From the Editor
Dail Fields
This issue of the International Journal of Leadership Studies continues our diverse international offerings. The diversity of the research presented by our authors offers all of us an opportunity to develop global perspectives on the role of leaders and followers in organizations. Our authors continue to bless us with excellent material, and we continue to work hand-in-hand with authors to present interesting, educational, and professional research.
Prospective authors should take note that the IJLS now has more than 2,500 subscribers, receiving our issues free of charge via the Internet. We continue to seek new manuscripts, so bring them on!
I’m very happy to announce that Dr. Brenda Johnson of Gordon College has agreed to serve as associate editor of the International Journal of Leadership Studies. I am grateful that she has agreed to accept this role and look forward to working together with her to continuously improve IJLS.
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Practitioner’s Corner
Kirk G. Mensch & Myra E. Dingman
Organizational executives are becoming keenly aware of the importance of encouraging self-directed leader development and lifelong learning. It is also evident that a great deal of confusion abounds regarding what is meant by the practice of leader development. This paper explores the nature and source of this confusion and provides clarification regarding terminology and shifting paradigms in methodology and organizational culture. Furthermore, we propose a focus on personal transformation, moral development, and sustainable behavioral change as critical aspects of leader development. [more]
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The Relationships among Servant Leadership, Organizational Citizenship Behavior, Person-Organization Fit, and Organizational Identification
Michelle Vondey
This study proposes that there is a relationship between servant leadership and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) and that person-organization fit and organizational identification moderate that relationship. One hundred fourteen participants completed a cross-sectional self-report survey. Hierarchical regression analysis revealed that servant leadership behavior partially predicts organizational citizenship behaviors and that person-organization fit and organizational identification partially moderate the relationship between servant leadership and organizational citizenship behavior. One implication is that leaders who want to encourage citizenship behaviors among employees would do well to model those same behaviors toward others. [more] |
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Character and Leadership: Situating Servant Leadership in a Proposed Virtues Framework
James D. Lanctot & Justin A. Irving
Leadership scholars and practitioners have emphasized the important connection between ethics and leadership over the years. This connection is emphasized even more within the field of servant leadership. While the servant leadership models proposed over the past two decades have advanced our understanding of servant leadership and its application, there is an increasingly obvious need for a common vocabulary and framework for engaging the ethical dimensions of leadership that can be used to facilitate further research into the antecedents and philosophical foundations of servant leadership. In this paper, the authors (a) provide an overview of virtues and servant leadership, (b) propose a model of character and virtues that frames ethical discussion and answers a void in the servant leadership literature, and (c) demonstrate how this model relates to several prominent servant leadership models. [more] |
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Gender Differences and Transformational Leadership Behavior: Do Both German Men and Women Lead in the Same Way?
Thomas W. Kent, Carrie A. Blair, Howard F. Rudd & Ulrich Schuele
This article examines the differences between men and women leaders with respect to their transformational leadership behaviors. Subordinates of the leaders rated the frequency of use of transformational leadership behaviors from five different categories. The five behavior categories and the instrument used (The Leader Behavior Inventory or LBI) to rate those behaviors were developed in several previous studies. Generally, it was found that men and women leaders behave as leaders in the same way. It was also found that men and women do not differ in their general perceptions of others as leaders. Possible explanations for these findings are discussed. [more] |
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Leadership and Spiritual Capital: Exploring the Link between Individual Service Disposition and Organizational Value
Anthony Middlebrooks & Alain Noghiu
Researchers have made considerable advances integrating spirituality and organizational leadership (Fry, 2003; Benefiel, 2005). The concept of spiritual capital has developed as a way of explaining and perhaps advocating this integration in a secular context (Baker & Miles-Watson, 2008). This paper explores the development of spiritual capital as a multi-level form of organizational value, operating at the individual level as the disposition to serve, and subsequently at the organizational level as systems, norms, and culture. The various conceptualizations of spiritual capital are examined and extended, specifically focusing on the nature and development of a key individual level motivation—the call to serve. The authors provide a base from which to discuss implications and applications for leadership across levels of analysis and sectors of practice, all to the end of fostering spiritual capital in organizations. [more] |
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Faculty and Staff Grassroots Leaders’ Beliefs About Power: Do Their Beliefs Affect Their Strategies and Effectiveness?
Adrianna Kezar
This study examines how grassroots leaders define and act on beliefs about and perceptions of power. In this article, we focus on the following research questions: RQ1. How do grassroots leaders understand and socially construct power?; and RQ2. How does their understanding of power impact their approach to grassroots leadership (e.g., strategies and ways they negotiate power)? The study is framed by reviewing literature from social movement theory related to power, including Marxist, Postmodern, and Tempered Radical frameworks. Three approaches emerged in the study: a) Confrontational narrative (resist and rebel against the oppressor); b) Tempered radical narrative (power conditions exist, but there is room to navigate); and c) Power as context narrative (issues of power are not relevant and tend to blend into the context). The discussion describes limitations identified with the confrontational and power as context approaches that limit their effectiveness. The study also provides empirical evidence for how people construct power and for the impacts of context and individual background on constructions of power. [more] |
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Sensemaking Under Martial Law: Public Policy and Agrarian Reform in the Philippines
Carl Montaño & Lynn Godkin
This paper presents a case study of governmental sensemaking under martial law in the Philippines under President Ferdinand Marcos. Data was gathered about the Agrarian Reform Program in particular through: a) personal interviews with decision makers involved in the Agrarian Reform Program; b) non-participants who observed the program in action; and c) an extensive search of available primary and secondary sources. Contemporary understandings of sensemaking unavailable during the Marcos era are applied to his initiative. It was determined that many of the elements of sensemaking were associated with the Agrarian Reform Program in the Philippines, as were various triggers stimulating such sensemaking as well. [more] |
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Leadership Behaviors in the Killeen Independent School District
Gerald R. Simmons, Sr.
This cross-sectional survey study is based on the assertion that transformational leadership is a pattern of behaviors to be used in given situations. However, the current body of knowledge has led leaders to equate transformational leadership with other models and to believe that becoming a transformational leader is a sequential process. This study seeks to determine how leaders in the Killeen Independent School District (KISD) construe an ideal transformational leader and how these leaders view themselves compared to an ideal transformational leader. Results showed these leaders had a high degree of understanding and reported adopting situational behaviors over transformational and transactional. This study reveals existing obstacles that restrict the use of transformational behaviors within the system and proposes that further study is required to isolate and overcome these obstacles. [more] |
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