Should a leader tweet? Some people love it. Some bash it. But the fact that POTUS – President of the United States — is using Twitter to communicate has most of us buzzing. Plus, some are really rethinking what we thought a good leader should do.
More of this productive rethinking will take place at the 2017 Leadership Research Colloquium from the Center for Leadership at Florida International University (FIU) on Tuesday, April 11, 2017. Researchers will gather to share their recent findings about common sense assumptions we have made about leading that perhaps are wrong.
At this year’s colloquium entitled “Good Leadership: Rethink what you know,” moderator Nathan Hiller, Ph.D., the Academic Director of the Center, will introduce faculty members from three universities.
“The research that will be presented won’t be hitting the journals for another year and won’t be in textbooks for three, four, or more years,” says Dr. Hiller.
“At the colloquium, attendees have the opportunity to hear truly cutting-edge findings. By understanding what research shows about being a more effective leader advances us in our thinking about the complex subject of leadership.”
Dr. Hiller points out that sometimes a leader might be doing the exact opposite of what will drive a team to better performance – and he or she doesn’t realize it. “Knowledge is definitely power when it comes to leading and sometimes that means rethinking what we thought were common sense methods.”
Three researchers will be presenting their findings.
- Being Mindful about Communication Choices
Ravi Gajendran, Ph.D., an assistant professor at University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign in the College of Business, will share how a leader’s communication choices – what electronic communications they use and what they say — reflects on them. Dr. Gajendran will share what his research discovered about what leaders can do to be more mindful about the communication choices they make. His previous research has been cited in prominent media outlets in the U.S. and internationally including the New York Times, Forbes, Scientific American, and USA Today.
- Leader Humility: A Double-Edged Sword?
Leader humility has been a hot topic for the last decade but Cindy Zapata, Ph.D., an associate professor of Management and a Mays Research Fellow at Texas A&M’s Mays College of Business, will share the surprising results of her research into the consequences that humility has on a leader’s effectiveness. Although recent scholarly work identifies several benefits of humility, Dr. Zapata’s work demonstrates that there are also unintended downsides for the leader displaying humility. She is an award-winning, highly cited scholar with multiple publications in top Management journals, including: the Academy of Management Journal, Journal of Applied Psychology and Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, among others.
- Just Right: A Person-Environment Fit Approach to Visionary Leadership
The recipient of the 2016 Alvah H. Chapman Jr. Outstanding Dissertation Award presented by the FIU Center for Leadership in partnership with the Network of Leadership Scholars — Wongun Goo, Ph.D. — will present the dissertation findings that earned him this distinction. Dr. Woo’s research examined the joint effect of the visionary leadership that employees need and receive on their attitudes toward their supervisors. Dr. Goo is an assistant professor at the School of Business and Economics at Indiana University East, where he has taught leadership and human resource management in the Master of Science in Management program.
“These research findings will surprise many as they show that what we thought made for an effective leader deserves some rethinking,” says Dr. Hiller. “Sometimes common sense can lead us down a wrong path.”
The 2017 Leadership Research Colloquium will be on April 11, 2017 from 2:00pm – 3:30pm (doors open at 1:30pm) at Special Events Center in the College of Business on the Modesto A. Maidique campus of FIU. It is open to the public but advance registration is requested.