Group and Leadership Effects on Social Anxiety Experienced During an Exercise Class1

This study examined the effects of the group environment and group leadership style on social anxiety experienced by participants (N= 90) in a 40‐min step aerobics class. In a 2±2 factorial design, group environment (enriched/bland) was manipulated, along with the fitness instructor's leadership style (enriched/bland). Participants in the enriched group condition had significantly higher social anxiety (M= 15.1) than did those in the bland group condition (M= 12.0, p < 0.05). Also, participants tended to have less social anxiety when the instructor used an enriched leadership style (M= 12.4) than when she used a bland leadership style (M= 14.8, p= 0. 08). Discussion focuses on aspects of the social environment that can affect social anxiety during group exercise classes.     

Leadership Development of Women Preparing for Ministry

This mixed-methods study investigates the leadership development and leadership skills of women graduate students at a theological seminary. Through the Student Leadership Practices Inventory (Student LPI) and Leadership Competency Inventory (LCI), demographic questionnaire, and focus group interviews, the researchers explored the leadership training the women had received and their perception of their leadership abilities and development needs. The findings showed that the women reported frequently demonstrated exemplary leadership practices and many possessed significant leadership experience. Participants scored highest on competencies utilizing people skills and lowest in areas reflecting competence in cognitive or strategic skills. While exposed to formal leadership education they reported receiving their leadership education primarily through observation and experience.     

Taking an Interest in Taking the Lead: The Influence of Vocational Interests,Leadership Experience and Success on the Motivation to Lead

Motivation plays a crucial role in leadership, particularly when facing difficult situations and decisions. This long-term study investigates whether vocational interests predict an individual's motivation to lead (MtL). Moreover, it examines whether the link between vocational interests and MtL is mediated by the extent and success of prior leadership experiences. To this end, 471 participants (291 male, 180 female, M_age = 22.65, SD_age = 7.95) provided information on their vocational interests. Two years later, participants rated their MtL and provided information on both the extent of their prior leadership experiences and the respective success gained from these. Results show that enterprising and conventional interests positively affect MtL two years later. Additionally, enterprising and social interests also indirectly influence a person's motivation to lead through the extent and success of prior leadership experiences: people with higher enterprising and social interests report more prior experience in leading. This experience is linked to more self-perceived leadership success, which consequently enhances these persons' motivation to take on leading roles. These findings enrich theory on the antecedents and malleability of MtL. From a practitioner's view, the findings equip recruiters with information on how to search for motivated leaders and how to maintain their motivation.     

TEACHING SOCIAL/VOCATIONAL SKILLS TO RETARDED ADULTS WITH A MODIFIED TABLE GAME: AN ANALYSIS OF GENERALIZATION

In this study, a social skills training program for institutionalized mildly or moderately retarded adults was extended to include skills relevant to vocational settings. Target behaviors involving a verbal action or reaction within six skill areas were taught using a commercially available board game, Sorry, and a specially designed card deck. The training program featured response specific feedback, self-monitoring, individualized reinforcers, and individualized performance criterion levels. Using a multiple baseline across two groups (n = 3 per group), the game contingencies increased social/vocational skills in all targeted areas. Generalization was assessed in two settings: a simulated workshop in which pre and post measures were taken and in the institutional workshop where the residents worked. The posttraining simulated workshop results revealed that the residents' newly learned skills had generalized. However, repeated generalization measures of the residents' social interactions in the institutional workshop were equivocal as were measures of their productivity.     

The effects of an authentic coaching intervention on athlete outcomes: A pilot randomised controlled trial

ObjectivesAuthentic leadership has been found to be related to promising outcomes in sport. However, no intervention designed to increase coaches' authentic leadership exists. The aim of this study was to develop and evaluate such an intervention.DesignThe study was a pilot randomised controlled trial. We used a mixed design with Group (Intervention, Control) as between- and Time (pre, post) as within-participants factors.MethodA total of 18 coaches (M_age = 37.89; 83% males) and their athletes (N = 153; M_age = 20.48; 50.3% females) were randomly allocated, via block randomisation, into either an intervention (coaches n = 9, athletes n = 90) or a control group (coaches n = 9, athletes n = 63). The coaches in the intervention group received a 2-h-long workshop and completed weekly coaching logs. Data were collected via questionnaires, which were administered to both the coaches and their athletes prior to the workshop and two months after the workshop.ResultsThe results revealed that the intervention group reported higher authentic leadership compared to the control group. A mixed-design analysis of variance indicated that athletes in the intervention group reported significantly higher enjoyment and prosocial behaviour from pre- to post-intervention compared to the control group.ConclusionsThe findings suggest that an authentic coaching intervention can be effective in improving coaches' authentic behaviours and promoting positive athlete outcomes.     

