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Introduction, appendix 1: interview topic list.

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Leadership Behavior Repertoire: An Exploratory Study of the Concept and Its Potential for Understanding Leadership in Public Organizations

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Marieke van der Hoek, Sandra Groeneveld, Maarja Beerkens, Leadership Behavior Repertoire: An Exploratory Study of the Concept and Its Potential for Understanding Leadership in Public Organizations, Perspectives on Public Management and Governance , Volume 4, Issue 4, December 2021, Pages 363–378, https://doi.org/10.1093/ppmgov/gvab022

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Rapidly accumulating literature on public leadership tends to zoom in on specific aspects of leaders’ behavior. Such a fragmented approach may overlook the most challenging aspect of effective leadership: combining diverse behaviors in relation to various stakeholders to match contextual needs. This article therefore argues for a comprehensive approach that recognizes the behavioral complexity of most contemporary leaders, particularly in ambiguous contexts. The concept of leadership behavior repertoire facilitates this. The article conceptualizes the perspective of the leadership behavior repertoire and illustrates in which ways leaders combine behavioral options from their repertoire using data from in-depth interviews with public leaders. Based on our findings, we propose integration of this perspective into the field’s research agenda to make our understanding of leadership in public organizations more complete. Moreover, the repertoire perspective can challenge and advance theorizing of leadership in relation to its context and outcomes in a more comprehensive way.

Academic interest in leadership has been growing rapidly in the last few decades. Public management scholars, too, dedicate an increasing amount of attention to leadership in public organizations ( Vandenabeele, Andersen, and Leisink 2014 ; Van Wart 2013 ; Vogel and Masal 2015 ). Research focused on the individual level of analysis, studying leadership behavior of public managers at various organizational levels, has taken flight. Studying leadership at this individual level is valuable to grasp processes underlying policy making and implementation, taking shape in public organizations. A large share of research in this tradition focusses on “leadership in organizations” ( Dubin 1979 ; Hunt and Ropo 1995 ), referring to leadership as supervising individual employees. Rich literature on transformational and transactional leadership, for example, primarily examines the downward supervisory relationship of managers motivating employees ( Ospina 2017 ; Vandenabeele, Andersen, and Leisink 2014 ; Vogel and Masal 2015 ). “Leadership of organizations” ( Dubin 1979 ; Hunt and Ropo 1995 ), on the other hand, looks at a leadership role in handling issues at the level of the organization or unit in relation to internal and external stakeholders. Middle managers typically are expected to perform a variety of roles simultaneously, yet the literature in public management tends to ignore this variety and to compartmentalize leadership into isolated roles.

In this article, we argue that research on leadership behavior at the individual level in public organizations could be advanced by looking not only deeper into dyadic manager–employee leadership behavior, but also by adopting a broader conceptualization spanning a more varied range of behaviors and their interactions with each other. Leaders probably do not perceive the roles as clearly distinct and separable in their daily activities as researchers often present them. In other words, we should understand the broader “repertoire” of behaviors that leaders have at their disposal, not only single elements within the repertoire. The behaviors that are studied in isolation are important, but when we ignore other types of behavior that leaders are simultaneously engaged in, the danger is that we lose sight of the “big picture” of challenges that leaders face on a daily basis ( Head 2010 ).

We argue that combining various behaviors is the essence of leadership (see also Pedersen et al. 2019 ). The OECD (2001) indeed signaled that leaders need diverse competences to cope with complex challenges in the public sector, which recent country studies reiterated ( Gerson 2020 ). Leadership training programs in the United Kingdom, United States, Germany, Sweden, Norway, and Mexico prepare leaders for a range of behaviors: from networking and collaborating, directing and managing internal processes, envisioning and facilitating change, to inspiring and creating commitment among employees ( OECD 2001 ). The relational character of leadership is explicitly addressed due to increasingly collaborative set-ups for public value creation: leaders need to work with a range of internal and external stakeholders across boundaries of countries, sectors, organizations, and professions, as well as throughout the hierarchy, from employees to top management ( Gerson 2020 ; OECD 2001 ).

To extend our understanding of leadership and its relationship with organizational variables, we can benefit from examining repertoires of behaviors. A leadership behavior repertoire can be described as a set of behavioral options at a leader’s disposal to address a variety of issues in a suitable fashion ( Denison, Hooijberg, and Quinn 1995 ). Yukl (2012) and recently Pedersen et al. (2019) and Kramer et al. (2019) also acknowledge that looking at single behavioral types provides only partial comprehension of leadership. Leaders often have to combine various types of action because they are faced with multiple tasks and objectives, and they need to balance competing demands on scarce resources ( Quinn 1984 ). Therefore, the effectiveness of leadership depends on the variety of leadership behaviors instead of a particular type ( Denison, Hooijberg, and Quinn 1995 ; Havermans et al. 2015 ). Taking the perspective of leadership behavior repertoires can assist in understanding leadership in its complexity, complementing ongoing efforts in the field.

Looking at leadership behavior repertoires is particularly relevant in contexts that are characterized by ambiguity. Ambiguity creates a need for leadership ( Moore 1995 ), yet poses challenges for many public leaders in balancing multiple needs from their environment. This means that leaders are challenged to adopt behavioral strategies to match these contingencies. This is typical for public organizations: the different values, conflicting goals, and competing interests of a range of stakeholders at stake in public organizations confront leaders with simultaneous demands, which are often vague and/or potentially conflicting ( Davis and Stazyk 2015 ; Hood 1991 ; Moore 1995 ). Moreover, the saliency of issues changes. The variety of interpretations of what is to be done makes the leadership context ambiguous and puts leaders in a position of equivocal decision-making ( Christensen et al. 2018 ; Chun and Rainey 2005 ; Feldman 1989 ). In addition, leaders in public organizations operate in an environment with increasingly complex organizational structures and ambiguous authority relationships. Formal authority is often fragmented and distributed among several organizational members, which means that leaders are often not fully allowed to make decisions ( Getha-Taylor et al. 2011 ; Groeneveld and Van de Walle 2011 ; Gronn 2002 ; Shamir 1999 ). Consequently, this dispersion of power creates leadership interdependencies and requires that leaders involve various other stakeholders to accomplish their objectives ( Gronn 2002 ). It can therefore be expected that leaders within such contexts need to combine many different leadership behaviors from their repertoire and do so in various directions to stimulate collaboration: influencing and facilitating subordinates, peers, superiors, and external stakeholders—multiple at a time ( ‘t Hart 2014 ; Moore 1995 ; van den Bekerom, Torenvlied, and Akkerman 2016 ). This context of ambiguity induces leadership that is best approached through a repertoire perspective.

This study therefore presents the following question: How can leadership in an ambiguous context be conceptualized as a behavior repertoire? To allow a comprehensive understanding, leadership is defined as “the process of influencing others to understand and agree about what needs to be done and how to do it, and the process of facilitating individual and collective efforts to accomplish shared objectives.” ( Yukl 2008 , 8). This definition is adopted, because framing leadership as a process highlights that leadership is a continuous effort that encompasses a wide range of activities. Indeed, from the organizational science and generic leadership literature we can conclude that leadership behavior is diverse, and leaders have to engage in a variety of behaviors to be effective ( Behrendt, Matz, and Göritz 2017 ; Denison, Hooijberg, and Quinn 1995 ; Yukl 2012) . This comprises behaviors that are frequently distinguished as “leadership” and “management.” While those are often seen as distinct, both types are important and complement each other ( Bedeian and Hunt 2006 ), and following Yukl (2012) , it can be all seen as leadership behavior. Managers, as formal leaders, are often expected to perform both ( Head 2010 ). Furthermore, incorporating the relational character highlights that leadership takes shape in interaction with a variety of stakeholders. Besides the typical focus on subordinates in research on individual leaders’ behavior, the broader public management literature teaches that superiors, peers, or external actors are included in the process of leadership. This accommodates Moore’s (1995) perspective that public managers work in different directions—downwards, upwards, sidewards, and outwards ( van den Bekerom, Torenvlied, and Akkerman 2016 ).

This article conceptualizes a repertoire perspective on leadership behavior and illustrates its relevance with accounts of leadership behavior repertoire uses based on in-depth interviews with public leaders. Conceptualizing is an essential building block for theory development: developing concepts that are aligned with the empirical world facilitates realistic empirical research and elaboration of theories. We thereby aim to contribute to public management research on leadership by suggesting how integration of a repertoire perspective can advance the field’s current research agenda and our understanding of leadership in its complexity. A qualitative approach is adopted to integrate the situational context of leaders in our understanding of leadership. Accounting for context is relevant, because characteristics of the context in which leaders behave affect leadership (e.g., George, Van de Walle, and Hammerschmidt 2019 ; Nielsen and Cleal 2011 ; Porter and McLaughlin 2006 ; Schmidt and Groeneveld 2021 ; Stoker, Garretsen, and Soudis 2019 ). Building on contingency theory’s premise that “one size does not fit all,” studying leadership by the same person in different situations is particularly facilitated by adopting a repertoire perspective (cf. Pedersen et al. 2019 ). Elaborating empirically how leaders combine diverse options from their repertoire, varying between situations, highlights the complexity of leadership and the need for further research to adopt a conceptualization of leadership behavior as repertoire.

The article proceeds with a discussion of previous research on leadership in the public management literature to build the study’s conceptual framework. Next, the empirical setting and methodological choices will be elaborated. The subsequent section shows various uses of a leadership behavior repertoire highlighted by the ambiguous context. The article concludes with a discussion on the potential contribution of the repertoire perspective, emphasizing its theoretical and methodological implications. Building on current lines of research, we argue that the field’s research agenda would benefit from adopting a repertoire perspective, since this more comprehensive conceptualization can stimulate theoretical and empirical work connected to the bigger picture of leadership challenges. Thereby it can challenge and advance our understanding of leadership and its relationships with other organizational phenomena.

