Index

Designing Transformational Leadership Development Programmes Enric Bernal

Business Leadership Review VI:IV www.mbaworld.com/blr October 2009 of 17 © 2009 Association of MBAs

Designing Transformational Leadership Development Programmes Enric Bernal Work & Organisational Psychology Group, Aston Business School

Abstract This DBA research study proposes and tests a Five-Phase Model (FPM) for developing leadership, matching theories of behavioural change that originate in health psychology theory and practice. By combining existing leadership development literature with change management theory, this study offers a fresh look at how executive training should be designed. The benefit for practitioners and organisations is a more effective model for designing such leadership development programmes aimed at changing behaviours.

While much research has been completed in the field of leadership and management disciplines, little has been done on leadership development. Avolio and Chan in a meta-analysis of the leadership development research looking at the past 80 years, found that only 200 studies out of 12,500 focussed on leadership development. The authors also reported that most of the studies that look at leadership development focused their efforts on interventions that lasted less than one day.1 Day and O’Connor in The Future of Leadership Development called for a “science of leadership development”, a theory that provides solutions for improving leadership development and not only explaining what leadership is or is not.2 The field is starving for empirical research for advancing the science of leadership development,3 particularly with studies that help us understand the permanence of leadership effects, and can begin to show the possible benefits of leadership development for individuals and organisations.

There is no unanimity among scholars about the origin of leadership. Whether leadership is a natural trait, a developable competency or a combination of both, it is reported by executives that a great part of what leaders use to lead effectively comes from experience, more than from formal training.4 A key question is then how do we need to modify training interventions in order to represent a source of leadership learning? Thus, the final objective of this research is to understand how leadership development programme interventions should be designed in order to constitute a leadership accelerator for individuals. In other words, this study aims to better understand which specific components of a leadership development programme should be incorporated, and how, to maximise learning impact. Learning is understood as a transformational effect on the individual (large or small) but with noticeable behavioural changes. Clark defines transformational learning as a way in which people change: “they are different afterwards, in ways both they and others can recognise”;5 or as Kegan defends, transformational learning is not only about adding new knowledge, but also about increasing self consciousness.6

I am interested in developing transformational leadership programmes that have long lasting behavioural change effects in executives. Therefore, this DBA study focuses on understanding which specific components of a leadership development programme should be



incorporated, and how, to maximise learning impact for executives and their supporting organisations. By combining existing leadership development literature with proven change management theory, this study offers a new and fresh look at how executive education could be improved. The benefits for practitioners and organisations, who continue to spend significant amounts of resources on leadership development, is a more effective model for designing such leadership development programmes aimed at changing behaviours. Leadership Theory

Leadership is one of the disciplines that has been more broadly studied over the past 50 years, yet there is no agreement about what defines a leader from a non-leader or where leadership comes from. In order to situate this study within the prolific field of leadership, the main theories are briefly presented and related to the current research, but as this paper focuses on leadership development, leadership theory is of limited interest. Schriensheim goes further stating that for leadership development (a much understudied topic), leadership research is irrelevant.7 Leadership has been a topic of interest since the existence of human kind, but the scientific study of leadership only started in the 1930s. There are many theories that have been developed over the years. Differences in theory classification make it difficult to list them all in a consistent manner. The two original approaches (from an historical perspective) to studying leadership were centred on the leader as an individual. Those are known as trait theories and behavioural theories and are briefly discussed below:

Trait theory is the first academic theory of leadership that appeared in history. Ronald Heifetz in his book: Leadership Without Easy Answers, traces this approach back to the nineteenth-century tradition of associating the history of society to the history of great men.8 Proponents of the trait approach usually list leadership qualities, assuming certain traits or characteristics will tend to lead to effective leadership (e.g. integrity, self-confidence, cognitive ability, and business knowledge). On this reading of the theory, leadership development involves identifying and measuring leadership qualities, screening potential leaders from non-leaders, then training those with potential, which is what most corporations do today with their talent management programmes.

The ‘strongest’ versions of trait theory however see these ‘leadership characteristics’ as innate, and accordingly labels some people as ‘born leaders’ due to their psychological makeup. But the great majority of leadership researchers today have shifted to one of the later theories.

Behavioural theories appeared in response to the criticism of the trait approach and scholars began to research leadership as a set of behaviours. The behavioural theory, which dominated research between 1940s and 1970s, approached leadership under the belief that leaders differentiate themselves by observable behaviours. The focus of their research has been in identifying those universal behaviours as they believe that they are developable and could be modified through practicing certain skills.

