Gerard Seijts

Western University | UWO · Ian O. Ihnatowycz Institute for Leadership

Virtues and character strengths are often assumed to be universal, considered equally important to individuals across cultures, religions, racial-ethnic groups, and genders. The results of our surveys and laboratory studies, however, bring to light subtle yet consistent gender differences in the importance attributed to character in leadership: wom...

The COVID-19 pandemic provided an opportunity to explore the relationships among character, identification-based trust, and perceptions of leadership effectiveness in the context of crisis leadership. Focusing on the leadership of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, we first explore whether Canadians of voting age believe character is important...

We investigated the relationship between self-ratings of leader character and follower positive outcomes—namely, subjective well-being, resilience, organizational commitment, and work engagement—in a public-sector organization using a time-lagged cross-sectional design involving 188 leader—follower dyads and 22 offices. Our study is an important st...

We investigate whether a framework drawn from the field of organizational management can be used by citizens of two countries with different political history and culture to assess character. Drawing on a survey administered two weeks before the 2016 US presidential election, we report that Canadians and Americans are the same in how they evaluate...

Purpose There has been a surge of interest in leader character and a push to bring character into mainstream management theory and practice. Research has shown that CEOs and board members have many questions about the construct of leader character. For example, they like to see hard data indicating to what extent character contributes to organizati...

Drawing from the field of management studies, we explore how a sample of voters in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom use a leader character framework to judge political leadership. We ask, how do voters actually assess the character of their current leaders? And, in light of the populist zeitgeist, do people who hold a populist atti...

Despite the critical leadership role that corporate boards play in organizations, the character of their members has been neglected in research studies. We used a multi-method data collection approach to explore whether current directors in the public, private, and not-for-profit sectors believe that leader character plays an important role in boar...

In exploratory research, we investigate whether a recently developed framework of leader character, grounded in the business administration literature, has any utility for understanding how citizens value the character of modern political leaders. We are interested in whether the entire leader character framework, or only a subset of its dimensions...

Leader character is foundational to good leadership. We define character as an amalgam of virtues, values, and personality traits that influence how leaders behave in various contexts. Our research identified 11 dimensions of leader character and 60-plus character elements that are illustrative of those dimensions. We integrate two frameworks: John...

While the construct of character is well grounded in philosophy, ethics, and more recently psychology, it lags in acceptance and legitimacy within management research and mainstream practice. Our research seeks to remedy this through four contributions. First, we offer a framework of leader character that provides rigor through a three-phase, multi...

Recent financial crises and other high-profile mismanagement cases have brought a spotlight to the quality of leader character in the business sector. Leadership in Practice is the first book to provide an authoritative collection of cases to engage students interested in the importance of the character of business leaders. The authors have compile...

Business schools strive to develop leadership excellence in their students. In this essay, we suggest that educators should find ways to help students develop and deepen leader character, a fundamental component of exemplary leadership. Frequently, business school students have preconceived ideas of leadership, often neglecting leader character. We...

In this chapter, we seek to elaborate how character is developed in business schools both deliberately and often unintentionally. We explore how character development can be purposefully embedded in specific leadership as well as functional courses and propose how business schools influence character development in perhaps a more unconscious manner...

This article reviews goal-setting theory in terms of the causal relationships it specifies, the boundary conditions within which the causal relationships occur, and the mediators that explain the causal relationships. Three types of goals are described: performance, behavioral, and learning. Emphasis in the article is placed on findings regarding t...

This book focuses on leadership character and how to develop it. The book begins by setting the context for leadership character in business and then focuses on each of 11 character dimensions, defining it, exploring its elements and identifying whether and how it can learned, developed, molded or changed and applied in a business setting. It concl...

this paper coalesces knowledge from both literatures and presents a compelling argument why goal setting and goal orientation literatures can make a meaningful contribution to the practice of management

To ensure that the theory of leader character is developed through a performativity lens, we seek to bridge the theory - practice gap by asking: What are the essential elements of leader character in organizational contexts? In responding to this research question we make two core contributions. First, our research serves to bring leader character...

