve competitive advantage. For academia, it offers a further avenue for research, introducing a number of opportunities to test this model.

The paper provides significant added value both for academics and executives interested in the analysis of the complexity of Senge's five disciplines.

While there is no definitive profile of the successful entrepreneur or prescribed pathway for success, research suggests that individuals who proactively accommodate factors that push and pull them into entrepreneurship, align their personal and entrepreneurial visions, and to some extent, build emotional intelligence (EQ), are more likely to succeed. This paper aims to describe an entrepreneur counseling process developed and used by the Acadia Centre for Social and Business Entrepreneurship (ACSBE), located in Nova Scotia, Canada.

The authors propose an entrepreneur's success, negotiation of push and pull factors, and EQ are all linked, and the ACSBE counseling model draws on these. The case study method was used. ACSBE staffs were interviewed regarding the entrepreneur counseling process, counselor‐training sessions were observed and documents were reviewed. Two ACSBE clients, who together started a successful fair‐trade business, were interviewed for their insights regarding the ACSBE counseling model and their own experiences starting their business.

The responses of the ACSBE clients illustrate a successful application of the ACSBE Entrepreneurial Decision Making Cycle©. Their personal values, business strategies and performance were linked to promote success personally and for society. Both entrepreneurs were authentic, self‐aware and empathetic individuals who were able to hone their EQ and develop sound business acumen with assistance of the ACSBE counseling model.

The analysis of the ACSBE counseling model and its success in this case leads to the question of whether the application of the ACSBE Entrepreneurial Decision Making Cycle can predict those more likely to succeed in an entrepreneurial venture. In order to address this, further research of the ACSBE decision tool is recommended.

The ACSBE Entrepreneurial Decision Making Cycle is unique. It should be of interest to entrepreneur counselors and researchers of entrepreneurship.

To analyze a series of strategic capabilities/factors that affects organizational innovation (OI) and organizational learning (OL) (personal mastery, transformational leadership, shared vision, proactivity and environment) and demonstrate that OL and innovation are positively related to organizational performance.

Based on prior research, the paper develops a number of testable hypotheses. It examines how personal mastery, transformational leadership, shared vision, proactivity and environment influence improvements in performance. The paper uses inter‐factor correlations matrix and multiple regressions analyses and empirically tests these hypotheses using a sample of 408 Spanish organizations.

Considers OI and OL jointly to promote organizational entrepreneurship and to increase competitive advantages. Empirically reflects the need to strengthen different strategic capabilities to achieve an adequate level of both organizational issues and thus improve performance and encourage entrepreneurship.

Survey data based on self‐reports may be subject to social desirability bias. The external validation of some of the variables from the archival data of a subset of respondents increased confidence in self‐reports and reduced the risk of common method variance. The paper needs to concentrate on other sectors. Future studies should place greater emphasis on longitudinal studies and should be based on a larger sample, preferably in more than one country. It would be interesting to analyze other strategic activities for entrepreneurship.

Organizations' managers must encourage the organization's members to achieve high levels of personal mastery. This environment can be provided by continually encouraging personal vision. The style of management must be more transformational. They must foster shared vision. The leader must prepare the organization and shape the mental models. Specific actions must be taken to overcome the internal and external obstacles to shared vision. The leader will play an important role in linking the organization and the environment and generate proactivity.

This paper is fundamental to promote strategy capabilities that are necessary to entrepreneurship (OL and OI).

Using five categories summarized by Bass (1990), this chapter attempts to address three key questions about charismatic leadership:

• (1)

  What are the key behavioral dimensions of charismatic leadership?

• (2)

  How does charismatic leadership differ from other forms of leadership?

• (3)

  Who may become followers of charismatic leaders and when do they become followers?

What are the key behavioral dimensions of charismatic leadership?

How does charismatic leadership differ from other forms of leadership?

Who may become followers of charismatic leaders and when do they become followers?

By focusing on Weber’s original view of charisma, we suggest that his three dimensions of charismatic leader behaviors underlie most contemporary approaches. By considering these three dimensions in more detail, we demonstrate how this view allows for different views of leadership and is distinguishable from management. Finally, by extending Weber’s view and by identifying two types of charismatic leaders who differ in their power motives, we suggest how the characteristics of followers and the context influence followers’ acceptance of charismatic leaders as legitimate. Some implications for leadership effectiveness are discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce a new type of ba, called “vocation ba” and to describe the main aspects of this type of ba as well as its methods.

The paper reviews the literature in the field of self‐transcending knowledge and the concept of ba and shows the main aspects for the design of a new methodology and framework. Additionally it analyzes experiences with the new method from several case studies.

First the concept of vocation ba describes a space on the individual level as well as on the collective level for the generation of self‐transcending knowledge. Second the method of Vocation‐coaching_WaVe is a helpful method within the vocation ba. The experiences with these two new concepts from several case studies are very encouraging.