Followers of this theory are interested in evaluating the behaviour of 'successful' leaders, determining a behaviour taxonomy and identifying broad leadership styles. For example: the managerial grid model, developed by Blake and Mouton suggests five different



leadership styles, depending on the leaders' concern for people and their concern for production or output.9

The behavioural approach is questioned by researchers today that defend that despite the numerous behaviour-based studies, there is no evidence that a certain list of behaviours would be more important than another.10

After these theories, others appeared that proposed to move the focus away from the leader and concentrate instead on the followers and/or the specific situation in which these leaders were leading. The organisational culture in which leaders have to lead, for instance, is of crucial importance to what constitute effective leadership.

Situational and contingency theories also developed as a reaction to the trait theory of leadership. According to them, no single optimal psychographic profile of a leader exists as different situations call for different leadership characteristics. The proponents of this theory state that leaders in one situation are not necessarily perceived to be leaders in another.11

Some of the most notable contingency leadership theories appeared in the recent years: Fiedler contingency model, Vroom-Yetton decision model, the path-goal theory, and the Hersey-Blanchard situational theory. As an example, the situational leadership model proposed by Hersey and Blanchard suggests four leadership-styles and four levels of follower-development. For effectiveness, the model posits that the leadership-style must match the appropriate level of followership-development. In this model, leadership behaviour becomes a function not only of the characteristics of the leader, but of the characteristics of followers as well.12

There are other, more recent, leadership constructs which have followed different classifications such as transformational vs. transactional theories, authentic, and charismatic leadership theories. These different theories emphasise one category more than others as the primary basis for explaining effective leadership. There is not a single method for classifying the extensive and relevant literature on leadership that would capture all the important distinctions. Yukl, in his book Leadership in Organizations classifies leadership theories in five groups based on their different research approaches: The trait approach and the behaviour approach, discussed already above in some detail; the power-influence approach which continues with a leader-centred perspective and seeks to explain leadership effectiveness as a function of the type and the amount of power that leaders posses and how it is used to influence their followers, the situational approach, which was also discussed above; and the integrative approach which combines more than one type of leadership variable.13 Recently, researchers have pursued integrative approaches by including a few variables into their studies.

Researchers have defined leadership based on their individual perspectives and the specific characteristics that interests them more, and there are probably as many definitions of leadership as people attempting to define it.14 For the understanding of this paper the concept of Leadership is seen as a process inclusive of the concept of individual leaders, so when using the term leadership, it should be understood as equally referring to an individual, a team, or an organisation. From the perspective of this paper, the concept of collective leadership is not excluded either from the concept of leadership. Early understanding of



leadership focused almost exclusively on the traits, characteristics, and capacities of individual leaders. Currently, there is growing interest in collective leadership (also called shared leadership or collaborative leadership), which focuses on leadership as a process, on the “relationship between people, their interdependency, and their ability to act upon a shared vision”.15

Leadership theory has been attempting to produce models that explain what successful leadership is and where it comes from. I am not trying to crack that nut, but to bring additional light into how leadership can be developed through innovative yet effective leadership development interventions. This research is not identifying with any particular leadership theory, as long as they support that leadership is to some extent developable and that leadership effectiveness can be measured through observable behaviour. One same behaviour in a specific situation will likely have a different impact in another. In this way, I identify with theories that think that leadership is a process, a competency that needs to be modulated and adapted to different situations.

Many theories of leadership (e.g. charismatic, transformational) have been operationalised behaviourally. Even theories that are cognitively based, such as attributional models of leadership, rely on behavioural observations to explain how leaders lead.16 Similarly, in this research study it is assumed that any competency will ultimately translate in an observable behaviour.

Therefore, the idea of leadership that this DBA study supports could be captured by the following statements:

• Everybody is a potential leader as there could be situations where they act as such (i.e. family environment, sports team, outdoor activities, crisis situations, etc.).

• Leadership is shared, it does not belong to one individual like in old organisations (we only need to look at some successful examples in the internet e.g. Wikipedia, Facebook, YouTube).

• Leadership competencies (knowledge, skills and attitudes) have a base on peoples’ natural traits but are developable through lifetime. These competencies are expressed and could be measured through observable behaviours.

• The most appropriate leadership behaviours are situational. There is not a core set of leadership skills or traits that define leaders for all time and all circumstances. Instead, the competency of a leader includes the ability to adapt and modify one’s style or behaviours to accommodate specific situations, e.g. the followers’ competency level or the organisational culture.

Leadership Development Theories and Constructs

In this section the current state of leadership development is examined from a theoretical perspective. Individual studies will be reviewed as exemplars of efforts devoted to better understanding the process in which leadership is developed. We have seen that leadership theory could be classified in terms of those focusing on the leader as the most important element of the influence process between them and their followers; and those considering that the process itself, in which the leader is only part of, is what is important.