The Leadership Behavior Repertoire: A Conceptual Framework

In an ambiguous context, competing demands present a variety of challenges for leadership that require leaders to use different types of leadership behavior suitable for a variety of purposes. Recently, Pedersen et al. (2019) show that managers engage in a range of different behaviors. Their study provides support for studying leadership from a more holistic perspective that acknowledges the behavioral complexity of public managers. These authors also argue that a more complex conceptualization has been missing despite efforts to develop typologies of management and leadership. A similar effort by Kramer et al. (2019) , who focused on leadership in interorganizational collaboration, confirms this call for a more comprehensive perspective. Therefore, we conceptualize leadership as a leadership behavior repertoire. Building on the work of Quinn (1984) and Denison, Hooijberg, and Quinn (1995) , a leadership behavior repertoire can be seen as a set of behavioral options that can be matched to the circumstances at hand. This concept embraces the idea that leadership is complex and is characterized by a diversity of behaviors used in combination.

Research on leadership in the public management literature contains a variety of elements relevant for a repertoire conceptualization of leadership, scattered in separate research traditions. These traditions define and conceptualize leadership distinctively. Two distinctions underlie this separation. A first distinction concerns the operationalization of leadership: the literature shows variety in focusing either on styles, behaviors, or relations. These operationalizations are not mutually exclusive, yet prior research tends to maintain a more narrow focus. A second distinction concerns the level of abstraction and aggregation. One part of relevant literature discusses empirical constructs focused on individuals, while another share involves a broader governance mode concept, centered on networks. We discuss three prominent lines of public management research that contribute valuable elements of leadership behavior repertoires and point out their positions on the two distinctions discussed.

Firstly, research on leadership of individual leaders in (public) organizations tends to concentrate on leadership styles, in particular transactional, transformational, and charismatic leadership ( Lord et al. 2017 ; Ospina 2017 ; van Knippenberg and Sitkin 2013; , Vogel and Masal 2015 ; Yukl 2012 ). These studies focus on the downward dyadic relationship between manager and employee, in which leaders motivate employees to perform well (e.g., Jensen et al. 2019 ; Vermeeren, Kuipers, and Steijn 2014 ). This tradition has an empirical individual-centered approach. Its measurement involves motivating behaviors, but the main focus is put on leaders’ style of conduct instead of the actions themselves. Examining styles tells us something about how leaders implement their actions without taking the range of behaviors into account. Although the Full-Range Leadership Theory and the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (e.g., Antonakis, Avolio, and Sivasubramaniam 2003 ) form an attempt at a more-encompassing approach of leadership styles, it is still limited to the supervisor–employee relationship.

Secondly, internal and external management ( O’Toole and Meier 1999 ; Pedersen et al. 2019 ) and managerial networking ( Torenvlied et al. 2013 ; van den Bekerom, Torenvlied, and Akkerman 2016 ) is relevant here, although these studies speak in terms of management rather than leadership. This research tradition highlights that leadership encompasses multiple relationships with a range of stakeholders, inside and outside the organization. Again, this tradition has an individual, empirical focus. Whereas measurement of internal management includes specification of concrete behaviors, measurement of external management and networking often only involves the frequency of interactions with various stakeholders in different directions. This measurement then lacks specification of types of leadership behaviors used within such stakeholder relationships.

Finally, collaborative governance research involves collective or distributed leadership. This tradition has a strong focus on collaboration and relationships with a wide range of actors, reflecting that managing networked structures instead of single organizations takes center stage ( Bryson, Crosby, and Stone 2015 ; Crosby, ‘t Hart, and Torfing 2017 ). In contrast to the other two lines of enquiry, this type of research is concerned with collective leadership as a governance concept: leadership is treated as the product of the dynamics of many individuals’ actions and does not concern leadership behavior of individual leaders (e.g., Ospina 2017 ). In a recent study, Cristofoli, Trivellato, and Verzillo (2019) combine the individual and network focus, by investigating managers’ network behaviors to assess network effectiveness. While this and similar studies add on to the external management and networking literature (and are equally not speaking of leadership), leadership largely remains a governance concept in this tradition.

The public management leadership literature is thus empirically rich yet fragmented across various traditions, and not aligned (see also Ospina 2017 ). Research in the tradition that shares our focus on the individual level of leaders’ behavior generally operationalizes leadership rather narrowly focused on motivating behaviors in the downwards, dyadic relationship between manager and employees. While this research could benefit from the variety of insights from other traditions, they are rarely integrated. As a result of the fragmentation and disconnection, a comprehensive view that shows how leaders use the diversity of behaviors and combine various behaviors remains absent. Yet, effective leadership comes about when leaders employ the variety of their leadership behavior repertoire ( Denison, Hooijberg, and Quinn 1995 ; Havermans et al. 2015 ; Hooijberg 1996 ). Approaching leadership with a repertoire perspective can overcome this.

The leadership behavior repertoire is a collection of behavioral options available to a leader to pick and choose from to find a way to act suitable in light of the circumstances. The repertoire embodies the variety of roles (Dension, Hooijberg, and Quinn 1995) leaders fulfill that can be enacted by a range of behaviors in relation to a range of actors in different directions. The behavioral options then comprise combinations of behaviors differing in orientation (task, relations, change, external environment; Yukl 2012 ) and directions of action (upwards and downwards in the hierarchy to superiors and subordinates, sidewards to those in comparable positions, and outwards to external stakeholders ( Moore 1995 ; van den Bekerom, Torenvlied, and Akkerman 2016 )). Leaders have leeway to make various combinations: combinations can be more extensive or more simple, and there is no fixed combination between behavior types and relations in which they are used. The repertoire signifies that leaders have options to adapt to changing situations.

In sum, a repertoire conceptualization sees leadership behavior comprehensively in terms of behaviors and relationships and captures interactions between various behavioral options. Leadership repertoires are not just a sum of its separate elements. The need for an integrated view of leadership behavior through a repertoire perspective will be illustrated below and discussed in the research agenda.

Research Setting

To illustrate how leaders use the leadership behavior repertoire, an empirical setting characterized by contextual ambiguity provides a highlighting opportunity. When ambiguity in the context of leaders is omnipresent, leaders are likely forced to employ and combine diverse behaviors, because no clear guidance (clear priorities between interests, regulations, formal authority) is available to them to accomplish goals directly. While such ambiguity can be found throughout the public sector, it is particularly pronounced within universities. Therefore, universities were selected as a typical case ( Gerring 2006 ), in line with the tradition in organizational studies ( Askling and Stensaker 2002 ; Cohen and March 1974 ; March and Olsen 1979 ). Contextual ambiguity is particularly pronounced within universities, for two reasons.

Firstly, ambiguity is an ever-present phenomenon at universities, since universities work on multiple goals at the same time, involving research, education, and outreach tasks. Thereby they have to deal with a range of stakeholders with different interests, such as employees from multiple faculties and departments, students, and external stakeholders such as ministries or partner organizations ( Bryman and Lilley 2009 ; Enders 2012 ; Rainey and Jung 2015 ). March and Olsen (1979) , in their highly cited study on ambiguity and choice in organizations, illustrate their argument by the empirical study of universities based on the observation that educational institutions are prone to ambiguity: “goals that are unclear, technologies that are imperfectly understood, histories that are difficult to interpret, and participants who wander in and out” (8). This forms a point where ambiguity for leaders can emerge, since this creates room for various interpretations of priorities and desirable courses of action. It is then likely to generate variety in leadership behavior—both in terms of what is done and the complexity of this behavior.

Additionally, the complexity of universities’ organizational structures enhances the need to combine a range of leadership behaviors and work in multiple directions. Universities operate a system of shared governance, which means that the decision-making authority of leaders in universities is often limited and shared between different formal positions while professionals enjoy much autonomy ( Bolden, Petrov, and Gosling 2009 ; Pearce, Wassenaar, and Wood 2018 ; Seeber et al. 2015 ). This adds structural complexity, which may affect what leaders can do in terms of leadership behavior. As a result, it is expected there is a marked need to use a variety of leadership behaviors from their repertoire.

Data Collection

Data have been collected through in-depth semi-structured interviews with leaders. Interviews provide rich data that can show how leaders combine various roles and behaviors in different circumstances. The interviews focused on what leaders do in ambiguous situations, with topics covering how leaders perceive their leadership roles, what tensions they experience, and how they fill in their role and address such challenges (see topic list in Appendix   1 ). Since the perception of the environment and one’s role within it can be highly important for one’s behavior ( James and Jones 1974 ; Weick, Sutcliffe, and Obstfeld 2005 ), eliciting these perceptions while allowing participants to elaborate freely is valuable. Interviews lasted between 50 and 90 minutes and were recorded and transcribed verbatim for analysis.

The focus is on leaders in positions of formal authority, which means people who have a managerial position. Although leadership behavior is not necessarily limited to be performed by only those in formal leadership positions, we focus on leaders as those people within organizations with such positions, because these people have extensive leadership tasks incorporated in their position—enacting leadership is expected of them. Formal leaders in universities in middle management positions are increasingly tasked with responsibilities related to strategy, accountability, and innovation as a result of shifted modes of governance. These tasks create expectations and requirements for such position holders to show leadership behavior ( Beerkens and van der Hoek 2021 /forthcoming; Pearce, Wassenaar, and Wood 2018 ). It should be noted, however, that this does not have to exclude forms of shared or distributed leadership. Such forms of leadership are present in this study, since it also includes leaders “leading leaders” and leaders with tasks delegated within a board who do not necessarily have the accompanying formal authority ( Gronn 2002 ; ‘t Hart 2014 ; Ospina 2017 ). Participants have positions as (vice) deans; directors; faculty, department, and institute board members; and chairs or coordinators of research groups and teaching programs. All participants are active academics who fulfill a managerial position for a specific term, not professional administrators.

Data collection took place from December 2017 through February 2018 at three comprehensive, research-intensive universities in the Netherlands. Within each university, participants were recruited from the faculties hosting social sciences and natural sciences. Potential participants were identified through university websites and indexed according to faculty, organizational unit, type of position, and gender. Since this study has an exploratory character, participants were invited to create a sample including a balanced variation on these characteristics and thereby variation in types of experiences. Therefore, an equal number of men and women in similar types of positions in both social and natural sciences were invited. Since the number of women in formal leadership positions in the natural sciences was comparatively small, oversampling them was required. If a participant agreed to participate, no direct colleagues from the same department or board were selected. Invitations and one reminder email were sent by email, generating an invitation acceptance of 19 out of 37. Those who declined the invitation did so with the argument of lack of time. We have no indication of bias in who accepted the invitation, as an equal number of men and women declined to participate or did not respond to the invitation. Table 1 provides an overview of participants sorted by discipline, gender, and the level of their leadership position within the university.

