Search

Five questions prompted by the articles in the American Psychologist special issue on leadership (January 2007, Vol. 62, No. 1) suggest some new directions for leadership research: (1) Not do leaders make a difference, but under what conditions does leadership matter? (2) Not what are the traits of leaders, but how do leaders' personal attributes interact with situational properties to shape outcomes? (3) Not do there exist common dimensions on which all leaders can be arrayed, but are good and poor leadership qualitatively different phenomena? (4) Not how do leaders and followers differ, but how can leadership models be reformulated so they treat all system members as both leaders and followers? (5) Not what should be taught in leadership courses, but how can leaders be helped to learn?

Five questions prompted by the articles in the American Psychologist special issue on leadership (January 2007, Vol. 62, No. 1) suggest some new directions for leadership research: (1) Not do leaders make a difference, but under what conditions does leadership matter? (2) Not what are the traits of leaders, but how do leaders' personal attributes interact with situational properties to shape outcomes? (3) Not do there exist common dimensions on which all leaders can be arrayed, but are good and poor leadership qualitatively different phenomena? (4) Not how do leaders and followers differ, but how can leadership models be reformulated so they treat all system members as both leaders and followers? (5) Not what should be taught in leadership courses, but how can leaders be helped to learn? Keywords: leadership theory, leaders, followers, learning, traits

Byline: Steven B. Wolff, Ruth Wageman, Mary Fontaine Demographic trends show that the workforce in the developed world is ageing: approximately 50% of senior-level managers will be retiring in the next ten years. This mass exodus of senior managers will leave many companies with a leadership crisis. But the leadership skills that are most threatened by retirements have yet to be identified. What core leadership skills will become especially rare as senior leaders retire; and what are the implications for the kinds of leadership development activities that might mitigate the effects of these losses? We draw on two existing archival databases to explore these questions. Together, these databases allowed analyses to identify leadership skills that are likely to become both especially rare and especially desirable in the next ten years. Although many competencies were displayed to a greater degree by leaders at higher levels in the organisation than those at lower levels, four particular competencies show especially large gaps between senior- and mid-level manager populations. This study contributes to our understanding of the effects of demographic trends on leadership by identifying competencies that are likely to be in short supply as ageing managers retire. Implications for leadership development practices are discussed.

The development of the Team Diagnostic Survey (TDS), an instrument intended for use both the diagnosis of the strengths and weakness of work teams and for research on team behavior and performance is described. The psychometric properties of the TDS are satisfactory, based on analyses of data in a diversity of organizations and the appropriate uses of the instrument are discussed.

When J. Richard Hackman died in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on January 8, 2013, psychology lost a giant. Six and a half feet tall, with an outsize personality to match, Richard was the leading scholar in two distinct areas: work design and team effectiveness. In both domains, his work is foundational. Throughout his career, Richard applied rigorous methods to problems of great social importance, tirelessly championing multi-level analyses of problems that matter. His impact on our field has been immense.

Psychology

After briefly reviewing the existing literature on team coaching, we propose a new model with three distinguishing features. The model (1) focuses on the functions that coaching serves for a team, rather than on either specific leader behaviors or leadership styles, (2) identifies the specific times in the task performance process when coaching interventions are most likely to have their intended effects, and (3) explicates the conditions under which team-focused coaching is and is not likely to facilitate performance., Psychology