Following these two main approaches to leadership, we could classify leadership development theory in the following ways:

Theories and constructs focused on developing the leader

In this first part, research is focused on the individual leader, which frequently builds upon adult learning theory. Adult development literature can be traced to the late 1960s where theorists challenged Piaget’s view,17 arguing that adult learning is a complex process that occurs beyond formal operations. These theories, referred to as postconventional or postformal, are arguably a good base for advancing the needed science of leadership development.

Kuhnert and Lewis proposed that leadership development is linked to the development of peoples’ egos, and that this occurs in four stages: from the egocentric leader to the leader that works across different value systems. The authors built on transactional and transformational leadership theory and proposed a method that explained how leaders develop their moral value system, therefore linking a theory of development with a theory of leadership.18

There are other constructs of leadership development that also build on adult learning theories. Shamir and colleagues proposed that leadership development is enhanced by narrating one’s life story, as this exercise will evoke implicit assumptions about leadership and one’s self-concept.19 In this case the authors built on charismatic, visionary, and transformational leadership theories.

Another approach comes from Stenberg who proposed that leadership needs to follow a balanced approach incorporating the constructs of wisdom, intelligence and creativity, and synthesised (WICS) when prioritising and negotiating competing demands in the environment. Leadership development here is seen as both, increasing the level of each of these attributes as well as being able to balance them in negotiating situational tensions and demands.20

Lord and Hall proposed that leader progression from novice to intermediate and to expert, is accompanied by a shift in their identity, from emphasising individual uniqueness to collective identities. Each change in identity focus brings along a different set of associated leadership skills to be mastered. The authors’ premise of the theory is that problem solving is the key function of leaders and that this is a skill that is improved with the evolution of one’s identity.21

While all these theories proposed explanations for developing individual leaders, most of these constructs on leadership have not be en empirically proven and would need further analysis before asserting their effectiveness. Furthermore, they strongly focus on the individual leader and tend to ignore the effect of the leader’s environment in his or her performance.

Theories and constructs focused on the development of the leadership process

These theories look at leadership as a more holistic process in which the leader is just one part. Contingency theories of leadership have put the emphasis on the relational aspect of the process with followers, and on the specific situation in which the relationship takes place. Research in this area has focused their attention into how to enhance leadership influence processes.



Hooijberg, Hunt, & Dodge combined leadership complexity with leadership development in their Leaderplex model.22 They differentiate between cognitive, social, and behavioural complexity. Defining cognitive complexity as one’s ability to think multi-dimensionally, and social complexity as the capacity to differentiate and act on personal and relational aspects of social situations, the authors proposed that behavioural complexity is the result of these two levels of complexity. Behavioural complexity is then the ability of a leader to adapt his or her behaviours to different situations for increased organisational effectiveness. They suggested that the model would be useful to assess individual and organisational levels of competency and therefore promote the right individuals depending on their cognitive, social, and behavioural complexity levels. Similarly, individuals who possess cognitive and social capacity, but lack behavioural skill, for example, could be developed through specific leadership programmes. The Leaderplex model however is more concerned about integrating these previously disparate streams of research (i.e. cognitive, social, and behavioural complexity), rather than explaining how leadership could be developed.

Uhl-Bien proposed a leadership development theory that focused on the relational aspects of leadership. This theory builds on the Leader-Member Exchange (LMX) theory which looks and the quality of the relationship between leaders and followers.23 Uhl-Bien defends that a key aspect of leadership development should be the relational skills of leaders such as managing the relationship-building process, and having the ability to adapt one’s behaviours in response to feedback. Linking LMX leadership theory with leadership development is of great importance but for the same reason is very narrow in its focus, only suggesting what needs to be developed and staying shy of suggesting how those skills should be developed in practical terms.

London and Maurer proposed an organisational model which, unlike adult learning approaches, uses the organisational context as the overarching frame of reference.24 Their model establishes a linkage between an organisational learning culture and the leader’s involvement in learning activities. According to the authors, the specific organisational strategies and challenges should define developmental goals for individuals. Once those are identified, specific leadership interventions could be designed to provide skills to cope with those challenges. The question however remains: how to design such leadership development programmes to have maximum long lasting effect for organisational leaders?

Mumford, Campion, and Morgeson developed the Strataplex model of leadership development which incorporates the organisational level of a leader into what should be her or his leadership development focus.25 In this way, the authors identify four segments of leadership skills: cognitive, interpersonal, business, and strategic. Each of these set of skills builds into each other (e.g. interpersonal skills depend partially on cognitive skills such as communication). The four skill segments are more or less important depending on the level in which the leader operates. In this way cognitive skills are required by all levels, while strategic skills are only required for leaders occupying higher levels in the organisation. Once again, this is a construct of leadership development that focuses on what needs to be developed to make better leaders or more effective managers, but not on the how those competencies should be developed in individuals.

