Non-profit/Community-based Managers/Executives/Administrators
OBJECTIVE This study examined the relationship of leadership development to effective leadership practices.
METHODOLOGY Participants were current TWR leaders across four regions (Africa, America, Northeast Asia and Southeast Asia). TWR is a nonprofit, faith-based organization that specializes in international Christian broadcasting. Participants completed the LPI (self and observer forms) and the self-typing paragraph approach (James & Hatten, 1995) as a method for identifying leadership development Experiences (developmental job assignments, multi-rater feedback, skill-based training, feedback-intensive programs, and developmental relationships). Complete survey packets were returned by 71 participants (63% response rate), and of these 8.5 percent were executives, 38 percent were directors, 46.5 percent were officers, and 4 percent were managers.
KEY FINDINGS LPI scores were consistently higher for those who had experienced at least one developmental experience (N=40) than those who reported no leadership developmental experience (N=31). This was true on the LPI-Self, and also from the perspective of their managers on the LPI-Observer but not statistically significant on the LPI-Observer for other respondents.
Multilinear regression analysis revealed that the best predictor model for LPI-Self scores was a developmental relationship; the only exception to this pattern was the feedback-intensive model for Enabling. For LPI-Observer (Manager and Others) scores, the best model was developmental job assignments, the only exception to this pattern was in the LPI-Observer Others scores for Model where a developmental job assignment (positive) and a feedback-intensive program (negative) was the best predictor model.
The author concludes that “participants perceive a positive relationship of developmental relationships to exemplary leadership practices, managers perceive that leadership practices are very positively related to a combination of developmental relationships and a development job assignment. Conversely, others indicate that developmental relationships are not significantly related to exemplary leadership practices; their ratings indicate that only a developmental job assignment has a significant positive relationship to exemplary leadership practices” (p. 124-125).