Problem
The phenomenon that is considered in the article can be defined as the development of individual leadership. McDermott, Kidney, and Flood define it as “an ongoing process of personal development,” which makes leadership and related skills the “personal capital” of the leader (358). The authors point out that despite the general interest towards the leadership development, the individual experiences of the leaders are less researched, and they consider it to be an issue since, apparently, the individual leader development is of importance for the collective growth in leadership understanding.
In order to resolve this issue and highlight its significance for the scientific community and practitioners, McDermott, Kidney, and Flood undertake their study on the individual leadership development. Also, the authors consider five major themes in leaderships that are often a subject of debates and apparently require additional research: the origin of leaders, work balance, emotions, the question of collective and individual nature of leadership, and the universality of leadership.
Hypothesis
The study of McDermott, Kidney, and Flood is primarily exploratory in nature, which is why it would be incorrect to insist that they suggest a hypothesis on the results of the interviews. It can be stated, though, that their study is based on the assumption that the personal formative experiences of successful leaders are capable of providing insights into the leadership development topic. In other words, the work is aligned with the developmental perspective of leadership, which is described below.
While it may or may not be regarded as a hypothesis proper, this assumption receives confirmation in the findings and conclusions of the study. Also, they make assumptions about the themes that should be discussed, but they do not form hypotheses, which is normal for an exploratory study (Andrew, Pedersen, and McEvoy 8).
The Need for the Study
Leadership development is considered to be a very important tool that affects organization performance, which is why investing in leadership development and researching it is deemed a worthwhile activity. Apart from that, the authors believe that their topic is especially unique: given that the traditional approach to leadership does focus on the collective leadership capacity, the integration of personal formative experiences in this framework may be considered original. As a result, the work offers a relatively new perspective on leadership formation. Also, the experiences of successful leaders are always of interest both for theorists and practicing leaders. In general, the need for a study that is devoted to this problem and carried out in this way is apparent and justified.
Methodology
The study is qualitative, exploratory, descriptive, and based on empirical data, which was deemed appropriate for an article that is aimed at discovering personal experienced. The data was gathered through 40-minutes semi-structured interviews that were developed specifically for the study in order to reflect the five themes that the authors had chosen.
The sample consisted of senior leaders of Irish institutions that were private, public, and voluntary. They were selected for their high-profile awards and nominations in leadership as well as other distinguishing features and activities (for example, advocacy work). Also, the authors conducted a survey among 175 post-graduate students to find out who of the leaders is perceived as successful. Eleven (out of fifteen) of the chosen leaders agreed to participate, thus becoming the final sample. The data that had been gathered was analyzed by one member, and it can be defined as content analysis.
Literature Review
At the beginning of the literature review, the authors justify their approach and point out its originality. They present the five chosen themes and dwell on each of them by considering previous studies on the matter.
The question of whether leaders are born or made has been inspected from several the points of view. Early trait theorists believed that leaders are born as leaders, but with time, the idea started to transform. It was suggested that some traits condition the easier development of leadership skills but still require a lot of work and self-control. This view changed into the developmental view, which regards leadership development as a complex process of various factors interaction, which McDermott, Kidney, and Flood support.
With respect to the work and life balance, McDermott, Kidney, and Flood point out the importance of finding it to avoid relationship damages, burnouts, and other negative consequences. The literature review indicates that a wise work-life balance improves the capabilities and therefore, the value of a leader. The role of emotions and emotional intelligence (EI) is considered to be central to the modern leadership research, and the leaders are invited to improve their EI with the help of self-reflection.
Similarly, the modern-age studies emphasize the collective nature of success and leadership development; the participation of the team is of critical importance. Finally, in the search of a single recipe for leadership development, McDermott, Kidney, and Flood conclude that there are both generic and specific factors that affect leadership development and, given the importance of the context, a universal model of individual leadership is unlikely to exist.
The literature review allowed the authors to position their study, align it with the theoretical framework of the developmental perspective on leadership, and make some assumptions about the possible outcomes of their interviews.
Assumptions, Limitations, and Future Research
The choice of one person to conduct the analysis appears controversial since two people could help each other avoid mistakes and misuse of information and test for interobserver reliability (Andrew, Pedersen, and McEvoy 51). Another limitation of the work is the small sample, which is why the authors suggest to regard it as a step in the expansion of the bulk of knowledge on leadership development, especially from the point of view of the leaders.