There are other leadership development constructs that combine leadership theories

with the development of leadership. Avolio and Chan in a literature review of the leadership



development field of the past 80 years, defend that indeed leadership development has to be linked with leadership theories in order to understand development within a construct of leadership.26 The advantage of this is that proposed models and theories would be empirically proven of their effectiveness. On the other hand, the challenge is that by doing so, researchers, explicitly or implicitly, end up proposing ‘one best way’ of developing leadership competency, pushing for one model or another. I join Day and Harrison who state that it is unlikely that there is one best approach to leadership development.27 Instead, I propose a holistic approach to leadership development which recognises that leaders in today’s rapidly changing environment are faced almost simultaneously with a variety of stakeholder’s requests and expectations, covering a virtually endless list of contingencies.28

For this reason, this research study, instead of proposing a model of leadership development linked with leadership theories, focuses on the difficulties of leadership development associated with changing old patterns of behaviour, whether that is within one leadership development model or another. In fact, most of the proposed theories above are not exclusive of each other. I am therefore not concerned about whether an individual wants to improve her decision making skills through an identity shift, or wants to improve her work relationships as a way to enhance her influence on others. Instead, I am interested in whether that individual is successful at modifying her behaviour, how that process will take place, and therefore what type of leadership development programme will help her achieve change successfully.

Leadership and leadership development theories and constructs are all assuming that people will change behaviour as a result of a leadership intervention, while it has been proven that the best predictor of future behaviour is past behaviour. Current leadership development literature fails to answer the question of how leadership development programmes, aimed at enhancing leadership competency, have to be designed to affect long lasting change in individuals and organisations.

Behavioural Change Theory

As stated above, learning leadership competencies is about one’s ability to modify or change existing patterns of behaviour, and ultimately to regulate those depending of the different circumstances that leaders are faced with. While most of the theories and models presented emphasise the importance of change, they do not operate within a scientifically validated change framework. One area that appears to be fruitful to us to explore change theory is addictive behaviour change, where change is more difficult and/or involves changing risky or intransigent behaviours. Health psychology is a science that has focussed on changing people’s addictive behaviours for many years and provides us with an alternative perspective to understand the problem of intentional change of behaviour.

One of the most important models of change comes from Prochaska and colleagues who, in an attempt to understand the process of human change, isolated the principles and processes of change from more than four hundred therapies. The model was build and evolved since 1982 and has been tested on thousands of individuals in more than fifty different studies, mainly focussed on discovering how people overcome problems of smoking and alcohol abuse, emotional distress, weight control as well as other psychotherapy treatments.29 In recent years however, the model has been shown to effect lasting change in other areas such as personal growth, leadership development and organisational change.



Marks and Murray referred to the work of Prochaska et al. as ”possibly the most influential psychological model that has been used in the design of health behaviour change programmes over the past decade”. 30 The model is know as the trans-theoretical model of change (TTM), and it has been taken to build up a new theoretical framework of leadership development as it will be presented later in this paper.

Thus, this research study hypothesises that we can use the theories and models developed for intentional change in health psychology to design better and more impactful leadership development programmes.

Trans-Theoretical Model (TTM) of Change

In the past 20 years, the TTM has been consolidated as one of the leading models for understanding individual and organisational change across a broad range of behaviours, from the addictions to professional practices. The original work of Prochaska and his colleagues proposed a linear model of change but was later enhanced converting it into a spiral model of change through six stages: precontemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, maintenance, and termination.31 In this way, the authors recognise that most people start following these stages in sequence, but at some point slip up returning to contemplation or sometimes even precontemplation. They have to renew their efforts in a new attempt to permanent change. In their book Changing for Good, they explain that most people who quit smoking, for instance, report three to four serious attempts before they succeed. The six stages of change are briefly explained below.32

i) Precontemplation:

People at this stage typically deny having a problem and are not intending to take any action to change. Recently, the trans-theoretical model has been extended into seven stages, adding a stage before precontemplation to make a clear distinction between those who are never planning to change (immotives) and those who are not planning to change in the next six months (precontemplators).33 For the purpose of this research it has been considered only one stage (precontemplation), which for leadership development has to include also the unaware: people that are simply not aware that a certain observable behaviour is negatively perceived by others. Precontemplators usually cannot see the problem and even if the do, they not only do not want to change themselves but they want to change people around them - they are in a denial mode. Gary Yukl also includes the belief that change is unnecessary, as one of the nine factors for resistance to change.34

ii) Contemplation:

The most important change from precontemplation to comtemplation is that people in this stage acknowledge that they have a problem and are beginning to think seriously about changing. They however do not have any specific plans for changing. “Contemplators struggle to understand their problem, to see its causes, and to wonder about possible solutions. Many contemplators have indefinite plans to take action within the next six months or so.”35 It is important to notice that both precontemplators and contemplators need encouragement to continue evolving in the change process.



iii) Preparation: People in this stage have made two significant changes versus those on the

contemplation stage: they focus on the solution, rather than on the problem, and they think more about the future than the past. They have developed a plan of action and are therefore intending to begin to change their behaviour in the immediate future (within the next thirty days).