Interview Participants per Discipline, Gender, and Level of Leadership Position Within University ( n = 19)

Data were analyzed using the method of Thematic Analysis, based on Boyatzis’ (1998) approach. A hybrid approach was used to accommodate both inductively elaborating the variety of leadership behaviors and using sensitizing concepts of roles in the leadership behavior repertoire ( Denison, Hooijberg, and Quinn 1995 ) and of direction of leadership behavior ( Moore 1995 ; van den Bekerom, Torenvlied, and Akkerman 2016 ).

Denison, Hooijberg, and Quinn (1995) distinguish a comprehensive set of leadership roles and accompanying behaviors: innovator, broker, producer, director, coordinator, monitor, facilitator, and mentor (see table 2 for brief descriptions per role). Whereas some roles involve more task-oriented behaviors, other roles concern externally oriented networking or relations-oriented coaching behaviors ( Yukl 2012 ). Since it is flexible in accommodating various directions in which the leadership behaviors are exercised, a connection to Moore’s (1995) and van den Bekerom, Torenvlied, and Akkerman (2016) distinction between leading upwards, downwards, outwards, and sidewards can be made. Therefore, this typology captures the various takes on leadership present in the public management literature and fits a repertoire perspective on leadership at the level of behavior in an encompassing way.

Leadership Roles (Derived from Denison, Hooijberg, and Quinn 1995 ) and Behaviors (Derived from Interviews)

Starting with open coding, an inventory of leadership behaviors was established by extracting key themes close to the wording used by participants. Co-occurring behaviors were grouped into categories of similar actions. This resulted in 13 categories of leadership behaviors. Axial coding linked these categories to the leadership roles as described by Denison, Hooijberg, and Quinn (1995) . The behavior categories then give more detailed substance to the role categories, and role categories can be seen as clusters of behaviors with a similar purpose. Five behavior categories seemed to fit several leadership role categories, which were then split up into more specific categories matching the description of the role categories. During the axial coding, there appeared no substantive distinction between behavior types matching the coordinator and producer roles, which were therefore merged. This resulted in a total of seven leadership roles encompassing 18 types of leadership behaviors. This coding scheme is presented in table 2 .

The coded data have been examined using coding stripes and matrix queries to seek patterns of co-occurrence of leadership behaviors and directions in which the behaviors were exercised. The units of analysis in this process were the situations discussed by the participants, in which they experienced ambiguity and were showing leadership behavior. All analyses of the coded transcripts are performed in NVivo. This pattern-seeking has led to a categorization of leadership behavior repertoire uses that varied in their complexity, as the next section will discuss.

Leadership Behavior Repertoire Uses: Empirical Illustrations

Based on the interview data, different uses of the leadership behavior repertoire were uncovered, which are illustrated below. To illicit these accounts, participants were asked to tell about situations in which they were confronted with multiple simultaneous demands that produced tension and how they acted then. In response, participants described a rich variety of leadership behaviors, showing a repertoire consisting of a range of behavioral options. Throughout the interviews, participants reported on combining several behaviors to address issues they are facing. Thereby they often need to balance several objectives, create synergies, or work in parallel on multiple issues. Participants described different types of behavior repertoire uses, that vary in terms of the number of behaviors used and the number of directions in which they operate. The variety of leadership behavior repertoire uses can be categorized in four quadrants, which is displayed in table 3 . Important to emphasize is that leadership behavior repertoire uses concern behavior modalities, approaches in dealing with leadership situations, rather than traits or characteristics of people. Leaders use those behavior modalities differently between situations.

Variation of Leadership Behavior Repertoire Uses

The discussion below builds up in terms of leadership complexity (see also table 3 ): first simpler uses of the repertoire are discussed, followed by uses that involve more different types of behavior and more different directions.

Simple Leadership Behavior Repertoire Uses: Few Behaviors, Few Directions

Leaders do not always use a substantial part of their leadership behavior repertoire. Only a few types of behavior directed to a single type of actor can form a leader’s response to occurring needs. Leaders discussed situations in which they dealt with a single type of actor such as their employees or were engaged in issues that involved a single task. Such examples match with how public leadership behavior is often studied, in research with the common focus on the supervisor–employee dyadic relationship. Instances of this kind can be found concerning motivating and coaching employees or managing conflict between employees. Though these examples as shown below can be classified as simple repertoire uses, it should be noted that more often than not more than one type of behavior was used. This illustrates that delineating leadership behavior in a more limited conceptualization may be too simple and may not be congruent with leaders’ practice.

For example, a participant described how he had facilitated reintegration of employees who suffered from burn-out (interview 13). He describes using behaviors of the mentor and monitor roles in downward direction: signaling and discussing burn-out of an employee to acknowledge the existence of a problem, giving the employee autonomy to come up with his/her own plan to improve the situation, discussing the plan and directing towards solutions or assistance if necessary, and monitoring and discussing progress. Another example originates with an educational director. In a mentor role, she keeps an eye to the human behind the employee, facilitating him or her to make choices about the number of hours s/he wants to work when family situations change, but at the same time ensuring that all courses can be taught and sufficient staff capacity remains, using behaviors fitting a coordinator role (interview 14). These examples show that leaders keep the interests of employees in mind while simultaneously also considering the implications for an institute and continuity of teaching programs. Yet despite concurring demands on the leader, a relatively simple repertoire use is shown.

Another type of example that appeared several times concerns the broker role in upward direction. For instance, a head of the department discussed that part of his job is to shield off his staff from new rules and administrative burden as much as possible. In the case of new digital systems being introduced by the university, he raised his voice and objections repeatedly towards the faculty and higher levels within the university. As part of this, he also participated in a review committee, gathering experiences and problems with these systems from all parts of the university, to advise the university board to change the systems and reduce the burden on employees (interview 2).

Moderately Complex Leadership Behavior Repertoire Uses: Few Behaviors, Various Directions

Other times, participants described situations featuring more comprehensive uses of the leadership behavior repertoire. Leaders focus on a few behaviors fitting one role, but thereby engage a range of actors in various directions. This type of instance shows similarities with the network perspective from the literature. Examples regularly feature behaviors of a communicating and connecting kind but can take on more task-oriented behaviors in more complex contexts.

A vice-dean talked about a process to create a shared story about the newly developed strategy. The leadership behaviors mainly fall within the facilitator role, but were directed downwards, outwards, and partially also upwards. In this case, earlier efforts to engage various parts of the organization in the development of the new strategy had not been accomplished that the outcome resonated broadly and generated excitement for the future envisioned together for the strategy. She therefore organized different types of meetings with staff as well as students to discuss the important values and how the new faculty strategy would contribute to advancing these values. Seeking input, bringing perspectives together, and giving the various stakeholders a voice in creating a story brought about that a lively discussion and a sense of community around this story emerged as a basis for acting upon the strategy sustainably (interview 3).

Other illustrations of this quadrant feature participants who are active in collaborations across organizational boundaries - both internal boundaries within the university and outward boundaries. An example comes from a research group leader who also acts as chair of a university-wide multidisciplinary network. In her work for this network, she talks about using leadership behaviors fitting the broker role in upward, sideward, and downward directions. As chair of this network, this participant works on setting up collaborative teaching modules as well as integrating the network’s focal theme within existing programs at all faculties. This means that she is engaged a lot in talking to deans, department and education directors, and peers throughout the university to explain the relevance of incorporating the theme within university teaching, asking them to participate and allocate resources within their programs to develop such education, and coordinating between participating programs and teachers on the work floor. Bargaining is part of this process, as well as establishing commitment from the university board to leverage it in those negotiations. Keeping in touch and following up with all stakeholders in the various directions, representing interests, cooperating, and spotting opportunities all fit this broker role, but takes different shapes dependent on which type of actors in which direction she engages with (interview 16).

Moderately Complex Leadership Behavior Repertoire Uses: Various Behaviors, Few Directions

A similar yet different version of the more comprehensive repertoire use is found when leaders combine a variety of behaviors of multiple roles, but only use them in one direction. Such behavior repertoire uses share with much of the literature that leadership is exercised in relation to a single type of stakeholder. It differs, however, by involving a combination of diverse behaviors, that emphasizes that leaders draw on multiple roles in these relationships.

An illustration is given by a head of department, whose department went through turbulent times and faced declining revenues and austerity measures from the faculty. She described her leadership in keeping the department afloat in terms of various behaviors matching the director, facilitator, and broker roles directed downwards at the staff working in the department. Initially, she had to get the change process in motion, which meant that she stressed the urgency of the problem and the need to take action for survival. Moreover, she stepped in to mediate and resolve conflict to get resistant staff members on board. This required organizing numerous meetings, having conversations with people separately, explaining the situation, and convincing the staff to make changes to the program. Besides giving input, she sought perspectives and ideas of the staff to solve the problems, giving them the opportunity to reshape the program along their expertise and thereby also create ownership of the community. Still, as head of the department, she made the conditions clear in order to reach the goal of solving the financial problems. Throughout the process, she worked on building social cohesion, trust, and a sense of collective ownership of the department, not only through participatory decision-making but also by organizing social activities and creating physical signs of community (a picture wall, for instance) (interview 19).

A further example of this type of repertoire use is provided by an educational director, who discusses how he works on getting the teaching program staffed and ensures educational quality. To plan all courses and allocate staff, he uses a model that specifies how many hours are available to fulfill tasks. In this way, he provides transparency to his colleagues. When a teacher complains about their tasks and the time available, and that it would not be fair, he can use the model to show what needs to be done in a year and how all colleagues contribute to that. Besides his coordinator and monitor role behaviors, he also draws on mentor role behaviors, to make sure that supporting arrangements are in place for new teachers, for instance, training and assistance, and asking what tasks people would like to do and how he can help them. Building shared ownership by involving staff in discussions and asking them for plans to improve educational quality characterize his facilitator role (interview 7).