Leadership is a crucial influence on employee engagement within a firm. Yet, despite the importance of employee engagement to organizational outcomes, rigorous empirical study of the relationship between leadership and employee engagement is only just beginning. Of particular interest and importance is the question of how leaders can facilitate eng...

Our objective is to encourage and enable leadership character development in business education. Building on a model of character strengths and their link to virtues, values, and ethical decision making, we describe an approach to develop leadership character at the individual, group, and organizational levels. We contrast this approach to existing...

We present a comprehensive model that integrates virtues, values, character strengths and ethical decision making (EDM). We describe how a largely consequentialist ethical framework has dominated most EDM scholarship to date. We suggest that reintroducing a virtue ethical perspective to existing EDM theories can help to illustrate deficiencies in e...

Discusses the construct of goal commitment (GC) in terms of its measurement and relationship to task performance. The author begins by presenting the conceptual definition of goal commitment as based on recommendations for scale development and construct validation strategies suggested by D. Jackson. This is followed by the exploration of the GC's...

Executive Overview Contrary to the extant thinking on motivation in the workplace, we argue that performance or outcome goals can have a deleterious effect on one's performance. We demonstrate that in situations where primarily the acquisition of knowledge and skills rather than an increase in effort and persistence is required, a specific challeng...

The effect of commitment to a learning goal, self-efficacy, and the interaction between learning goal difficulty and goal commitment with performance was investigated using a highly complex business simulation. Participants (n = 128) needed to acquire knowledge in order to perform the task effectively. The correlation between commitment to the lear...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate employees' reactions to a comprehensive change: to change aspects of the organization's working atmosphere at a mid‐sized municipal government located in Ontario, Canada. It aims to use the perception of success of the ongoing change effort as the main dependent variable. Design/methodology/appro...

William (Bill) Aziz has an unusual approach to change management. Once, when facilitating the turnaround of a major freight company, he rode with a truck driver on an overnight run. At the end of the trip, he got out and went to the company cafeteria to get something to eat. Not recognizing the unfamiliar face, a driver came over and asked who Aziz...

The purpose of this experiment was to examine the interplay of goal content, conscientiousness, and tension on performance following negative feedback. Undergraduate students were assigned either a learning or performance goal and then were provided with false feedback indicating very poor performance on the task they performed. After assessing ten...

This book presents a model of leadership based on competencies, character and commitment. The model was derived following interviews, individually and in group sessions, with more than 300 executives and entrepreneurs following the financial crisis in 2008.

This book describes the kind of leadership required for complex business organizations in which a cross enterprise perspective is required.

We tested the combined effects of goal type and cognitive ability on task performance using a moderately complex task. Business students (N=105) worked on a 24min class scheduling task. The results showed that participants with higher cognitive ability benefited more from the setting of a performance goal as opposed to a learning goal. The reverse...

We investigated the effect of interview format and employment equity program strength on perceptions of fairness. We used job seekers and vignettes to test the hypotheses. The participants reported lukewarm support for employment equity programs. The use of a situational interview in the selection process of an organisation that had adopted an empl...

The relationship between the difficulty level of a learning goal and a person's (N = 146) performance on a task that required the acquisition of knowledge to perform effectively was examined. Multiple hierarchical regression analysis revealed that the higher the learning goal, the higher the person's performance. Cognitive ability and goal commitme...

We investigated the relationship between knowledge about the demonstrated benefits of breastfeeding and individual support for breastfeeding accommodation in the workplace. We tested our hypotheses by asking participants to respond to vignettes that described the factors a Director of Human Resources had to consider in responding to the needs of a...

This article reports on the transfer of perinatal services at St. Joseph's Health Care, in London, Ontario, to London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC). The transfer of perinatal programs, services and people/providers to LHSC generates concern in key stakeholders with respect to a potential negative impact on the quality of care delivery, staff work l...

A Model for Managing HR Change Determining the Desired End State Assessing the Readiness for Change Initiating Change Adopting New Behaviors Stabilizing New Behaviors HR and Changing Times

The authors developed and tested a longitudinal multilevel model of collective efficacy formation. In 50 self-managing student teams, they investigated the effects of individual-level and team-level factors on observed behaviors and the subsequent development of collective efficacy for mastering a complex team task. Self-efficacy for teamwork, task...