An important step at this stage is to make public the intended change. There is a body of literature that supports the theory that people that elaborate on their intentions for change are more likely to enact on them than others that do not elaborate their intentions.36

Another important step is to start with small behavioural changes, small wins which can be built upon and which help people get fully convinced that changing is the best thing for them. In this stage, awareness is high, there is full commitment to change, and people are anticipating getting into action. But they have to be careful as people who reduce this preparation stage (the master plan of change) will lower their ultimate chances of success.

iv) Action:

This stage is the one that requires the greatest commitment of time and energy. It is also the stage where behavioural change is more apparent, but that does not make it the more important stage. A permanent change of behaviour also requires a change in the level of awareness, the level of emotion, the level of self-image, etc. The transition from precontemplation to comtemplation after years of avoiding a problem is no less significant than from preparation to action.

Leadership programme interventions that are to help people change or modify behaviours permanently, need to be geared towards the different stages where participants are in their change process. “Successful programmes designed to help precontemplators are vastly different from those designed for people in the action stage”.37.

v) Maintenance:

This stage involves the necessary work towards consolidating the gains attained during previous stages. “Maintenance is a critically important continuation that can last from as little as six months to as long as a lifetime.”38 This stage is about working to prevent relapse, typically to precontemplation or contemplation stages, therefore commitment to change has to remain strong. Encouragement through positive reinforcement appears again as a critical success factor. For some individuals this stage will be far more challenging than the action one, thus requiring a careful planning in the preparation stage.

vi) Termination: This stage is the ultimate objective of the change process. People who successfully

achieve permanent behaviour change have zero temptation and 100% self-efficacy. Temptation is a measure of the intensity of urges in a particular situation to engage in a particular behaviour. Self-efficacy is a concept that derived from Bandura and represents the confidence that individuals have that they can maintain behaviour change in specific situations.39 Individuals at the preparation stage for instance, have a higher sense of situational self-efficacy than those at the precontemplation stage.40



There is still more research to be done to understand which type of problems can be

terminated and which types require a lifetime of maintenance.41 In other words, it could be that due to the biological make-up of a person, there are some desired changes that, if achievable, could only be maintained with dedicated effort and attention, while other changes could be successfully terminated.

The six stages of change are outlined below summarising the key elements for each stage.

Figure 1: The six stages of change

The TTM model of change integrates four key theoretical constructs, which are considered to be central to any change efforts: stages of change, self-efficacy, decisional balance and processes of change.

There are three other key components to the model: Self-efficacy, which was briefly introduced above, attests that the degree to which

individuals believe they have the capacity to attain a desired goal, can influence motivation and persistence and therefore the likelihood of achieving the objective.42 Transformational programmes, aiming at affecting long-lasting behaviour change, have to take this important theory into account and incorporate the appropriate elements to help participants increase their perceived level of self-efficacy.

Decisional balance, a concept that derived from the work of Janis and Mann reflects

the relative weighting of the pros and cons of changing the behaviour.43 As individuals move from the precontemplation stage to the preparation stage, the pros of the old behaviour decrease while cons increase.

Precontemplation Contemplation Preparation Action Maintenance

Termination

•Not aware •Can’t see the problem •No intention to change

•Problem acknowledgement •Thinking about changing •No specific plans in place

•Focus on solution (vs problem) and future (vs past) •Small behavioural changes •Full commitment

•Observable behavioural changes

•Old behaviour still is a temptation (possible relapse)

SPIRAL MODEL OF CHANGE



Studies conducted to establish a correlation between the stage of change and the pros and cons of change have found systematic relationships between them across several populations and readiness for organisational change behaviour.44

Processes of Change

The processes of change originate in psychotherapy theory which for many years has attempted to explain why people behave differently in particular roles and/or situations. In its evolution, they have embraced several theoretical models, most notably: Psychoanalytic theory, originating from Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung; Humanistic / Existential theory, originally developed by Carl Rogers and Rollo May; Gestalt / Experiential theory proposed by Fritz Perls and Arthur Janov; Cognitive theory originating from Albert Ellis and Aaron Beck; and Behavioural theory, with B.F. Skinner and Joseph Wolpe as founding fathers. Each of these theories has demonstrated its own sphere of excellence in different parts of the change process. The beauty and power of the TTM model is that it builds on the respective strengths of these systems, integrating the best of each into a coherent and scientifically proven whole. Prochaska et al mapped the nine processes with the each one of the steps of change where they have proven to be most effective:45