Exploring the Ethical Aspects of Leadership: From a Korean Perspective

Theories of ethical leadership provide important insights about the effect of leader’s ethics on the relationship between leaders and followers. However, there is an increasing demand for addressing key constructs that enhance the capacity to explain theoretical aspects of ethical leadership. The purpose of this study is to expand the theoretical framework of ethical leadership based on Korean traditional leadership by focusing on personal cultivation, morality, and social responsibility. Using a framework of intrapersonal process as leadership and core value and competence as components of leadership, this study examines the ethical aspects of Korean traditional leadership and provides the implications to further develop the theory of ethical leadership. It is found that ethical integrity ensued from sugi (self-cultivation) is an essential precondition to develop leadership, and the core value of ethical leadership includes Zhixin-Chijing (cultivation of the mind and internal piety) and the competence consists of both Ipzhi (setting a solid self-vision/establishing goal) and Silsim (practical mind, grasp changes in reality with a sound mind) in Korean traditional leadership that contributes to expanding the theoretical understanding of ethical leadership. Implications for future research in the area of ethical leadership are discussed.     

Using Photography to Explore Recovery Themes With Veterans

This author of this study examined if creating photographs to explore a recovery experience could be therapeutic. Veterans from multiple war periods, who were receiving outpatient mental health treatment, voluntarily enrolled in a six-week photography workshop. During the workshop, 31 veterans learned the basics of photography and discussed recovery challenges with peers. For the final class, participants created a six-image portfolio that visually expressed a personal recovery theme. Pre-and post, 10-item Likert scale questionnaires were completed in order to evaluate the benefits of the photography workshop. There was a statistically significant increase in the post test questionnaire score (+0.47 points, p = 0 .001). The findings support the hypothesis that taking photographs while in recovery can improve personal reflection and organization of thinking, as well as promote recovery discussions, communication, social support, and sense of purpose. Recovery themes included dealing with pain, isolation, growth, transformation, and healing.     

The Founding of Christianity Today Magazine and the Construction of An American Evangelical Identity

The emergence of modern American evangelicalism parallels the rise and development of Christianity Today magazine, a publication that has moved from a position of advocacy for a group of marginalized neo-fundamentalists to a well-established media system with a large evangelical constituency. This paper considers Christianity Today as both an ideological tool and a journalistic enterprise and examines the magazine's role during its founding era, under the editorial leadership of Carl F. H. Henry, in the ascendancy of evangelicalism as a social movement.     

The generalized sense of power is a psychological resource: Evidence from a disaster response field training exercise

We examined whether the generalized sense of power—the belief that one is able to influence others in one's various social relationships—serves as a psychological resource that enables leadership in high-stakes, unfamiliar group challenges, such as emergencies or crises. We studied current and prospective humanitarian aid professionals (N = 180) during a major field training exercise: a three-day, immersive simulated humanitarian crisis. Individuals who entered the simulated crisis with a greater sense of power in their social relationships experienced lower stress (anxiety), behaved more assertively, and left the simulation with a relatively heightened desire to lead, despite not being deemed better leaders by their teammates. Lacking an initial sense of power was associated with experiences (e.g., feeling timid) that undermined the desire to lead. These results suggest that the psychological sense of power is a key leadership resource, without which one may be at risk of self-selecting out of leadership.     

A motivated information processing perspective on the antecedents of empowering leadership

Empowering leadership is an important influence on team effectiveness. This makes the question of what the antecedents of team empowering leadership are an important issue to consider. To address this question, we propose a motivated information processing perspective that holds that engaging in empowering leadership is based on social information processing, and that there are individual differences in how elaborate that information processing is. We argue that a key consideration in shifting control from the leader to the team is the extent to which empowering leadership is driven by leaders’ consideration of their trust in the team (i.e., an instance of social information processing), and that leader need for closure (a trait capturing the disposition to carefully consider decisions and actions) moderates the relationship between leader trust in team and empowering leadership. A survey of N = 156 work teams supported these hypotheses.     