They also assume that it is important to attract the attention of the scientific community to the problem and believe that their article fulfills this function. Despite the small sample, the article has some implications: it highlights the importance of EI, responsibility balancing, collectives management, and adaptative abilities. The authors suggest that the future studies need to consider the question of how leadership style choice depends on the context.
Conclusions and Findings
The findings of the article touch upon every of the five themes mentioned above, and they are primarily in line with the developmental perspective on leadership. The authors discover that the leaders had been greatly affected by environmental factors, but their personal qualities and efforts helped them to “make the most” out of the resulting experiences (McDermott, Kidney, and Flood 372). Also, the context was important for the particular leadership style that was developed by the leader. Apart from that, they tended to generate personal strategies for the work-and-life balance, which, however, did not guarantee the success in the area. They all recognized the importance of EI and the collective work, with five of them adopting the post-heroic ideas of various collective leadership models.
McDermott, Kidney, and Flood conclude that their article begins an accumulation of the personal experiences of leaders that are different from “zero to hero” and demonstrate the challenges of the chosen path.
Critique
The article of McDermott, Kidney, and Flood has a number of strengths and weaknesses, but the latter do not eliminate the contribution of the study to the existing bulk of knowledge on leadership development. The methodology of the work follows this pattern in having both strong and weak elements. In particular, the authors choose a most applicable qualitative tool (the interview) to answer their questions on the topic. Similarly, the choice of a hypothesis-less exploratory study can be regarded as an attempt to remain objective in the analysis of the work.
However, the authors’ assumptions on the topics and their alignment with the developmental framework (which are never formulated as hypotheses) could have prejudiced them. Still, it is typical for exploratory research to form the basis for future hypotheses rather than to pose and test one (Andrew, Pedersen, and McEvoy 8). In the end, McDermott, Kidney, and Flood explicitly invite future researchers to consider their work as a basis for the development and testing of new research hypotheses, which justifies their choice (374).
The sample of the work should be regarded as a weakness, but it can be explained by the shortage of suitable interviewees and the author’s resources. Given the exploratory nature of the work, it can be suggested that additional studies with greater samples can be carried out in the future. The tool itself (the interview questionnaire) has the advantage of being customized to the needs of the study.
The authors’ choice of data analysis can be regarded as a weakness, and it is impossible to avoid commenting on it. It is a questionable decision to make only one team member responsible for the data analysis, even though McDermott, Kidney, and Flood attempt to explain it by the goal of consistency (365). The interpersonal reliability of observations is a very helpful means of improving the reliability of a study (Andrew, Pedersen, and McEvoy 25).
The authors had had the chance to produce three interpretations of the interviews and compare and contrast the results, thus ruling out the possibility of subjective approach. However, they chose to provide only one view of the data, which, given its qualitative nature, is likely to be open to interpretation. The existence of the initial assumptions that is combined with this issue produces a rather dangerous combination.
However, the results indicate that the authors do not appear to obscure or omit the results that are not in line with their ideas on the matter. For example, McDermott, Kidney, and Flood mention that not every of the leaders had adopted the post-heroic view on collective leadership, which they, apparently, consider a superior form of leadership understanding (373). As a result, it can be suggested that the issues which are exhibited by the methodology of the study are not fatal, but at least one of them could have been easily avoided.
The contribution of the work to the development of the bulk of knowledge on leadership is apparent, in particular, due to the choice of an underresearched area of study. Also, apart from providing some evidence to the developmental view on leadership, the work contains the views of successful leaders on leadership development, which makes it a useful reading for the majority of aspiring leaders. As a result, it can be stated that the work is interesting from the point of view of both theory and practice.
Works Cited
McDermott, Aoife, Rachel Kidney, and Patrick Flood. “Understanding Leader Development: Learning From Leaders”. Leadership & Organization Development Journal 32.4 (2011): 358-378. Print.
Andrew, Damon P. S, Paul Mark Pedersen, and Chad D McEvoy. Research Methods And Design In Sport Management. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics, 2011. Print.