Complex Leadership Behavior Repertoire Uses: Various Behaviors, Various Directions

Lastly, complex combinations of leadership behavior repertoire options are commonly used. Leaders made use of multiple behaviors and engaged with actors in various directions. Cases that involve strategy and organizational change are commonly at the heart of such examples. All participants shared the conviction and experience that strategies, plans for change, and important decisions should not be made by a leader alone, but instead should be developed together with their staff. This is important within the complex ambiguous contexts of many public organizations, because leaders lead professionals who have strong intrinsic motivation and a high level of expertise, while at the same time, many leaders still participate—like their staff—in the primary process like a “primus inter pares.”

Exemplary for a complex leadership behavior repertoire use is a head of department who elaborated on a process of formulating a new strategy for his department. He combined the innovator, broker, facilitator, and director roles and thereby worked downwards and upwards. Taking initiative, seeking and giving input, setting boundary conditions, delegating tasks and giving autonomy to his staff within these limits, overseeing but not directing the process, creating engagement, representing interests to the faculty board and financial department, and setting direction by making the final decisions based on input from the bottom-up process were combined in this process. New plans were being developed, while at the same time he started preparing for implementation. This example also illustrates the relational character of leadership spanning multiple organizational levels and working with actors in multiple directions. The participant facilitated employees within his institute to create bottom-up plans and influenced them by providing boundary conditions, while at the same time, influencing stakeholders higher up in the organization to be able to implement the new plans without delay or difficulties (interview 18).

Another illustrative case is provided by an educational director, who initiated, developed, and realized a new international Bachelor program. She combined innovator, facilitator, monitor, and director role behaviors in various directions: downwards, sidewards, and outwards. Based on her analysis of developments in the educational environment, staff composition, and potential for future thriving, this educational director took the initiative to start talking about creating a new program. Together with coordinating and policy staff, she made sure the financial conditions would allow this initiative and she started seeking input from teaching staff in various rounds and through diverse channels. The process was intentionally participatory and efforts were made to ensure transparent communication with staff members. In this way, shared ownership and support for the program were created to make it a success. Additionally, in the logistical developments, she has sought help and cooperation with colleagues of other disciplines within the university, to learn from each other and unite their interests (interview 10).

Towards a Research Agenda

The illustrated uses of the leadership behavior repertoire give rise to questions how this perspective can contribute to ongoing theorizing and research. This section outlines research directions that seem particularly fruitful to continue when conceptualizing leadership behavior as a repertoire. Moreover, several methodological suggestions to make progress along those substantive lines are discussed.

Leadership Behavior Repertoire Uses in Relation to Context

In line with most leadership research, we have found between-person variation: between participants, the emphasis on certain types of behavior differs. Whereas some participants seem to put their role as director more central, others more often act as facilitators or brokers. Nevertheless, all participants take on multiple roles and work in various directions, which makes clear that characterizing a leader by their most prominent style is too simplistic. Possibly of more theoretical importance then is the within-person variation. The same participant can show different uses of the repertoire in varying situations. Several interviewees explicitly state that using the same “recipe” in all situations is not helpful, that instead, it is necessary to have sensitivity to contextual variation and use various approaches adapted to the situation. Such within-person variation of leadership behavior implies that an adaptation process is ongoing and underlines the importance of looking at leadership integrally and contextually.

Increasing our understanding of how leadership itself takes shape is all the more important, because characteristics of the context in which leaders operate present challenges—not the least in public organizations. Leaders need to balance multiple needs from their environment while being constrained by the complex hierarchical structures that divide formal authority between leaders in different positions ( Getha-Taylor et al. 2011 ; Groeneveld and Van de Walle 2011 ). Simultaneously, leadership is of growing importance in the pursuit of organizational goals ( Shamir 1999 ). So far, however, this question is largely overlooked ( Porter and McLaughlin 2006 ; cf. Schmidt and Groeneveld 2021 ; cf. Stoker, Garretsen, and Soudis 2019 ). Though it is debated to what extent the public sector is special, it is widely acknowledged that various aspects of publicness and the political context impact on organizational structures and processes amongst which leadership takes shape ( ‘t Hart 2014 ; Pollitt 2013 ). Adopting a repertoire conceptualization of leadership behavior and continuing within-person focused research can further stimulate systematic investigation of the impact of context factors on leadership.

Moving the focus from leadership of persons to leadership in situations helps disentangling leadership’s complexity while integrating context in our understanding of leadership. Thereby we build on and set a step beyond recent work of Pedersen et al. (2019) and Kramer et al. (2019) . Leaders could be thought of as being sensitive to contextual variations between situations and consequently, that such context sensitivity translates into context-sensitive behavior: when a leader perceives the situation to be different, the behavior deemed appropriate would co-vary. 1 A repertoire conceptualization can help to make this visible. It can then be argued that such context sensitivity is connected to a behavioral response based on contextual adaptation ( Hooijberg 1996 ; Van der Hoek, Beerkens, and Groeneveld 2021 ). It is worthwhile to investigate the relationship between contextual needs and a leader’s individual skills, capacity, and preferences and what that means for how the repertoire is used. Follow-up studies should conceptualize and operationalize context variables specifically to avoid vague and irrelevant explanations and make situational variation meaningful.

Leadership Repertoire Uses in Relation to Outcomes

Another step can be made by investigating how leadership behavior seen from this repertoire perspective relates to other organizational phenomena. In the existing literature, many studies show the effects of isolated parts of leadership on performance and employee attitudes (see Vogel and Masal 2015 ). From a repertoire perspective, leaders can substitute and compensate their behaviors, and they prioritize their roles and behaviors differently (possibly) depending on the context. As Van der Hoek, Beerkens, and Groeneveld (2021) show, for example, leaders are likely to consolidate their behaviors when ambiguity increases. We have observed various shapes that the repertoire can take, but it would be worthwhile to investigate, too, whether those shapes have different impacts on outcome variables and under which conditions those relationships exist.

It has been found that leaders can use various approaches to be effective ( Pedersen et al. 2019 ) and leadership is most effective when leaders draw on the variety of options of the repertoire ( Denison, Hooijberg, and Quinn 1995 ; Havermans et al. 2015 ; Hooijberg 1996 ). Using the repertoire’s full range of options makes that leaders can match the diversity of issues they are addressing with suitable action, as the opportunities to create a fit between demands and response increase. Also in research on ambidexterity of leaders, it was found that effectiveness to fulfill various requirements was enhanced when leaders draw on a range of different behaviors ( Mom, Fourné, and Jansen 2015 ). Moreover, as Smith’s (2014) study shows, the pattern of behavior and decisions over a longer stretch of time may have more important consequences for organizational outcomes than single actions and decisions. A repertoire conceptualization of leadership facilitates that combinations of behavior with their combined impact are highlighted and can be evaluated.

Operationalization of the Leadership Behavior Repertoire

Our analysis has focused on the variety within leadership behavior repertoire uses. Nevertheless, variety is only one perspective on this complexity. Not only which behaviors are used and in which directions, but a temporal lens to study repertoires can also add supplementary insights. Firstly, timing of the use of the repertoire’s elements can vary. Leaders can undertake various actions in parallel, while at other times the different actions are more sequential. Moreover, the moment when leaders decide to start, stop or change their approach can differ. Also delaying or waiting involve this temporal factor. Our interview participants gave examples that indicate variation in timing. Another way in which we can learn more about the leadership behavior repertoire is by considering the duration and intensity of behaviors. Whereas leaders may spend only a single instance of short time on some activities, others may require full attention for either a longer or shorter time, or may be always ongoing in a monitoring fashion.

Several authors have called for attention for temporal factors such as timing, pace, rhythm, cycles, ordering, and trends in the study of organizational behavior (e.g., Ancona et al. 2001 ; Castillo and Trinh 2018 ; Johns 2006 ) and public management ( Oberfield 2014a ; O’Toole and Meier 1999 ; Pollitt 2008 ), though still very few empirical studies in public management have explicitly addressed this issue (e.g., Oberfield 2014a , 2014b ). By taking up a repertoire perspective to conceptualize leadership, more nuanced differences connected to subtle time variables could be illuminated.

Internal Dynamics of the Leadership Behavior Repertoire

Besides further developing the operationalization of the leadership behavior repertoire, the internal dynamics of the repertoire can be unpacked. Not only the elements of the repertoire themselves and how we look at them, but also how they are combined and balanced can be disentangled for deeper insights. Understanding why leaders use their repertoire as they do, how they combine and balance the various elements, and why so, helps to untangle the intricacies of the complexity of the leadership behavior repertoire. As referred to before, the internal dynamics may cause differential effects than when a single type of leadership is examined.

One relevant aspect concerns the extent to which leaders are on the one hand intentional, strategic, and proactive in choosing their leadership behavior, or reactive and habitual on the other hand ( Boyne and Walker 2004 ; Crant 2000 ; Miles and Snow 1978 ). Based on some indications in our data, variation exists in this respect. Sometimes leaders take a proactive approach and choose behaviors strategically to advance their goals. Building on findings by Havermans et al. (2015) , intentional switching and combining of various leadership behaviors can be expected. Other times, leadership behavior becomes a matter of reactively responding to what is thrown at a leader and defaulting to preferred styles.

Explanatory factors at the level of the leader may be relevant to consider. One way to understand such differences concerning the combinations leaders make, relates to the breadth of repertoire options available to them. In case leaders are aware of a large number of behavioral strategies they could adopt and have the skills to use them, this may lead to more varied repertoire uses and more variation between situations. On the other hand, having knowledge and skills of only a few behavioral options, leaders may be more inclined to use the same and a limited repertoire. How this relates to length of tenure in a position or experience in leadership roles more generally could be examined. A second explanation could be found in how leaders perceive their room for maneuver. Feeling in control or in the position to frame issues may help to make such conscious strategic combinations. Feeling overwhelmed by the sheer amount of demands or in a position of putting out fires, however, may put leaders under pressure to forgo proactive strategic behavior.

Methodological Recommendations

To pursue these substantive avenues for continued study, a number of methodological suggestions can be made that seem particularly suitable when using a repertoire conceptualization of leadership behavior.

