Purpose

If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. AbstractPurpose -Hersey and Blanchard's situational leadership (SL) model is widely utilised, but it has limited empirical support. This paper aims to investigate the model through content analysis of the transcripts of supervision sessions. Design/methodology/approach -Eight transcripts of successful supervision interviews are subjected to in-depth content analysis to investigate the validity of aspects of the SL model, principally that successful leadership interactions would vary systematically according to the level of supervisee experience. The supervisees consist of a novice, four training therapists, and three post-graduate therapist practitioners. Statistical analyses are undertaken to investigate fundamental, predicted differences between the speech behaviours associated with the different developmental levels of these supervisees. Findings -The findings offer only partial support for the model. As predicted, an increased proportion of supervisor speech is observed in the supervision of increasingly less experienced therapists. However, the majority of the more specific speech behaviours associated with supervisee experience level are not in keeping with the model. Originality/value -These results are consistent with the findings of other evaluations of the SL model. As the present results are based on a novel approach, this increases the plausibility of the claim that SL lacks adequate empirical support. Areas of development and exploration are recommended, and limits associated with the model's utility are highlighted.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to answer the research question: what recent experiences – other than undertaking training and development programmes – do mature managers and professionals regard as important for their development as leaders? Design/methodology/approach A survey was issued to mature managers and professionals, asking them to rate the contribution of certain experiences to their recent development of leadership capabilities, and to provide qualitative data on the most important experiences. Findings The experience that was rated most highly in developing leadership capabilities was “tackling a significant challenge or challenges”, followed by “taking, or contributing to, major decisions”, and then by “taking on new responsibilities”. Controlled interventions such as coaching/mentoring, appraisal feedback, and temporary new responsibilities were awarded relatively low ratings. Research limitations/implications The sample was drawn from graduates of an executive master’s degree, who are likely to have positive attitudes to self-development and to learning from experience. Practical implications The findings can be used to help mature leaders, and those who facilitate leadership development, to identify and use experiences that may develop leadership capabilities. Originality/value There are few recent studies on the kinds of experiences that are perceived to develop leadership capabilities of mature managers and professionals.

Describes the development of a competency model for middlesenior managers in a large fashion retailing company, to encourage them to act more strategically. Discusses the relative benefits of researching a custom-made model against using or adapting a generic model. Describes how the model has been used in the company for training and development. Evaluates the model against a critical view of management competencies.

This paper is based on a study of learning processes within 35 healthcare therapy teams that took action to improve their services. The published research on team learning is introduced, and the paper suggests it is an activity that has similarities with action research and with those forms of action learning where teams address collective problems to enhance organisational performance. The paper proposes factors within the teams and in the teams' environments that enabled team learning, in particular, within the team, the behaviours of team leaders to encourage learning, communication, planning, action and review, and in the teams' environments the behaviour of senior managers and other stakeholders in positions of authority, access to effective information systems, and the availability of a modest amount of resource to enable team learning.