by Kathleen Groll Connolly
Leaders with a high versatility index have employee teams with high job commitment and engagement according to a unique industry-university collaborative study at the North Carolina State University. The research was conducted by Dr. Beth Coberly under the supervision of Dr. Denis Gray, Professor, Department of Psychology, to improve the hit-rate of breakthrough innovations by faculty members who are involved in research for private business. They sought the key workplace factors that promote the job satisfaction, commitment, and engagement of highly creative knowledge workers. The study included faculty from nearly thirty cooperative research centers from around the U.S. “We found that leaders who were flexible at adjusting their styles and behaviors to the leadership situation also had the most satisfied and committed research teams,” says Dr. Gray.
Rob Kaiser, a partner with the executive development consultancy, Kaplan DeVries Inc., which also supported the research, points out that the number one motivator of commitment for the researchers in this study was personally meaningful work on compelling projects. “This is not a surprising result, in itself,” he says. “But it does underscore the importance of matching creative people to the right job and playing to their natural interests and talents.”
Kaiser continues, “What surprised us was that versatile leadership tied for second place with rewards as the next most important factor.” Kaiser concludes, “In other words, compensation is no substitute for weak leadership"
The study employed the Leadership Versatility Index® (LVI). The LVI measures the extent to which leaders have a well-rounded style and vary their approach with the situation, as opposed to over-relying on one way of leading or another. The LVI and its decade-long development are described in a 2006 book, "The Versatile Leader" (Pfeiffer/Wiley), coauthored by Bob Kaplan, Ph.D., and Rob Kaiser.
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