Gender and Leadership Aspiration: Supervisor Gender,Support, and Job Control

Understanding the role of leadership aspiration in the under-representation of female leaders is important, because aspiration is a key predictor of hierarchical advancement. A neglected perspective in the relationship between gender and leadership aspiration is the gender of the individual's supervisor. Supervisors can play an important role in providing support and in engendering a sense of control, and both support and control are precursors to leadership aspiration. Yet, supervisors may also act on gender biases that discourage women's leadership aspiration. We argue that there is an interaction between supervisor and subordinate gender such that men experience relatively high levels of support and control regardless of supervisor gender, whereas women experience more support and control and as a result display higher leadership aspiration with a female supervisor. A survey of N = 402 men and women supported these hypotheses regarding the subordinate gender by supervisor gender interactive influence on leadership aspiration, support, control, and the mediated moderation model.     

La photo-expression : un outil pour accompagner le patient en éducation thérapeutique et pour évaluer son évolution

IntroductionIn therapeutic patient education (TPE), photoexpression is often used by psychologists in order to work on patients’ perceptions and experiences, especially in group workshops.AimThe aim of this study was to explore diabetic patients’ discourse during two photoexpression group workshops at the beginning and the end of a TPE program.MethodSeventeen patients took part in this study. A lexicometric analysis was performed on their discourse during the two group workshops (Alceste® software).ResultsFor the first workshop, the analysis yielded two classes: the place of diabete in daily life as well as psychic and social functioning. For the second workshop, the analysis also yielded two classes: self-management and adjustement, as well as program experience and return back home.ConclusionThe results show an increase in adaptation skills and particularly in self-efficacy, motivation, positive emotions, perhaps illness acceptance. Photoexpression shows to be a very interesting tool in TPE to accompagny patients but also evaluate their discourse evolution during a TPE program.     

The social identity theory of leadership: Theoretical origins,research findings,and conceptual developments

Over the past decade the social identity theory of leadership (Hogg, 2001a; Hogg & van Knippenberg, 2003) has reinvigorated social psychological research on leadership by reconnecting leadership to the social psychology of influence, and by explicitly elaborating on the (social) identity function, and associated social cognitive and social interactive processes, associated with leadership. The main tenet is that group prototypical leaders are better supported and more trusted, and are perceived as more effective by members than are less prototypical leaders; particularly when group membership is a central and salient aspect of members’ identity and members identify strongly with the group. This hypothesis has attracted unequivocal support across numerous studies, research teams, and research paradigms. In this article we describe the social identity theory of leadership and its conceptual origins, and overview the state of evidence. The main focus of the article is on new conceptual developments and associated empirical advances; including the moderating roles of uncertainty, group innovation and creativity, deviance, “norm talk”, charisma, fairness, as well as the extension of the social identity theory of leadership to an intergroup context. Throughout we identify directions for future empirical and conceptual advances.     

Testing the Work Environment Hypothesis of Bullying on a Group Level of Analysis: Psychosocial Factors as Precursors of Observed Workplace Bullying

The present paper scrutinises the work environment hypothesis of bullying by examining relationships between psychosocial factors at work and bullying within departments on a group level of analysis, as compared to the many studies executed on an individual level of analysis. Relationships between quantitative demands, job control, role demands, leadership behaviour and social climate, and observed bullying were studied in a convenience sample consisting of 276 departments with a total of 4,064 respondents. Between‐group bivariate correlations showed relatively strong relationships (r > .52) between the predictors social climate, leadership behaviour, and role demands, respectively, and observed bullying in the department. A two‐factor higher‐level model was formulated for the independent variables yielding two latent factors reflecting an interpersonal domain and a task‐oriented domain, where the former was strongly associated with observed bullying at a group level of analysis (Beta =?.73), while the last factor yielded an insignificant contribution. The results confirm that a poor social work environment exists within departments in which bullying takes place, hence, yielding further support to the work environment hypothesis. In line with the present results, future studies on workplace bullying should include a group level of analysis.     

TRAIT AND BEHAVIORAL THEORIES OF LEADERSHIP: AN INTEGRATION AND META‐ANALYTIC TEST OF THEIR RELATIVE VALIDITY

The leadership literature suffers from a lack of theoretical integration ( Avolio, 2007 , American Psychologist, 62, 25–33). This article addresses that lack of integration by developing an integrative trait‐behavioral model of leadership effectiveness and then examining the relative validity of leader traits (gender, intelligence, personality) and behaviors (transformational‐transactional, initiating structure‐consideration) across 4 leadership effectiveness criteria (leader effectiveness, group performance, follower job satisfaction, satisfaction with leader). Combined, leader traits and behaviors explain a minimum of 31% of the variance in leadership effectiveness criteria. Leader behaviors tend to explain more variance in leadership effectiveness than leader traits, but results indicate that an integrative model where leader behaviors mediate the relationship between leader traits and effectiveness is warranted.     