Figure 2: Processes of change

It is important to mention that processes of change are not the same as techniques or

methodologies of change. In fact, each process includes a broad array of techniques. As an example, emotional arousal which aims to help individuals experiencing and expressing


Termination STAGES OF CHANGE

•Consciousness raising •Social liberation

•Emotional arousal •Self-reevaluation

•Commitment

•Reward •Countering •Environmental control •Helping relationships

PROCESSES OF CHANGE



feelings about one’s problems and solutions could use techniques such as psychodrama, grieving, losses, and role playing. The Five-Phase Model (FPM) for Leadership Development

The FPM is an innovative approach to guide practitioners to develop more effective leadership development programmes aimed at changing behaviours. Its main concept is to match interventions with individual’s needs based on the trans-theoretical model of change. Programmes designed at developing leadership skills as a whole should be questioned for its effectiveness. “Most leadership training programmes are designed to increase generic skills and behaviours relevant for managerial effectiveness and advancement”46. Instead, the FPM concept for developing leadership correlates to the state of change in which individuals are. In this way, this model proposes to help participants to evolve step by step from one stage to the next. Research has shown that stage-matched interventions can have a far greater impact than other programmes that encourage action as the main element for achieving behavioural change, regardless of the stage in which participants are in the change process.47

This is not a completely original idea as other researchers and practitioners have

already looked into the six stages of change to build complementary models. Skiffington and Zeus adapted the stages of change and created their behavioural change model for executive coaching.48

However, this idea also builds on recent studies such as the one performed by Harris and Cole which is a first attempt at assessing the validity of the stages of change for company-sponsored leadership development scenarios.49 In their longitudinal study, Harris and Cole examine empirically the differential patterns of relationships that exist between the stages of change model for therapeutic purposes, and some organisational behaviour variables (i.e. organisational attitudes, leadership development needs, and longitudinal reactions to the development effort). The study showed that this theory of change has potential for being reliably used for leadership development. Based on the results of their study, the authors also suggest that interventions should be designed to participant’s readiness-for-change: in other words, tailor developmental interventions to the distinct needs of individuals in the different stages of change. This ‘one size does not fit all’ approach, is not only of common sense, but also supported by other researchers.50

The following figure represents the FPM concept for developing leadership

programmes and is mapped against the six stages of change proposed by the TTM. Each of the five phases of the FPM model, have distinct objectives which are also outlined in the chart.



Figure 3: The Five Phase Model (FPM)

The five phases proposed in this model do not imply, as it could be inferred, five training modules or presential sessions; I suggest breaking the traditional view of formal training (as already discussed above). The graphic image of a puzzle piece building into each other has been chosen to reflect the fact that all is a unity and even though, for its explanation, the model has been divided into five modules, those can happen together or stand alone, presential or remote, over a few months or years, but never over one day or one week, as most leadership development programmes are currently designed for.

The concept of the FPM is to design leadership interventions that constitute a leadership accelerator that supports individuals in their behaviour change efforts, preventing that they regress from the action and maintenance stages to comtemplation or precontemplation. Yukl views experiential learning activities such as ‘action learning’, ’outdoor challenge programmes’, or ‘self-help’ activities as a different set of interventions than ‘formal training’.51 I am challenging that view, proposing that one is the same as the other. If we attempt to develop leadership competencies in people, accelerating what life would do organically, we have to design formal programmes that include any aspect and methodology that can help individuals grow and learn, whether those are experiential, self-help, or presential facilitation. In this manner a programme designed according to the FPM approach would ‘linear-ise’ the individual journey along the stages of change.


Termination

Behavioural Change

Intention

Behavioural Change

Preparation

Behavioural Change

Implementation

Behavioural Change

Maintenance

Behavioural Change

Termination

LEADERSHP DEVELOPMENT BASED ON THE FIVE-PHASE MODEL (FPM)

STAGES OF CHANGE

•Awareness raising •Problem identification

•Development of a specific plan of change

•Initiate environment and behavioural change

•Sustain environment and behavioural change

•Re-commitment to change

KEY OBJECTIVES



Methodology Considerations This research is a work in process study and therefore it still needs to assess the real

effectiveness of the FPM model in a quasi-experimental longitudinal research. The study will combine both qualitative as well as quantitative methods in other to evaluate different teaching techniques, methodologies, and processes, and to map them with each of the five phases of the FPM model.