Experimental methods are strongly encouraged and increasingly used in the field (e.g., Blom-Hansen, Morton, and Serritzlew 2015 ; Jacobsen and Andersen 2015 ). Experimental designs can be used to assess the extent to which leaders adapt their leadership behavior to context. The controlled design can systematically build on insights from rich literature about the public sector context as well as from research in the contingency tradition. By manipulating contextual variation in experimental tasks or vignettes ( Atzmüller and Steiner 2010 ; Barter and Renold 1999 ; Belle and Cantarelli 2018 ; Podsakoff and Podsakoff 2019 ), the specific effect of context on leadership behavior can be tested. A repertoire conceptualization may then reveal differentiation in how context factors influence leadership behavior. Since experimental conditions can be designed by the researcher, numerous potentially relevant contextual dimensions discussed in public management research can be investigated on their effects on leadership behavior repertoire uses. If participants are confronted with multiple manipulations each, within-person variation and adaptation can be examined ( Van der Hoek, Beerkens, and Groeneveld 2021 ).

Another strategy to study leadership repertoires is using event sampling methods ( Bolger, Davis, and Raffaeli 2003 ; Kelemen, Matthews, and Breevaart 2020 ; Ohly et al. 2010 ). These methods are based on within-person variation over time, whereby study participants can be asked to report their leadership behavior at various points in time or after specified events occur. In addition, they can be asked to provide information about the context and situation in which this leadership behavior was used as well as about results. Both quantitative multilevel designs and qualitative diary studies could each contribute new insights: hypothesized patterns can be assessed or perceptions of and considerations in various situations can be disentangled. Therefore, event sampling methods can be used to test whether leaders adapt their leadership behavior to changing situations. Secondly, this method offers opportunities to learn more about timing of changes in the repertoire use and reasons for doing so.

Finally, ethnographic methods such as shadowing and participant observation are suitable to study subtle differences in meaning-giving and leadership behavior repertoire use ( Alvesson 1996 ; Geertz 1973 ; Weick, Sutcliffe, and Obstfeld 2005 ). Observing leaders in various types of situations and asking questions related to those observations can give better insights in leaders’ interpretations of the context and their considerations when responding to a situation. In this way, the interaction between situational context and personal preferences and skills related to their repertoire can be studied. The balancing of different behavioral strategies by leaders can then be illuminated. This could add to develop the operationalization of the leadership repertoire as well as the understanding of its internal dynamics. Moreover, such methods are particularly useful to connect leaders’ own intentions of their leadership behavior to the perceptions of those around them to whom this behavior is directed. Since self-other disagreement is common in the study of leadership behavior ( Vogel and Kroll 2019 ), combining self-reported accounts with accounts of others can stimulate the repertoire’s validity if confirmed.

We see more of leadership when we look at the leadership behavior repertoire used in situations. Coaching, motivating, planning, solving problems should not be seen as stand-alone behaviors of a leader; instead, such actions are taken at the backdrop of and are impacted by the overall task of leading an organization, which involves many more leadership behaviors. This regularly evokes a more complex leadership repertoire use. Furthermore, the structures that divide authority of leaders and thereby make them interdependent, bring along that leadership behavior does not only comprise supervising employees or leading downwards, but that 360-degree action is frequently required. The relational character of leadership is omnipresent in such complex environments. Leaders have to work in different directions and need to switch their strategies and combine various types of leadership behavior to be able to influence and facilitate.

There are always trade-offs when defining a good concept, parsimony and depth being one of them in this case, and the utility for theory is the most important criterion when choosing the best concept ( Gerring 1999 ). In-depth studies on specific leadership elements have provided valuable evidence on the nature of certain behaviors, and their effects on various organizational outcomes. As a limitation, they ignore a symbiotic relationship between different behaviors. While more comprehensive, the repertoire approach has its own challenges, though. Due to its comprehensiveness, delineation of the concept as well as its operationalization and use in empirical studies is more complex.

The fragmentation of research in different, largely non-communicating parts of the literature may be developing a blind spot for the study of leadership behavior of individuals in public organizations: though it may describe the real world well in relatively simple situations, it prevents studying leadership behavior in a manner that covers the comprehensiveness of leadership in more complex situations common in public organizations. This study provides support for the importance of an integral approach that examines the combination of various leadership behaviors at the individual level in public management, because the ambiguous context of many public leaders forces them to draw on a broad repertoire of behaviors. Learning how leaders vary, combine, and balance their behavioral strategies is then essential, as it can provide further insights into obstacles and openings of effective leadership. The identified directions could be a guide for future research in this endeavor.

The premise of context sensitivity underlies research on contingency theory (e.g., Aldrich 1979 ; Donaldson 2001 ; Fiedler 1967 ; Lawrence and Lorsch 1967 ; Perrow 1970 ) and situational leadership (e.g., Graef 1997 ; Thompson and Vecchio 2009 ; Yukl 2008 ), though such studies generally focus on organizational structure or effectiveness as dependent on leadership or organizations’ external environment. Situational leadership theory ( Graef 1997 ; Thompson and Vecchio 2009 ; Yukl 2008 ) sees leadership itself as dependent on context, but specifically focuses on employees’ task maturity rather than a broader view of organizational context factors and narrows leadership to motivating subordinates.

- Can you tell me what it means to be [director/dean/board member/project leader] within this [department/institute/faculty] (tasks/running issues and projects)?

Leadership role: How do you see your role as […]?

- What do you find hard about your role as […]? Can you tell about this in relation to a particular issue or event in which this featured. What did make that difficult?

- Do you experience dilemmas in your role as […]? Have you experienced moments where different things were hard to reconcile? Where did that tension come from?

- Do you experience dilemmas between your roles as […] and […]?

- You have different tasks and roles. How do you combine those (simultaneously)?

Ambiguity needs: Which needs/expectations do you encounter in your role as […]?

- Where do those needs originate from? Can you tell about this in relation to a particular issue or event in which this featured.

- What did you do then in that situation?

- Do you always do this in the same way, or is it dependent on the situation?

- What made you choose this approach?

Do you face:

Goals that allow room for multiple interpretations?

Working on both innovation/change as optimization/stability?

Complexity and dynamism in the environment of your [department/institute/faculty/group]?

- Do you experience tension here? Example? Where did that tension stem from?

- How did you deal with it?

As a last question for this interview: Could we go through your last week, see how the things you talked about show in how you spend your time?

- What do you mean by […]?

- Can you give an example of that (of last week/month)?

- What did you do then?

- Can you tell more specifically which actions you undertook to do that?

- Can you take me along in the process of […], how that went, what you were thinking?

- What did you find difficult about that?

- How did you do that?

- Can you elaborate?

- Have you missed a topic/did we not discuss something that you would like to bring to my attention?

- Did you participate in leadership training?

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Leadership: A Comprehensive Review of Literature, Research and Theoretical Framework

2020, Leadership: A Comprehensive Review of Literature, Research and Theoretical Framework. In: Journal of Economics and Business, Vol.3, No.1, 44-64.

This paper provides a comprehensive literature review on the research and theoretical framework of leadership. The author illuminates the historical foundation of leadership theories and then clarifies modern leadership approaches. After a brief introduction on leadership and its definition, the paper mentions the trait theories, summarizes the still predominant behavioral approaches, gives insights about the contingency theories and finally touches the latest contemporary leadership theories. The overall aim of the paper is to give a brief understanding of how effective leadership can be achieved throughout the organization by exploring many different theories of leadership, and to present leadership as a basic way of achieving individual and organizational goals. The paper is hoped to be an important resource for the academics and researchers who would like to study on the leadership field.

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Developing a model for effective leadership in healthcare: a concept mapping approach

Charles william hargett.

1 Division of Pulmonary, Allergy, and Critical Care Medicine, Department of Medicine

Joseph P Doty

2 Feagin Leadership Program

Jennifer N Hauck

3 Department of Anesthesiology

Allison MB Webb

4 School of Medicine

Steven H Cook

5 Department of Neurosurgery

Nicholas E Tsipis

Julie a neumann.

6 Department of Orthopaedic Surgery

Kathryn M Andolsek

7 Department of Community and Family Medicine, Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, NC, USA

Dean C Taylor

Despite increasing awareness of the importance of leadership in healthcare, our understanding of the competencies of effective leadership remains limited. We used a concept mapping approach (a blend of qualitative and quantitative analysis of group processes to produce a visual composite of the group’s ideas) to identify stakeholders’ mental model of effective healthcare leadership, clarifying the underlying structure and importance of leadership competencies.

Literature review, focus groups, and consensus meetings were used to derive a representative set of healthcare leadership competency statements. Study participants subsequently sorted and rank-ordered these statements based on their perceived importance in contributing to effective healthcare leadership in real-world settings. Hierarchical cluster analysis of individual sortings was used to develop a coherent model of effective leadership in healthcare.

A diverse group of 92 faculty and trainees individually rank-sorted 33 leadership competency statements. The highest rated statements were “Acting with Personal Integrity”, “Communicating Effectively”, “Acting with Professional Ethical Values”, “Pursuing Excellence”, “Building and Maintaining Relationships”, and “Thinking Critically”. Combining the results from hierarchical cluster analysis with our qualitative data led to a healthcare leadership model based on the core principle of Patient Centeredness and the core competencies of Integrity, Teamwork, Critical Thinking, Emotional Intelligence, and Selfless Service.

Using a mixed qualitative-quantitative approach, we developed a graphical representation of a shared leadership model derived in the healthcare setting. This model may enhance learning, teaching, and patient care in this important area, as well as guide future research.

Introduction

Physicians must become effective healthcare leaders in order to influence the care of individual patients, the performance of diverse clinical teams, and the direction of major healthcare organizations and beyond. The importance of effective healthcare leadership is difficult to overestimate as leadership not only improves major clinical outcomes in patients, but also improves provider well-being by promoting workplace engagement and reducing burnout. 1 – 5 We define the ability to influence as the foundation of our definition of healthcare leadership: Healthcare leadership is the ability to effectively and ethically influence others for the benefit of individual patients and populations.

Over the last ten years, we have created, implemented, and refined several undergraduate medical education (UME) and graduate medical education (GME) leadership development educational programs. We have found that medical students, residents (synonymous with junior registrar), and fellows (postgraduate trainees; synonymous with advanced specialist registrar) are exposed to little intentional education to prepare them for their current and future personal and professional leadership challenges. Importantly, from a developmental and educational perspective, omitting topics such as leadership in medical education “is a powerful, if unintended signal, that these issues are unimportant”. 6 Our programs are not designed to prepare individuals for specific leadership roles. Rather, they facilitate individuals’ learning and development of leadership skills that will prepare them to influence many facets of life, including healthcare.

