Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Developing And Validating A Measure Of Transformational Followership, Noelle Baird

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Leadership and followership are inherently interdependent, yet research has primarily focused on the unilateral influence of leaders. To advance a more balanced perspective and highlight how followers can positively contribute to the leadership process, I conceptualized and validated a measure of transformational followership. Transformational followership represents leaders’ perceptions of effective followership tendencies that enable productive, generative, and motivating engagements with and for their leader. After conducting a comprehensive literature review of both followership and leadership research, I created an initial item pool which was then subjected to rigorous testing across three distinct phases. Phase 1 leveraged feedback from organizational …

Exploring The Underrepresentation Of Women Coaches In Canadian University Sport, Hayley Finn

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Currently, there are disproportionally few women who hold coaching positions within Canadian university sport. To investigate the gender gap, this dissertation explores the institutional practices that inform women coaches’ working realities. Applying Smith’s (1987) institutional ethnography as a mode of inquiry directed the exploration towards the everyday practices and processes that inform experience, to better understand current barriers and supports in place. In this study, particular attention is given to social relations, which Smith (2005) calls the relations of ruling that coordinate activities and experiences of individuals within organizations. Institutional ethnography aims to explicate these relations of ruling by exploring …

The Measurement Of Job Satisfaction Among Workplace Leaders: Scale Development And Validation Of The Leader Satisfaction Assessment, Erica A. Sutherland

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

As one of the most well-researched constructs in I/O psychology, the job attitudes literature is saturated with assessments of job satisfaction. However, none of these measures have explicitly examined the nature of job satisfaction among workplace leaders, a subset of employees who have the potential to influence organizations in substantive and meaningful ways. As such, the purpose of this dissertation was to examine the measurement of job satisfaction among leaders. A series of interviews and open-ended survey questionnaires were administered to a diverse group of leaders, employed across a variety of organizations and industries, to identify what facets contributed most …

Peer Coaching For Leadership Development In The Public Sector: A Case Study From Local Public Health, Tammy Mackinnon

MPA Major Research Papers

Leadership development is critical for the future of public sector organizations. Its impact on employee satisfaction, collaboration and organizational performance has been well documented. But how do we best develop leadership in the public sector? Trends in the literature call for a shift to more shared, distributed approaches which argue that leadership capacity is necessary at all organizational levels, regardless of positional authority. This study will examine the efficacy of a peer coaching model at imbedding leadership capacity throughout the layers of an organizational structure. Using a case study of leadership development in local public health, this study contributes to …

Leadership On The Ropes: How Hostile Followership Affects Leadership Behaviour, Noelle Baird

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The current study examined the effect of followership on leadership behaviours, and whether leaders’ responses to hostile followership varies as a function of individual differences. This study used a randomized controlled between-subjects experimental design. Participants were assigned to the role of either the “team leader” or a “team member”. As the focal manipulation, participants were assigned to a hostile followership condition or a control condition. In these two conditions, a confederate either antagonized and challenged the leader’s ideas (i.e., hostile followership) or engaged in neutral behaviours (i.e., control condition) throughout a virtually-mediated group decision-making task. Support was found for the …

Leading Canada's Cities? A Study Of Urban Mayors, Kate Graham

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

How powerful are Canada’s big city mayors? Do mayors have the power to lead in Canada’s cities? What does mayoral power in Canada look like, and what can we learn about Canadian urban politics by examining it?

This project explores these and other questions by engaging in the first broad study of urban mayors in Canada. It is often said that Canada has “weak” mayors, or a “weak mayor system” – terms borrowed from an American context referring to the limited executive power of Canadian mayors relative to many of their American peers. This study examines the Canadian mayoralty in …

Participatory Action Research Examining The Role Of Physical Activity In Mentoring For Resilience, Francesca Gable

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This study examined the use of physical activity-based mentorship programs to positively influence student mental health and resilience in post-secondary institutions. The process of relationship building was observed through regularly implemented physical activity interactions over time. The purpose was to determine the ability of a physical activity-based mentorship relationship to positively influence student resilience. A participatory action research methodology was used to engage with a population of ninety undergraduate Kinesiology students (30 mentors:60 protégés) over an eight-month period. Sixty interviews and thirteen focus groups were conducted, and fifteen-hundred pages of journal reflections were consulted to further understand the relationship building …

Character In Leadership: Perceptions Of Canadian Intercollegiate Athletics Administrators, William Z. Weese

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Despite the importance of administrative leadership in high performance sport, minimal attention has been given to the area of leader character by sport management researchers. The current study examined the prevalence, perceived importance, and value of leader character within Canadian interuniversity athletics programs. Leader character was quantitatively measured using the Leader Character Insight Assessment (LCIA) instrument (Crossan et al., 2013a). Differences between sex, position, and experience were also examined. Overall, Accountability and Integrity were the most prevalent leader character dimensions. Sex of administrators did not yield any significant differences between dimensions. Athletic Directors perceived Transcendence to be more important to …