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Preparing people to participate fully in leadership roles will strengthen the social and economic fabric of Australia - and research undertaken at The University of Western Australia will help create leaders who are better prepared to tackle the challenges facing the nation.

Woodside Professor of Leadership and Management at the UWA Business School, Professor David Day, is the recipient of an Australian Research Council Discovery grant of more than $210,000 to develop an integrative theory of leader development.

He will work primarily with the Infosys Leadership Institute, the corporate education branch of a global Indian-based company with more than 100,000 employees worldwide.  The goal of the research is to identify groups of people who change in similar ways in leadership programs and to enhance the effectiveness of programs by helping more people to change in positive ways.

Professor Day said preliminary research with students involved in leadership development programs showed an overall negative trend among most participants in their rated effectiveness as leaders.  Although this may seem surprising, he suggested this was because the programs challenged participants' thinking and behaviour in ways that forced them to do things differently.  But a smaller group of participants showed positive trends in their rated effectiveness as leaders across the program.  The research that will be conducted for the grant will attempt to better understand these different classes of developmental trends.

Professor Day said helping support other team members in meeting team project goals, connecting individual contributions with team project goals, helping to set the direction of the team, and helping the team learn are aspects of effective leadership in the kinds of action learning teams that were studied.

"It's important to develop the sort of everyday leadership that organisations and societies need," he said.  "Building relationships, working with others to achieve common goals, helping to meet others' needs - these attributes would make the world a better place for a lot of people."

"Everyone can be a better leader by practising desired leadership skills, engaging in self-understanding and taking the perspectives of others, and accepting honest feedback," Professor Day said.  "Research has shown that about 30 per cent of leadership development is based on genetics and the other 70 per cent is due to factors such as learning.  People can develop the leadership skills needed to build an environmentally sustainable society, creating frontier industry technologies, and safeguarding Australia.  I want to help improve that process."

Media references

Professor David Day (+61 8)  6488 3516  /  (+61 4) 47 772 340
Sally-Ann Jones (UWA Public Affairs)  (+61 8)  6488 7975  /  (+61 4) 20 790 098