Sara Shondrick, Ph.D., ACC

Talent management programs have increasingly focused on high potentials, and with good reason. For instance, organizations that focus on identifying and developing high potentials are seven times more effective at producing business and talent results including business growth, bench strength, and employee retention compared to those that do not. High potentials refer to employees that consistently outperform their peers and demonstrate the ability to rapidly develop and succeed in other roles.… Show more

Talent management programs have increasingly focused on high potentials, and with good reason. For instance, organizations that focus on identifying and developing high potentials are seven times more effective at producing business and talent results including business growth, bench strength, and employee retention compared to those that do not. High potentials refer to employees that consistently outperform their peers and demonstrate the ability to rapidly develop and succeed in other roles. This white paper provides a quick overview of high potential programs. Show less

Although organizational practices and leadership processes are contingent upon knowledge acquisition and use, the changing conceptualizations of knowledge in cognitive science are often overlooked in research. Nevertheless, leadership research has inherently reflected shifting views of knowledge, transitioning from an emphasis on the classical symbolic view to connectionism and most recently to an embodied, embedded view of cognition. We argue that different leadership processes uniquely draw… Show more

Although organizational practices and leadership processes are contingent upon knowledge acquisition and use, the changing conceptualizations of knowledge in cognitive science are often overlooked in research. Nevertheless, leadership research has inherently reflected shifting views of knowledge, transitioning from an emphasis on the classical symbolic view to connectionism and most recently to an embodied, embedded view of cognition. We argue that different leadership processes uniquely draw on these three types of knowledge and that excluding a connectionist or embodied, embedded view of knowledge creates an impoverished understanding of leadership. To illustrate this problem, we provide two follower-centric and two leader-centric examples of leadership processes which rely on the multiple forms of knowledge described herein: followers’ attributional reasoning regarding leadership, followers’ perceptions and memories of leaders, processes that generate leaders’ behavioral choices, and finally, leaders’ sensemaking/decision-making. We also discuss how these three perspectives could be integrated in future research to provide a richer understanding of leadership processes, particularly those based on collective, interactive leadership processes that emerge in groups of individuals. Show less

After reviewing key findings regarding leadership categorization theory, we develop new perspectives regarding the design of behavioral measures of leadership and the implications of shared leadership and complex adaptive leadership conceptualizations of leadership. In particular, by applying recent developments in cognitive science, we explain how an understanding of symbolic, connectionist, and embodied representations of knowledge can benefit behavioral measures of leadership. Additionally… Show more

After reviewing key findings regarding leadership categorization theory, we develop new perspectives regarding the design of behavioral measures of leadership and the implications of shared leadership and complex adaptive leadership conceptualizations of leadership. In particular, by applying recent developments in cognitive science, we explain how an understanding of symbolic, connectionist, and embodied representations of knowledge can benefit behavioral measures of leadership. Additionally, we address some practical issues associated with the measurement of leadership and argue that ratings which tap episodic memory at the event level may be more meaningful than ratings based on semantic memory. Finally, we discuss how notions of shared leadership and of leaders as catalysts for complexity can create unique complications for leadership perceptions, coordinated behavior within a group, and the measurement of leadership. Show less

We review implicit leadership theories and implicit followership theories as a dynamic sense-making process that is integral to leadership. Using this framework, we address how leadership and followership schema influence cognition and action, measurement issues associated with memory bias, and leadership in distributive knowledge environments.