We have found that leadership models are extremely helpful for learners to grasp new concepts, make sense of lessons learned through their experiences, afford structure that facilitates lasting comprehension through reflection, and provide a basis for learner assessment and program evaluation. 7 In the formative years of our programs, we used business leadership models as the foundation to teach leadership skills. Our review of other leadership development schools and professions (for example, the Wharton School of Business - University of Pennsylvania, the Fuqua Business School at Duke University, the United States Service Academies, and the Department of the Army) were helpful, yet they lacked emphasis on subtle aspects unique to healthcare leadership. We then looked for explicit healthcare leadership models and found that few existed. Further, none seemed to facilitate effective leadership learning in UME and GME.

Our inability to find an appropriate healthcare leadership model led us to create a leadership model specific to healthcare. This model needed to be based on competencies that were recognized as the most important attributes for effective healthcare leadership. The purpose of the paper is to present the research process that resulted in the Duke Healthcare Leadership Model, as shown in Figure 1 .

The Duke Healthcare Leadership Model.

Note: ©2017 Dean C. Taylor, MD. All rights reserved.

The study was a mixed method study using a modified concept mapping approach to derive, prioritize, and thematically structure the fundamental competencies of healthcare leadership. Concept mapping is a mixed methods approach that combines qualitative group processes such as brainstorming and interpretive sorting with rigorous quantitative data analysis to produce a visual depiction of the composite thinking of the group. This process of structured conceptualization has been used to address complex issues in healthcare, and provides a framework that can guide action planning, program development or evaluation and measurement. 8 , 9 We used a comprehensive literature review and focus groups to develop a set of statements that described healthcare leadership competencies. Next, we implemented a card sorting task, followed by analysis and interpretation. Finally, we created and refined a graphical representation of healthcare leadership. These successive steps are illustrated in Figure 2 and will be explained in more detail in following sections. The study was approved by the Duke Health Institutional Review Board after it was determined to be exempt from full review. Participation was voluntary, and informed consent was not required.

Sequence of steps in the concept mapping approach to derive, prioritize, and thematically structure the fundamental competencies of leadership in medicine.

Literature review

Building upon our prior meta-analysis exploring leadership curricula used to teach medical students, we performed an updated literature search and review of existing leadership models. 10 Information gleaned was used to develop semi-structured focus group interview questions, a list of common healthcare leadership attributes, and a script to be used in focus group discussions.

Focus groups

Participants were recruited to collect expert opinion on the leadership competencies required of a healthcare leader in any environment . Each focus group lasted approximately two hours, and was led by the same team of moderators. Moderators used the script developed from the semi-structured focus group interview questions to lead the discussions. One of the moderators took notes of the comments from the group members and from subsequent debriefing sessions. The focus groups were also asked to critique the leadership attributes identified from the literature. Participants were asked to rank the top 10 attributes required of a healthcare medical leader. The focus group data were analyzed through constant comparison analysis by identifying common themes through saturation within each group and across groups. An initial set of competency statements was derived and further refined by eliminating duplication and targeting specifically for healthcare settings. The resulting competency statements formed the basis for the quantitative card sorting and cluster analysis.

Card sorting task

The sorting procedure was administered online with the open source program FlashQ. 11 Following an introduction with instructions, participants were presented with the focus group leadership competency statements in random order and asked to sort them in order of importance based on their individual point of view. More specifically, participants were asked to rate the relative importance of each leadership attribute based on its value or importance in contributing to effective leadership performance in real-world clinical situations. During the sorting process, participants placed one unique statement in each box on a grid with a fixed quasi-normal distribution. Competency statements could be allocated to a ranking position ranging from +5 (most important) to −5 (least important). Respondents could change the placement of cards until the final positioning of all statements reflected their ranking of the statements relative to each other in importance. After completing the card sorting, participants were asked to provide their rationale for placing the competency statements at the extreme ends (+5 or −5 columns) of the sorting grid. All responses were anonymous, though respondents could elect to enter demographic data, including sex, current role, and leadership experience.

Hierarchical cluster analysis

Demographic data and importance scores were calculated using descriptive statistics. All data were analyzed with JMP Pro 13.0 (SAS Institute Inc., Cary, NC, USA). Cluster analysis is a statistical technique to find similar groups of cases in a data set and is particularly useful in the development of a classification or conceptual scheme. Hierarchical cluster analysis (Ward’s method, squared Euclidean distances) was used to classify leadership competency statements based on the similarity of individual sorting responses of each participant. Guided by the dendrogram and agglomeration schedule, investigators (CWH, JPD, DCT) determined the final number of clusters by consensus and based on the criterion that the clusters should reflect meaningful, distinct domains related to effective leadership in a healthcare setting.

Mixed methods analysis

We analyzed the quantitative data in conjunction with the qualitative data obtained from the focus group discussions and the statements provided by card sorting participants. This mixed methods analysis helped us define the primary healthcare leadership competency themes. Earlier versions of the model originated within our Feagin Leadership Program and the Leadership Education And Development (LEAD) Curriculum, which are internal initiatives within our UME and GME programs. The initial models were refined based on input and feedback obtained from multiple faculty, house staff, and residents over a three-year period.

The literature review found that healthcare leadership is a skill that must be 12 – 14 and can be 15 – 17 intentionally taught. Further, the literature review provided information on healthcare leadership attributes and content 18 – 25 that we used to guide the discussion to the semi-structured focus group interview questions. Thirty-nine healthcare leadership attributes were identified and used to determine the competency statements in the focus groups.

Three focus groups were carried out with a total of 19 participants, many being clinical faculty with administrative or leadership roles . From the 39 healthcare leadership attributes identified through the literature review, the focus groups’ work led to a set of 33 competency statements that represent important aspects of healthcare leadership (Supplementary material). These statements formed the basis for the card sorting task. Each one of the statements:

• Described some of the fundamental knowledge, skills, or attitudes related to leadership (influencing others) in a healthcare setting
• Represented the basic competencies that may be demonstrated by successful physician leaders, regardless of their work setting
• Described the knowledge, skills, and attitudes that combine to enable residents and fellows to demonstrate behaviors that help assure effective leadership performance in real-world clinical situations

In addition to identifying the statements for our quantitative card sorting task, the focus groups also provided important qualitative data. All three focus groups emphasized that Patient Centeredness and Selfless Service are two competencies essential to effective healthcare leadership. Further, each focus group emphasized that Patient Centeredness was essential to any healthcare leadership model as this principle differentiated healthcare leadership from leadership in other fields.

Approximately 200 faculty (attending physicians and non-physician professionals) and learners (medical students, residents, and fellows) were recruited via email to participate in the card sorting exercise. Ninety-two participants responded (46 percent) (22 medical students, 29 physicians-in-training, 25 attending physicians, and 16 non-physician professionals). Sixty percent were men, and two-thirds reported prior formal leadership training. Table 1 presents a basic summary of the participants in the card sorting task. Table 2 summarizes the mean values for importance of the top competency statements.

Characteristics of participants in card sorting

Note: Discrepancies in totals are due to incomplete responses as demographic questions were optional.

Top competency statements ranked by mean (SD) importance score

Through hierarchical cluster analysis, the competency statements fell into five domains. We labeled four of the domains based on the predominant themes of the competency statements in those domains: Integrity, Teamwork, Critical Thinking, and Emotional Intelligence. A fifth domain comprised a set of low-rated competency statements for which no unifying theme could be identified ( Figure 3 ). Fundamental leadership domains with mean importance scores for each leadership competency statement are presented in Table 3 .

Organization of competency statements based on hierarchical cluster analysis and mixed quantitative and qualitative assessment.

Five fundamental competency themes in leadership in medicine with mean importance score for each competency statement

Mixed methods analysis of the quantitative and qualitative data resulted in two additional competency themes for the healthcare leadership model. We used the qualitative input from the focus groups and the card sorting comments to separate Patient Centeredness and Selfless Service from the Emotional Intelligence domain ( Figure 3 ). The focus group affirming that Patient Centeredness is a unique, defining component found in effective healthcare leaders was confirmed through feedback and experience we received when testing early versions of the model in leadership education settings. We concluded that Patient Centeredness is more than a competency for healthcare leadership; it is a core principle.

We also identified the highly rated statement of “Communicating Effectively” (originally clustered in the Integrity domain) as essential to each domain, and not a separate competency. Similarly, “Pursuing Excellence”, although highly rated and part of the Critical Thinking domain, is a statement that is an aspirational goal and, as such, a part of each competency.

Finally, we modified the graphic representation of the model based on its use in teaching students, residents, and fellows, along with the feedback we received from these learners and faculty. The resulting model ( Figure 1 ) features that the central core principle of Patient Centeredness is surrounded by the overlapping five core competencies. We recognize Emotional Intelligence 26 , 27 as the core competency that holds the other competencies together, and therefore it is positioned as the “keystone” in the model; if Emotional Intelligence is removed, the model will crumble. Integrity and Selfless Service are intentionally positioned at the base of the model; although they may be difficult to teach, they are extremely important to effective healthcare leadership and must be recognized and emphasized as essential “foundational” core competencies. Critical Thinking and Teamwork are positioned as the “framework core competencies”, holding the model together and overlapping with the other three competencies.

From curricular, pedagogical, and assessment perspectives, a model serves as the foundational starting point for learning and as an organizing framework for the developing leadership curricula. The model presented here addresses this need. We used a concept mapping approach to create a model specific to the needs of learning in healthcare leadership.

Our model was developed based on a comprehensive literature review, focus groups, concept mapping, and hierarchical clustering. Each of the 33 competency statements is an important concept of healthcare leadership. Our methods determined which statements were most important and which coalesced into themes. We began with an initial model that had been drafted within our UME and GME leadership programs (the Feagin Leadership Progam and LEAD Curriculum). Those initial drafts were further refined over a three-year period based on feedback we received from numerous people within our institution with varied levels of healthcare experience and training (faculty, fellows, residents, students, administrators, and non-physician educators). That input led to a model that has face validity, is well accepted, and can be used in pedagogical processes that help all of us learn to be better leaders.

