Organization Development Commons^™

Leadership In Startups: How Founder Personality And Leadership Behaviors Impact Startup Success And Psychological Safety, Ria Passi, Ronald Riggio

CMC Senior Theses

New ventures created by entrepreneurs are crucial to the economy and to the diffusion of innovative technologies. However, startups often operate in highly uncertain environments characterized by constrained resources, lack of established processes, and complex market dynamics. Despite surges in startup investment, the failure rate for new ventures remains high, making it crucial to understand the factors that can contribute to their success. This thesis explores how founder personalities, leadership styles, and cultivating psychological safety impact startup performance and growth trajectories. Founder personality traits like openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness are positively associated with securing funding, achieving exit opportunities, and overall …

Leading In Leaderless Teams: Exploring The Effect Of A Skills Mindset On Shared Leadership And Implicit Mental Models, Hayley Giffin

CMC Senior Theses

Employees, students, and individuals are currently expected to perform leadership behaviors more than ever, even when their formal roles do not indicate a leadership position. In this climate, developing transferable leadership skills has become a critical capability. This study explores the effect of maintaining a skills mindset on the display of shared leadership behaviors in leaderless teams. I hypothesize that a skills mindset will lead to more shared leadership behaviors than a roles mindset, that this effect will be explained by increased leadership self-efficacy (LSE) and increased leader identity (LI), and that this effect will be stronger for participants with …

Architechture: Rebuilding The Traditional University For The 21st Century, Sarah E. Shearer

CMC Senior Theses

This senior thesis is an examination of the major complexities and considerations encountered in developing an e-learning program. In light of the changing landscape of higher education resulting from technological advancement, combined with changing pedagogies and financial pressures, traditional institutions are under heightened scrutiny and most in need of innovation. Online learning as been proposed as a solution to many of these issues, but creating a successful program is no small feat. Furthermore, experimental research on specific course designs and delivery often fails upon real-world implementation. Looking through the lens of Design-Base-Implementation Research (DBIR), an emerging research model that seeks …

Idealized, Inspirational, And Intellectual Leaders In The Social Sector: Transformational Leadership And The Kravis Prize, Tawney A. Hughes

CMC Senior Theses

The purpose of this thesis is to determine the importance of transformational leadership in the social sector. Transformational leadership is a theory of behaviors and attributes focused on the relationship between leaders and followers of a group or organization (Avolio, 1999; Bass & Avolio, 1990a). It involves four factors: idealized influence, inspirational motivation, intellectual stimulation, and individualized consideration.

In order to gain more insight into leadership in some of the most high-impact and innovative social sector organizations, the research consists of interviews and case studies on five of the ten recipients of the Henry R. Kravis Prize in Leadership. Having …