The number of case studies at the collective level is still limited, as the authors have been working with the method of Vocation‐coaching_WaVe at the collective level for two years. At the moment further research is done in larger systems.

This study gives insight and information about the method of Vocation‐coaching_WaVe and the concept of vocation ba.

The paper presents one of the few studies, which theoretically and practically deals with the aspect of self‐transcending knowledge in the context of vision development processes and knowledge‐based management on the individual level as well as on the collective level. The method of Vocation‐coaching_WaVe at the collective level is a continuous approach of a bottom‐up vision development process.

The study investigates the experience and significance of strategic factors in organizational innovation (OI) and organizational learning (OL). The study also examines the impact of OI and OL on organizational performance.

The study takes a quantitative approach, with cross-sectional data collected to achieve its purpose. The respondents are CEOs of different organizations. The data collection tool, a survey questionnaire, is applied to a random sample. In total, data from 360 usable cases are analyzed to infer the results.

After employing structural equation modeling (SEM), the study findings reveal the positive and significant impact of strategic factors on OI and OL, with these factors comprising personal mastery, transformational leadership, a shared vision, proactivity, and the environment. Furthermore, OI and OL have a positive and significant impact on organizational performance.

The study's findings may reinforce knowledge of the different strategic factors/capabilities needed to attain a satisfactory level of organizational capabilities and, consequently, may increase organizational performance and encourage entrepreneurship. An investigation of these factors may impart benefits to an organization, such as becoming more innovative or providing a boost to learning. Managers of organizations may generate circumstances to make it easier to achieve the growth of these strategic factors/capabilities.

The study's findings may help to develop a better understanding of strategic factors, OI, OL, and organizational performance, particularly in a developing country context.

The purpose of this paper was to examine inspiring others as a psychological construct in leadership contexts by investigating lived and personal experiences of inspiring leaders.

A phenomenological design was used to investigate leaders' personal and lived experiences of leading to inspire others. In‐depth interviews were conducted with seven participants nominated by others as inspiring leaders based on the demonstration of five characteristics (vision, openness, transparency, passion, and being somewhat unconventional).

Participant responses coalesced into five key dimensions of leading to inspire others: connecting, leading, inspiree, action, and context; enabling a functional description of the phenomenon. Furthermore, results indicated that leaders could intentionally cultivate opportunities to inspire others through interaction and effort.

Given that the paper investigates leaders' experiences of the phenomenon, further investigation into the relational and reciprocal aspects of inspiring others is required. Research has primarily focused on participants in the inspiring relationship independently of each other (i.e. either the inspiree or the leader).

Contrary to assertions in some transformational leadership studies that personal charisma is the primary component to inspiring others, these findings indicate that inspiring others requires an active process where leaders establish interpersonal connections and enable action.

Research on inspiration is at a formative stage. This paper represents an initial foray into the space where scholarly knowledge on leadership theory and inspiration intersect to provide greater insight into leading to inspire others.

The purpose of this study is to demonstrate a relationship between learning organisation theory and the potential to retain knowledge workers. It emphasises that human resource (HR) managers must recognise specific relationships between learning organisation elements, job satisfaction facets and turnover intent as they emerge for their knowledge workers.

A survey was undertaken sampling knowledge workers in the information technology (IT) industry. Measured on a Likert scale, the instrument was designed to explore the impact of learning organisation disciplines upon job satisfaction and the importance of job satisfaction in determining turnover intent.

Analysis of the survey showed evidence of a relationship between learning organisation disciplines and turnover intent. All the learning organisation disciplines discussed in the paper correlated to at least one of the six job satisfaction dimensions, of which reward and challenge exerted the most significant influence upon turnover intent.

The results suggest that three initial strategies should be implemented by HR managers in order to reduce possible staff turnover. The strategies identified are first, linking shared vision, challenge and systems thinking together via personal mastery; second, being more critical of which mental models are developed and shared within the organisation; and finally, developing team learning systems throughout the organisation.

This study emphasises that HR managers should recognise specific career needs for their knowledge workers and that adopting appropriate strategies will increase retention.

This paper explores the expressed meanings that 60 middle managers attach to the concept of a shared strategic vision by providing a brief review of the business and management literature and the role of organisational learning. It continues by identifying the meanings and skills that these middle managers from a large international corporation attach to the achievement of a shared vision within a framework of Senge’s skills. A further element uncovered by the research is recorded; how the managers express their concerns regarding the reasons, as they see them, why a shared vision is not a feature of their organisation. A conclusion is reached that these middle managers believe implicitly that a shared strategic vision is desirable. Further that engagement in the activity described in the paper provides an opportunity for the managers to reflect on their organisation within the concept of organisational learning and the skills that are needed to take this concept forward.