Recent literature emphasizes the importance and need for the intentional, explicit promotion of leadership development curricula and training in medical education. 28 – 31 Clearly, leadership development education should be intentional and not informal or implicit. The model presented here provides a framework for intentionally teaching leadership skills in healthcare education.

There continue to be efforts to appropriately characterize “content” 32 and define competencies. 33 Sonnino argues for two dozen competencies, the most important of which are finances and economics, emerging issues and strategic planning, personal professional development, adaptive leadership, conflict management, time management, ethical considerations, and personal life balance. 34 Seven of those eight align well with our model; we would argue that finances and economics are more managerial skills and context dependent. Further emphasizing the significance of leadership development in postgraduate medical education, in 2015 the Canadian residency CanMeds competency framework replaced their role of “manager” with that of “leader”. 35

There are several limitations to our study. Foremost, model creation is not an exact science. Our mixed methods approach involves subjective interpretation of how to organize overlapping concepts. For example, communication could be considered a separate competency. Instead, we chose to include communication as essential for all core competencies - learning to communicate better enables one to be better at each healthcare leadership competency. Others’ subjective assessments may have led to different interpretations.

This model is also derived from research done at a single institution, and as a result may not be generalizable to other settings. We do not suggest that ours is the only or best healthcare leadership model. It is offered as a model that others can use and refine for their own environments. The methods we describe can serve as a guide if others desire to create their own institutionally specific model. Nonetheless, this model has guided our teaching of skills and concepts that lead to improved competency in areas recognized as essential for effective, ethical healthcare leadership. It has subsequently led to an assessment of learners and an evaluation of our programs.

Models are most useful when validated. Preliminary validation of our model is complete. Our group is committed to re-validate the model in more diverse and larger healthcare settings. Our next steps involve developing, refining, and validating an evaluation instrument that assesses the competencies and core principle in the model. This work is underway through the Health Evaluation Assessment of Leadership. 36

We designed a leadership model specific to healthcare using concept mapping. The research led to a model based on the core principle of Patient Centeredness and core competencies of Emotional Intelligence, Integrity, Selfless Service, Critical Thinking, and Teamwork. We have found this model useful for teaching leadership skills, and are currently designing a relevant evaluation instrument.

Supplementary materials

Competency statement definitions.

• Acting with Personal Integrity – behaving in an open, honest, and trustworthy manner
• Communicating Effectively – ability to communicate with patients and team; successfully navigating difficult conversations and providing feedback
• Acting with Professional Ethical Values – applying medical ethical principles to difficult situations
• Pursuing Excellence – striving for excellence in all areas of personal, team, and organizational life
• Building And Maintaining Relationships – listening to and supporting others; gaining trust; and showing understanding
• Thinking Critically – being able to think analytically and conceptually to evaluate and solve problems
• Motivating – inspiring oneself and others to achieve goals
• Optimizing Team Dynamics – understanding team members’ roles, strengths, and weaknesses; influencing diverse talents to achieve common goals
• Managing People – delegating, providing direction, and promoting equality and diversity
• Maintaining Patient Centeredness – focusing on patients’ best interests; working in partnership with patients; ensuring patient safety
• Adapting To Change – flexibility, adapting to change readily, being the first to change when required
• Managing Personal and Team Performance – the ability to assess successes and failures of oneself and team members and make adjustment as needed
• Being Decisive – using values and evidence to act decisively, especially in difficult situations
• Encouraging Improvement and Innovation – creating a climate of continuous quality improvement and identifying areas for growth
• Encouraging Contribution – creating an environment where others have the opportunity to share their thoughts and ideas without fear of criticism
• Planning – developing short-term and long-term plans to achieve personal, team, and organizational goals
• Developing Self-awareness – being aware of one’s own values, principles, and assumptions
• Fostering Vision – developing an organizational vision, communicating that vision, and embodying its principles
• Developing and Implementing Strategy – integrating and aligning plans, resources, and people to achieve goals
• Managing Self – organizing and self-regulating actions and emotions
• Serving Selflessly – ability to put others’ needs before one’s own; demonstrating great concern for common good/other people
• Continuing Personal Development – learning through continuous professional development and being open to feedback
• Managing Resources – knowing what resources are available and using one’s influence to ensure that resources are used efficiently and safely, reflecting the diversity of needs within given populations
• Cultivating Personal Resilience – ability to cope with demanding situations
• Applying Knowledge and Evidence – the ability to translate research and evidence-based practice in order to optimize outcomes
• Maintaining Personal Balance – prioritizing activities to maintain mental and physical health
• Having A Strong Knowledge Base – being an expert in a given field and demonstrating mastery of core knowledge
• Facilitating Transformation – actively contributing to positive change
• Evaluating Systemic Impact – measuring and evaluating outcomes; taking corrective action where necessary
• Understanding Situational Context – seeking broader perspectives on problems; understanding community and stakeholders perspectives
• Developing Networks – developing professional connections with stakeholders inside and outside the institution
• Understanding Community Impact – having awareness that decisions about patient care impact population health
• Understanding Historical Context – being aware of the history, culture, and traditions of the institution and including these in decision-making

Acknowledgments

The authors thank members of the Feagin Leadership Program for their extensive backing of this project. The authors acknowledge all of the participants of the focus groups and other non-author members of their team including Prinny Anderson, MBA, Med; Jane Boswick-Caffery, MBA, MPH; Matthew Boyle, MD; Thomas Mullin, MD; and John Yerxa, MD. We also thank Saumil Chudgar, MD, MS, for feedback and editing work on this paper.

The authors acknowledge the assistance of Donald T Kirkendall, ELS, a contracted medical editor, for his assistance in preparing the manuscript for submission.

The views, opinions, and/or findings contained in this report are those of the author(s) and should not be construed as an official Department of the Army position, policy, or decision. Citation of trade names in this presentation does not constitute an official DA endorsement or approval of the use of such commercial items.

Allison MB Webb is currently a resident in the National Capital Consortium’s program Combined Internal Medicine – Psychiatry Residency at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, Bethesda, MD, USA. Nicholas E Tsipis is an Emergency Medicine Resident at Georgetown University Hospital/Washington Hospital Center, Washington DC, USA. Julie A Neumann is a sports medicine fellow at Kerlan-Jobe Orthopaedic Clinic. The authors report no conflicts of interest in this work.

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• http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0110-2378 Clare Felicity Jane Price-Dowd
• People Directorate , NHS England and Improvement , Leeds , West Yorkshire , UK
• Correspondence to Dr Clare Felicity Jane Price-Dowd, People Directorate, NHS Improvement, Leeds LS1 4HG, West Yorkshire, UK; clare.price-dowd{at}improvement.nhs.uk

Understanding of personal leadership style has been shown to be a key part of effective leadership practice. It has been a topic of interest for many decades as we have tried to understand, and replicate, what makes those considered to be ‘great leaders’ so successful. This article gives a brief introduction to different leadership ‘theories’, leadership ‘styles’ and the effect they have on the ‘climate’ in organisations. Having an understanding of the different approaches can help leaders be more effective through comprehending how and why they do what they do, as well as helping them identify where and when they need to adapt their style. By considering how our understanding of leadership has evolved, it is possible to show how effective leadership is not linked to one approach. It is a combination of knowledge, attitudes and behaviours with a focus on both the task in hand and concern for those undertaking that task. Furthermore this understanding supports impactful personal development, which creates positive climates in organisations where compassionate and inclusive leadership behaviours can, and do result in better outcomes for staff and patients.

• effectiveness
• leadership assessment
• role modeling

https://doi.org/10.1136/leader-2020-000218

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Introduction

Who, when flipping through a publication has not been tempted by the ‘personality quiz’, hoping to get the ‘mostly A, B or C’ that indicates we have the attributes for long and successful careers or lots of friends? While this level of ‘knowing how we are’ could be dismissed as flippant, when it comes to leadership, understanding our personal approach can be invaluable. If you asked people around you ‘what sort of leader do you think you are?’ they would most likely answer in the singular ‘I lead by example,’ ‘I build relationships with people,’ or ‘I don't tolerate underperformance’. They are unlikely to say ‘I do this here, and that on other occasions’ yet the most effective leaders are those who attune to their context, consciously adapt their practice and have an awareness of how their own style effects others. This article introduces the different theories and styles of leadership and how they can be used to create positive work climates. The key terms are given in table 1 .

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Evolution of leadership theory and understanding of style

A desire to understand what makes a successful leader is not new. For centuries there has been debate about what differentiated leaders from non-leaders, and leaders from followers. In a comprehensive review of leadership theories by Stogdill, 1 a number of categories were identified and in the 80+ years since Lewin et al 2 published their theory on patterns of behaviour in 1939, we have seen an evolution from trying to identify ‘common traits’ based on inherent characteristics of ‘great men and women’ through to the what we now understand to be the successful combination of person, place and approach. Looking further into this evolution, although this is not a comprehensive list, it is possible to group the stages of development as follows:

Trait theory—for example as seen in the work of Carlyle 3 and Stodgill 1 is concerned with the type of person that makes a good leader and the innate qualities and associated leadership traits they have. A meta-study by the Centre for Excellence in Management and Leadership 4 identified over 1000 leadership traits in the literature, which they distilled to 83 more or less distinct attributes. While no specific trait or combination was found to guarantee success, trait theory did help in identifying qualities that are helpful when leading others such as integrity and empathy.

Later, behavioural theory identified what good leaders do—effectively how they ‘lead well’. Examples include the Tannenbaum and Schmidt continuum 5 —seven stages of reducing control namely Tells, Sells, Suggests, Consults, Joins, Delegates and Abdicates; the Action-Centred Leadership Model of Adair 6 which sets out the three responsibilities of the leader—‘achieving the task, managing the team and managing individuals’ and the Blake Mouton Managerial Grid 7 also referred to as ‘The Power to Change’ which outlines two behavioural dimensions: Concern for Results and Concern for People.