An ideal study to measure long lasting behaviour change would last over a period of several years, measuring the lifecycle of change, collecting data at different points in time: before the programme and after its conclusion (three, six, nine, twelve months, etc.). Despite doing this, some changes could require permanent effort to be maintained,52 so even if successfully controlled over a long period of time, participants could default back to the original behaviour. For practical implications, this research will limit data collection within the timeframe of the DBA study. Therefore, the longitudinal study will be limited to a maximum of about two years. Different alternatives are available and are being considered as the site of research. There is an important European multinational that has agreed to measure the impact of their pan-European leadership development programme. In this case, 360º-instruments are used at the beginning of the eight-month-programme, and one year after the programme ends. Groups are spaced about six months, so it could be possible to follow and measure two groups of 25 people each within the scope of this DBA research.

Further methodological considerations are currently under evaluation to increase the relevance of the study. Multiple-site data collection would increase richness as well as the complexity of analysis. A single-site, single-culture study could eliminate variance due to cultural differences but may limit the contribution of this research. Ideally, to measure the effectiveness of the FPM approach, the study would need to compare an intervention group with a treatment-control group.

Further research would be needed to enhance understanding of the effect of specific methodologies and techniques for different situations (i.e. cultures, personalities, etc), as well as the impact of leadership development over a longer periods of time. Conclusion

Most of the leadership development theories and models available today emphasise the importance of change, but they do not operate within a scientifically validated change framework. This DBA research is an exploratory study that aims to demonstrate the applicability of proven health psychology theories for personal change into executive education. Furthermore, this study proposes and tests a Five-Phase Model (FPM) for developing leadership. Such an approach challenges the efficacy of most of the existing leadership programmes which tend to focus on the first stages of the change cycle, namely awareness raising, expecting that at the conclusion of the programme, individuals will be able to change by themselves.

The practical implication of this study is the proposition of a new model (i.e. FPM), which incorporates different change techniques and methodologies that are not commonly used in leadership development programmes, in order to make them more effective. This study will be able to bring additional light into questions such as: when and how should public commitment be incorporated into leadership development? Is coaching the only/best way to support an individual through the maintenance of behavioural changes? What role should



organisations play in individual change (e.g. the manager, peers, mentors)? What type of psychological reward could be implemented to facilitate individual change efforts in executive development? How long should leadership development programmes be? Can single programmes be designed to change different type of behaviours or different programme ought to be designed for specific behaviour change efforts? References 1 Avolio, B. J. and A. Chan (2008). ‘The dawning of a new era for genuine leadership development’, International Review of Industrial and Organizational Psychology. Hodgkinson G. and F. K. (Eds). New York: Wiley. Volume 23: pp. 197-238. 2 Day & O’Connor in: Murphy, S. E. and R. E. Riggio (2003; eds). The Future of Leadership Development. Mahwah, New Jersey 3 Ibid; Avolio and Chan (2008) op. cit. 4 LaHote, D., J. L. Simonetti, et al. (1999). ‘Management training and development at Aeroquip-Vickers, Inc.: a process model - part 2’, Industrial and Commercial Training 31(6): 213; McCall Jr, M. W. (2004). ‘Leadership development through experience’, Academy of Management Executive 18(3): 127-130; Thomas, R. J. and P. Cheese (2005). ‘Leadership: experience is the best teacher,’ Strategy & Leadership 33(3): 24. 5 Clark, M. C. (1993). ‘Transformational Learning.’ (in Merriam, S.B. (Ed.), An Update on Adult Learning Theory: New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, CA;. 6 Kegan, R. (2000). ‘What "form" transforms? A constructive-developmental approach to transformative learning,’ (in Mezirow, J. (Ed.), Learning as Transformation: Critical Perspectives on a Theory in Progress, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, CA.). 7 Schriensheim in: Murphy and Riggio (2003; eds); op. cit. 8 Heifetz, R. (1994). Leadership without Easy Answers. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press. 9 Blake, R. R. and J. S. Mouton (1964). The Managerial Grid: The Key to Leadership Excellence, Houston, Gulf Publishing Co 10 Yulk, G., A. Gordon, et al. (2002). ‘A Hierarchical Taxonomy of Leadership Behavior: Integrating a Half Century of Behaviour Research,’ Journal of Leadership and Organizational Studies 9(1): 15-32. 11 Fiedler, F. E. (1967). A theory of leadership effectiveness, McGraw-Hill: Harper and Row Publishers Inc; Stogdill, R. M. (1974). Handbook of leadership: A survey of the literature. New York: Free Press. 12 Hersey, P., K. Blanchard, et al. (2008). Management of Organizational Behavior: Leading Human Resources (9th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ, Pearson Education. 13 Yukl, G. (2006). Leadership In Organizations. Pearson Prentice Hall (Sixth edition). 14 Ibid. 15 Hannum, K. M., J. W. Martineau, et al. (2007). The Handbook of Leadership Development Evaluation. Center for Creative Leadership Jossey-Bass.



