Multi-Stage Process Research Examining a Public Leadership Development Program

• In Event: Reinventing Public Leadership in Norway: How Trondheim Is Moving to Create Its Future

Short Description

Are the desired results being achieved? How can the program be improved? Presenters will describe the design and implementation of a research project to gather feedback from public leaders about their experiences, needs, and abilities to meet multiple adaptive challenges. Perceptions of the usefulness of the program for themselves, their teams, and the city of Trondheim will be shared.

Detailed Abstract

This presentation will describe initial results from a multi-stage process research project that focuses on leaders’ experience of leadership capacity today and their felt need for development related to performing public leadership (Busch & Wennes, 2013), in face of diverse demands and multiple adaptive challenges (Heifetz, 1994; Heifetz, Linsky & Grashow, 2009). Employee participation is considered fundamental to learning and development for the individual as well as for the organization (Elkjær & Wahlgren, 2006; Fikse, 2013; Ness, 2011). Capturing the effect of this participation is important both for the organizations daily life and in order to understand the efficacy of investments in leadership development programs.

The point of departure for this multi-stage research process is that all employees have an (often untapped) potential for creative thinking, and will be able to contribute to development, innovation and change, and that certain cultural characteristics supports employee-driven innovation in organizations (Amundsen, Aasen, Gressgård, & Hansen, 2014). This research aims to develop knowledge about the processes involved in realizing the city of Trondheim’s potential for cultivating and eliciting this creativity, innovation and leadership capacity within leaders in the city.

After doing initial data gathering to establish some baselines for these characteristics, subsequent data gathering will then provide preliminary findings and impressions back to city of Trondheim, as well as to the developers of the leadership development program. From this feedback, city officials and program developers can identify improvements for future iterations of the program. The public leaders’ experienced needs may also change along the way, thus a multistage follow-up research can capture this so that it contributes to development throughout the process.

The multi-stage process research design is planned to be in three sections with the following research questions related to the process:
1. How do public leaders, in city of Trondheim, experience their leadership capacity today, and their felt need for development related to performing leadership in the face of demands from multiple adaptive challenges?
2. How do the leaders felt need for development relate to the implementation and program offered for leadership development?
3. In retrospect, how do the leaders experience the usefulness of the leadership development program for them as leaders, for their teams, and the city of Trondheim?

The time sequence involved will mean that in relation to the first two questions, this presentation will have initial data and analysis to describe. To fully answer the third question, more time will need to pass before we are able to gather and fully analyze this data.

The methodological approach that will be used is a combination of Q- methodology and multistage focus group interviews (Hummelvoll, 2008; Kamberelis, & Dimitriadis, 2013; Ness, Borg, Semb, & Karlsson, 2014). This is considered as a fruitful method to make the research a collaborative relationship for co-reflecting and collaborative inquiry through processes. The methodological approach supports an active participation from participants in the research processes. Q- methodology provides a practical, effective and applicable (where parts are close to quantitative analysis) tool to deeply investigate a subject and obtain a rich account of many informants’ views (Brown, 1993; Sæbjørnsen & Ellingsen, 2015; Watts, & Stenner, 2012).

We will use Q method and interviews with those respondents who represent the views of the different factors, to capture how public leaders experience their leadership capacity today, and their felt need for development related to performing leadership. To follow up how the leaders experience their need for development relating to the program for leadership development that is offered, we will also make use of focus group interviews with leaders in diverse sectors in the city. These findings will then be presented both for the participants and the leaders of the city of Trondheim where they will have the opportunity to co-reflect and do collaborative inquiry on these first findings.

As researchers, we will take these reflections with us further in the process. In the end of the leadership program the second focus group interviews will examine how the leaders experience the usefulness of the leadership development program, for them as leaders, for their teams, and for the city of Trondheim. This project will be conducted by researchers from the Department of Education and Lifelong Learning at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, NTNU.

Participants

• Camilla Fikse, Norwegian University of Science and Technology

• Ottar Ness, Norwegian University of Science and Technology