Situational and contingency theory: looks at the leader in the context of where they lead. By considering how the leader’s success is directly influenced by their environment, it became possible to identify the conditions that support or constrain leaders as seen in work including Feidler 8 Vroom and Yetton 9 Yukl 10 ; Hersey and Blanchard 11 ; Thompson and Vecchio. 12

Transactional theories—as seen in the work of Weber 13 and later by Bass, 14 focuses on the leader getting results by using process and structures while applying reward and penalty in response. Within this are power and influence theory, exchange and path-goal theory by House 15 16 which concentrate on the relationship between leader and led as a series of trades or ‘leader-member exchanges’.

In more recent years, while the transactional and positive view of hero leadership has never entirely gone away, the notion of ‘Hero to Host’ 17 which describes the move to transformational and ‘new wave’ styles outlined by Burns 18 Bass 14 and Kouzes and Posner 19 among others. Transformational leadership not only serves to enhance the motivation, morale, satisfaction and performance of followers, but also sees the leader role model compassionate and inclusive behaviours, which are valued. In ‘Good to Great’ by Collins, 20 the Level 5 leader is described as possessing both indomitable will, but also humility and is often self effacing and shy, the opposite of what we might have previously described as leadership traits!

Relevance for leaders

Every day, leaders in healthcare must constantly analyse complex situations, engage, motivate, empower and delegate. Many leaders now operate within complex adaptive systems—organisations that are an interconnected whole of many parts, which may and may not function effectively together depending on changing circumstances. This calls for leadership skills and behaviours that can move between each required activity with seemingly effortless ease and without loss of effectiveness.

Having an appreciation of different theories and styles also helps us identify our reaction to these changing situations. In considering the global COVID-19 pandemic, the leadership behaviours required, and experienced, may be different to anything encountered before. The effect of leadership in this situation is profound and will have a lasting impact. Displaying command behaviours may be necessary but uncomfortable, while teams may not be used to being directed with minimal consultation. Sustained pressure may have a negative effect, but it does not follow that leadership behaviours slide into being disrespectful or non-inclusive—it is about the leaders focusing on the task and ensuring individuals and teams are clearly instructed on the part they have to play; consulted where possible and informed of when and when they need to do as instructed.

However, knowing about ‘how we are’ is only part of the picture, equally important is understanding the effect we have on other. Goleman 21 found that the one of the biggest mistakes leaders make was to default to a style of personal choice rather than responding with the most appropriate in the situation, while Blanchard 22 suggests that 54% of leaders only ever apply one preferred leadership style regardless of the situation. The result is that almost half of the time, leaders are using the wrong style to meet their current objective or lead the people around them well.

The danger here is trying to be the most popular leader and everyone’s favourite, rather than developing an authentic repertoire of skills. If you have never considered your leadership style or the types of leadership behaviours you have there are a number of tools to help such as the National health Service Healthcare Leadership Model. Based on research of the behaviours of effective leaders, Storey and Holti 23 defined nine domains (Inspiring shared purpose: leading with care: evaluating information: connecting our service: sharing the vision: engaging the team: holding to account: developing capability and influencing for results) against which can leaders can self assess and gain pointers on how to strengthen their style.

Relevance for the work environment

Research by KornFerry Hay Group 24 shows an up to 70% of variance in climate and an up to 30% increase business performance can be directly attributable to the climate leaders create through their style of leadership. This includes feeling included, supported and having a role that is meaningful. To help leaders create a positive climate, Goleman 21 defined six leadership styles—see table 2 —which he then correlated with the type of climate each created for those around them. Those able to deploy the styles in the left column have been shown to create high performing teams in positive climates.

Leadership Styles and the climate they support (adapted from Goleman 21 )

These are not the only leadership styles: others include Autocratic leadership where leaders/managers make the decisions and employees follow orders as previously stated; laissez-faire leadership where the manager empowers employees but gives them few rules to follow with little oversight or direction: bureaucratic leadership where hierarchies and job titles to determine responsibilities and rules and servant leadership which focuses on the needs of employees, seeing them as the organisation’s most important resources and often treating them as clients, but only the six here were included by Goleman.

The effects of the leadership styles displayed and the effects they have on the climate within organisations has far reaching impact for team members. The ability to flex your leadership style and create a positive climate has been shown to create greater job satisfaction and pride in work, greater collaboration and creativity. Having an awareness of the effects of personal style, is therefore an essential part of a leaders toolkit and something every leader should have awareness of

In practice

Delivering health and care is highly complex and effective leadership calls for a match of style and approach to context and presenting challenge. Leadership styles is not a neat category of things, the increasingly interconnected world with ever-evolving technology has dictated a need for leaders who can adapt effortlessly as the situation dictates. Daniel Goleman 21 likens leading to being a golfer—one game but choosing the right club, at the right moment, for the next shot. Lets think about what this could look like: again, thinking about the COVID-19 pandemic the deteriorating clinical condition requires a leader who draws on all their experience, interprets the situation, takes control and ‘tells’ in order to get the best outcome for the patient—transactional and it’s wholly appropriate. At other times, that same leader will need to take time to build relationships and coach others in order to give the best care possible.

We all have a natural tendency towards our preferred style and when under pressure, there is evidence that we ‘revert to type’, relying on the most comfortable part of our personality to see us though. Unfortunately this means using fewer of the leadership skills that usually provide balance. Skilful, mature leadership is about leading ourselves as much as leading others. This level of understanding our style helps us recognise triggers that support adopting the right style for the given situation.

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Different situations require different leadership style and each style can be considered a tool in itself. How we lead needs to be a combination of concern for the task in hand and also the people undertaking it, as both individuals and collectively as teams. We have looked briefly at small number of the plethora theories and styles that can help us understand how we lead. Leaders who understand themselves and can move effortlessly between a range of styles in response to changing situations have been found to have more positive outcomes for their teams and patients.

• Stogdill RM
• Lippitt R ,
• Carlyle T ,
• Tannenbaum R ,
• Blanchard K
• Thompson G ,
• Wheatley M ,
• KornFerry Hay Group
• Newstrom JW ,
• Griffin MA ,

Twitter @clarepricedowd

Contributors CFJP-D completed all part of this paper:

Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

Competing interests None declared.

Patient consent for publication Not required.

Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

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• Student Success
• Life After College

Report: How to Train Student Leaders in the Classroom

A recent white paper highlights strategies for raising up student leaders through effective leadership education in pedagogy and learning outcomes.

By  Ashley Mowreader

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Faculty members outline the learning outcomes and pedagogies to teach leadership to college students.

Marcus Chung/E+/Getty Images

Creating student leaders is something many institutions claim to do—one international database found there are more than 2,000 postsecondary institutions with formal curricula dedicated to student leadership—but curricular and co-curricular spaces for student leadership development lack a common practice or consensus in outcomes, according to a June white paper published in the Journal of Leadership Education .

The report’s authors, David Michael Rosch from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and Scott J. Allen from John Carroll University in Ohio, present a conceptual model for undergraduate leadership development, providing specific curricular and pedagogical approaches to meet mastery of the skill.

“The goal is to help people in higher education think in a more organized way about what they want to accomplish and how they can set their programs up to get there,” Rosch shared in a June 11 press release.

The background: Leadership, one of the National Association of Colleges and Employers’ eight career-readiness competencies , is a student’s ability to recognize and capitalize on personal and team strengths to achieve organizational goals.

Despite the common acceptance that engaged students are better prepared to lead modern organizations and communities than their less-engaged peers, there is limited evidence on how or why that is the case, according to the paper.

“We seek to advance not another new theory for leader development, but rather an argument for what leader development should be and why and how it should be taught in postsecondary education,” the authors wrote.

The model: Rosch and Allen’s model is centered on two key priorities: leadership skill mastery (defined as horizontal development) and increasing maturity in student meaning-making (vertical development).

Horizontal development includes communication and listening skills, decision-making techniques, conflict management, negotiation, influence strategies, and building and managing diverse and culturally competent teams. These skills are necessary but not always sufficient to lead practically. Mastery of conflict management concepts doesn’t mean much if a leader does not apply them in the appropriate context, showing how knowledge is paired with meaning-making.

Vertical development, therefore, is the practical application of leadership contexts using wisdom and maturity. Constructive developmental theory highlights how adults learn to take on the perspectives of those around them, confront the limitations of their own opinions and reframe their perspectives based on their environment and how context may shift.

Based on this theory, report authors argue it should be the goal of higher education institutions to not just teach leadership within textbook theory but also develop mental complexity to recognize how and when to apply tools.

Put in practice: To achieve these developmental goals, the authors borrow a model for adult learning and provide five orientations for learning—cognitive learning, behavioral learning, constructive learning, humanistic learning and social-cognitive learning.

Defining Terms

The report authors describe five orientations:

• Cognitive learning focuses on knowledge acquisition, information processing and developing internal cognitive structures. In leadership, this means mastering leadership theory.
• Behavioral learning emphasizes skill development, eliciting a behavior change in the learner.
• Constructive learning , or personal meaning-making, combines the cognitive and behavioral through critical reflection. This is not the same as vertical development, which prioritizes situation-based assessment, allowing students to identify solutions to complex scenarios with maturity.
• Humanistic learning teaches students how to self-actualize and develop personal goals.
• Social-cognitive learning guides learners through how environment and people in a culture shape learning, helping them interact with those who have more skills or experience (such as a mentor).

The ideal leadership development course integrates the five orientations into learning outcomes and facilitates educational experiences not in siloed capacities, but in ways that allow students to use all skills.

Examples of this could be a multiple-choice exam to assess theoretical concepts, role playing to teach behaviors, essay reflection on ethical leadership practices and how that aligns with the students’ career goals or past behaviors, or learning from a guest with experience in the field.

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“These forms of integration are common within many academic programs across disciplines,” the authors share. “Still, we call for the architects of these programs to be more intentional in building opportunities for learning across all five orientations to ensure that each is substantially represented within the student experience.”

Some skills that can benefit deep learning of these concepts include cognitive bias awareness, mindfulness, active listening, perspective-taking capacity, dialectical thinking, reflection and reflexivity.

Professors can also consider how their pedagogy can improve learning outcomes, such as norm setting, building a community-holding environment, supporting students’ emotions and ensuring appropriate amounts of challenge and support within the classroom.

Do you have a career prep tip that might help others encourage student success? Tell us about it.

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