16 Bresnen, M. J. (1995). ‘All things to all people? Perceptions, attributions, and constructions of leadership,’ The Leadership Quarterly 6(4): 495-513;Calder, B. J. (1977). ‘An attribution theory of leadership,’ New Directions in Organizational Behavior. B. Slaw and G. Salancik. Chicago, Il-St.Clair Press: pp. 179-204. 17 Flavell, John H (1963). The developmental psychology of Jean Piaget, New York ; London : Van Nostrand 18 Kuhnert, K. W. and P. Lewis (1987). ‘Transactional and transformational leadership: A constructive/developmental analysis,’ Academy of Management Review 12: 648-657. 19 Shamir, B., H. Dayan-Horesh, et al. (2005). ‘Leading by biography: Towards a life.story approach to the study of leadership,’ Leadership 1(1): 13-29. 20 Sternberg, R. J. (2003). ‘WICS: A model of leadership in organizations.’ Academy of Management Learning & Education 2(4): 386. 21 Lord, R., G. and R. Hall, J. (2005). ‘Identity, deep structure and the development of leadership skill,’ Leadership Quarterly 16(4): 591. 22 Hooijberg, R., J. G. Hunt, et al. (1997). ‘Leadership complexity and development of the leaderplex mode,.’ Journal of Management 23(3): 375. 23 Uhl-Bien, M. (2003). ‘Relationship development as a key ingredient of leadership development’, The Future of Leadership Development. S. E. Murphy and R. E. Riggio. Mahwah, NJ, Lawrence Erlbaum. 24 London, M. and T. J. Maurer (2004). ‘Leadership development’ in J. Antonakis, A. T. Cianciolo and R. J. Sternberg.. The Nature of Leadership, Thousand Oaks, CA, Sage: (pp 222-245) 25 Mumford, T. V., M. A. Campion, et al. (2007). ‘The leadership skills strataplex: Leadership skill requirements accross organizational levels,’ The Leadership Quarterly 18(2): 154-166. 26 Avolio and Chan (2008), op. cit. 27 Day, D. V. (2007). ‘A multilevel, identity-based approach to leadership development,’ Human Resource Management Review 17(4): 360-373. 28 Hunt, J. G. (1991). Leadership: A new synthesis. Newbury Park, CA, Sage; Hooijberg, R., J. G. Hunt, et al. (1997); op. cit. 29 Prochaska, J. O., J. C. Norcross, et al. (2006). Changing for Good. New York, Collins. 30 Marks, D. F., M. Murray, et al. (2005). Health Psychology, Theory, Research and Practice, SAGE Publications 31 J.O. Prochaska, C.C. Diclemente (1982). ‘Transtheoretical Therapy : Toward a More Integrative Model of Change.’ Psychotherapy, 20, 161-173. 32 For more information, see Prochaska, Norcross et al. (2006); op. cit. 33 Marks, Murray et al. (2005); op. cit. 34 Yukl (2006); op. cit. 35 Prochaska, Norcross et al. (2006); op. cit. p. 42 36 Gollwitzer, P. and G. Oettingen (1998). ‘The emergence and implementation of health goals’ Psychology and Health 13(4): 687; Oettingen, G. (2000). ‘Effective self-regulation of goal attainment,’ International Journal of Educational Research 33(7-8): 705 37 Prochaska, Norcross et al. (2006); op. cit. p. 44 38 Ibid. 39 Bandura, A. (1997). Self-efficacy: the exercise of control. W. H. Freeman and Company.



40 Marks, Murray et al. (2005); op. cit. 41 Prochaska, Norcross et al. (2006); op. cit. 42 Bandura (1997); op. cit. 43 Janis, I. L. and L. Mann (1977). Decision making: A psychological analysis of conflict, choice and commitment. New York, Free Press. 44 Levesque, D. A., J. M. Prochaska, et al. (1999). ‘Stages of change and integrated service

delivery,’ Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research. 51(4): 226-241 45 Prochaska, Norcross et al. (2006); op. cit. 46 Yukl (2006); op. cit. p. 387 47 Levesque, Prochaska et al. (1999); op. cit. 48 Skiffington, S. and P. Zeus (2005). Behavioral Coaching, McGraw-Hill Australia Pty Ltd. 49 Harris, S. G. and M. S. Cole (2007). ‘A stages of change perspective on managers' motivation to learn in a leadership development context,’ Journal of Organizational Change Management 20(6): 774. 50 Yukl (2006); op. cit. 51 Ibid. 52 See: Prochaska, Norcross et al. (2006); op. cit.

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