The empowering potential of intergroup leadership: How intergroup leadership predicts psychological empowerment through intergroup relational identification and resources

As work increasingly transcends organizational boundaries, employee psychological empowerment benefits from resources provided by others outside of the employee's own team, department, or organization. These intergroup collaborations, however, may be inhibited by social identity and social categorization processes, so that the empowerment potential of these relations remains largely untapped. In this study (N = 213), we demonstrate that intergroup leadership is linked to employee psychological empowerment via intergroup relational identification and access to resources. In this way, this study demonstrates the empowering potential of intergroup leadership and intergroup relational identification for employees who collaborate across group barriers. We finish this paper by discussing the main implications for both empowerment and intergroup leadership theory, suggesting fruitful avenues for future research and highlighting the practical value for those who are motivated to increase psychological empowerment among boundary-spanning employees.     

Innovation across cultures: Connecting leadership,identification, and creative behavior in organizations

Innovation is considered essential for today's organizations to survive and thrive. Researchers have also stressed the importance of leadership as a driver of followers' innovative work behavior (FIB). Yet, despite a large amount of research, three areas remain understudied: (a) The relative importance of different forms of leadership for FIB; (b) the mechanisms through which leadership impacts FIB; and (c) the degree to which relationships between leadership and FIB are generalizable across cultures. To address these lacunae, we propose an integrated model connecting four types of positive leadership behaviors, two types of identification (as mediating variables), and FIB. We tested our model in a global data set comprising responses of N = 7,225 participants from 23 countries, grouped into nine cultural clusters. Our results indicate that perceived LMX quality was the strongest relative predictor of FIB. Furthermore, the relationships between both perceived LMX quality and identity leadership with FIB were mediated by social identification. The indirect effect of LMX on FIB via social identification was stable across clusters, whereas the indirect effects of the other forms of leadership on FIB via social identification were stronger in countries high versus low on collectivism. Power distance did not influence the relations.     

How Learning Goal Orientation Fosters Leadership Recognition in Self‐Managed Teams: A Two‐Stage Mediation Model

Defined as a mental framework for how individuals interpret and respond to achievement situations, learning goal orientation (LGO) has received increasing attention in organisational research. However, its effect on leadership, especially in contexts absent of formal leadership, remains understudied. Drawing on social exchange theory, we propose and test an individual‐level two‐stage process model of generalised exchange linking LGO and leadership recognition in self‐managed teams. Specifically, we posit that learning‐oriented individuals will tend to feel safer in self‐managed teams, which will enable and sustain their engagement in contextual role behavior. Such behavior, in turn, will be reciprocated with recognition of these individuals as leaders. We use a multiphase, multi‐informant approach (n = 287), and we find that felt safety mediates the effect of LGO on contextual role behavior, but that contextual role behavior alone does not mediate the effect of LGO on leadership recognition. LGO has an indirect effect on leadership recognition through the joint mediation of felt safety and contextual role behavior. Our results offer insight on the link between LGO and leadership, with practical implications for people working in self‐managed teams.     

Self‐Efficacy as a Moderator of the Effects of Job‐Search Workshops on Re‐Employment: A Field Experiment1

We investigated the additive and interactive effects of self‐efficacy as a possible moderator of the effects of a job‐search workshop on re‐employment outcomes. We recruited 659 recently unemployed respondents and randomly assigned them to an experimental group invited to participate in the job‐search workshop (n = 442), or a control group (n = 217). All respondents provided pretest data using self‐administered questionnaires, and posttest data using questionnaires mailed to them 1 and 6 months after the workshop. No direct effects of the intervention on re‐employment outcomes were found. The pretest–posttest change in self‐efficacy interacted with the experimental condition to predict 3 re‐employment outcomes. However, only 1 of the 3 moderating effects found supported our prior expectation in this regard.     

Group Therapy with Sexually Abused Boys: Leadership,Projective Identification,and Countertransference Issues

Group therapy is an essential component of the treatment of sexually abused children. Since the painful affects associated with the abuse are often dissociated or acted out, the group leaders learn of the affective experience of the abuse through the process of projective identification. The leaders must be aware of this process, set limits on the abusive acting out in the group, and help moderate, label, and empathize with the affect. It is through this difficult process that the children have a chance to reintegrate and work through their abuse experiences so they no longer feel compelled to act them out through repetitive abusive relationships. Specific leadership, countertransference, and projective identification issues in group therapy with sexually abused boys are discussed.