Fired Up by Commitment, Example, and Values: How High-Performance Organizations Develop Leadership

Abstract

Each year, organizations big and small, public and private spend tremendous resources on programs to develop leaders that will guide those organizations to success, preferably extraordinary success The United States Air Force is no exception to this effort, While there is little question that classroom and other formal development programs benefit their participants, a more fundamental question needs to be answered: Is there something more vital, more necessary in developing leadership abilities? Case studies of five high-performing organizations presented here suggest that three things lay at the foundation of developing leadership abilities: a top-down commitment to developing leaders that is carried out in action, exceptional leadership by example, and an integrated value set that guides organizational and individual actions, As one individual describes it, it is a "mastery of the fundamentals," To provide a broad sample set, the study included public, private, big, small, and military organizations, Selection of study participants was limited to those organizations that consistently outperform expectations and are considered leaders in their fields, Once an organization agreed to participate, interviews and organizational research were then used to answer a series of questions on how leadership abilities were developed in each organization, Comments and insight were then summarized into the case studies,

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Apr 01, 2002
Accession Number
ADA420594

Entities

People

  • Kevin G. Kersh

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Biomedical
  • Human Systems
  • Space

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Acquisition
  • Air Force
  • Business Administration
  • Distance Learning
  • Employment
  • Governments
  • Human Resources
  • Instructors
  • Management Personnel
  • Marine Corps
  • Military Education
  • Military Science
  • Organizational Structure
  • Schools
  • Students
  • Training
  • United States

Readers

  • Defense Technology Research and Development.
  • Military Leadership and Professional Education.
  • Systems Analysis and Design