The use of drug testing in the workplace is a controversial practice. Scholars, practitioners, unions, and organizations have therefore begun to explore whether there are alternative approaches to reduce counterproductive behaviors at work. We investigated the perceptions of labor relations experts, drivers of transportation vehicles, and users of...

The use of drug testing in the workplace is a controversial practice. Scholars, practitioners, unions, and organizations have therefore begun to explore whether there are alternative approaches to reduce counterproductive behaviors at work. We investigated the perceptions of labor relations experts, drivers of transportation vehicles, and users of...

Contrary to the extant thinking on motivation in the workplace, we argue that performance or outcome goals can have a deleterious effect on one's performance. We demonstrate that in situations where primarily the acquisition of knowledge and skills rather than an increase in effort and persistence is required, a specific challenging learning rather...

The effect of workplace accommodation on perceptions of fairness was investigated. Vignettes describing an organization that did or did not accommodate the needs of a breastfeeding employee were used to test the hypotheses. Accommodation had a positive effect on perceptions of fairness. This effect was stronger for participants with children. Perce...

Uniting separate research streams on situational and dispositional goals, we investigated goal setting and goal orientation together in a complex business simulation. A specific learning goal led to higher performance than did either a specific performance goal or a vague goal. Goal orientation predicted performance when the goal was vague. The per...

We investigated U.S. and Canadian reactions to workplace drug and alcohol testing programs. Canadian truck drivers (n = 183) deemed drug and alcohol testing policies less fair, and were less accepting of these policies, than their American counterparts (n = 153). We also compared the perspectives of recipients versus third-party observers with rega...

Subfields of psychology can be arguably characterized as islands of unconnected knowledge. The underlying theme of this paper is that these subfields have much to gain by looking at and studying each other's respective literature. This paper explains how the field of industrial/organizational (I/O) psychology has benefited from theory and research...

Many organizations have begun to implement drug and alcohol testing programs to screen potential and existing employees for substance abuse in an effort to curb counterproductive behavior at work. Paradoxically, these policies can be seen as unfair and potentially result in counterproductive behavior. The present study investigated whether differen...

A model of the relationships between leader role-efficacy for initiating structure behavior, staff role-efficacy for team playing behavior, actual behavior, collective-efficacy, and team performance was tested. Participants (N = 268) were randomly assigned to newly formed teams (n = 59) that worked on a novel task under time constraints. The result...

The paper presents the results of two vignette studies that examine how company breastfeeding accommodation influences ratings of organizational attractiveness and work-related intentions. North American business students and employees engaged in long-term employment found organizations that accommodate breastfeeding to be more fair, attractive, an...

We investigated the effects of employment equity and situational interview procedures on student participants' perceptions of fairness regarding an organization's selection processes and perceived qualifications of an aboriginal job applicant. Students enrolled at a Canadian university participated in the research. Written scenarios that contained...

The effects of learning versus outcome distal goals in conjunction with proximal goals were investigated in a laboratory setting using a class-scheduling task. The participants (n = 96) needed to acquire knowledge in order to perform the task correctly. A ‘do your best’ outcome goal led to higher performance than the assignment of a specific, diffi...

The effect of self- and group efficacy on the performance of three-person (N=26) and seven-person (N=28) groups on a mixed-motive investment task was investigated. The correlations between group efficacy for making money and the actual amount of money made by the groups were positive and significant. The relation between group efficacy and the grou...

Examined the effect of self-set personal and assigned group goal setting on an individual's behavior in 3- and 7-person groups confronted with a social dilemma. 274 Ss earned between $1.82 and $4.94 by investing money in either a personal account or a group account. Self-set personal goals that were compatible with an assigned group goal led to hig...

The effect of a proximal plus a distal goal was investigated relative to setting only a distal goal or urging participants to do their best. Young adults (N=39) were paid on a piece rate basis to make toys. An analysis of variance revealed that the amount of money earned by the participants who were urged to ‘do your best’ was significantly greater...

The effect of a proximal plus a distal goal was investigated relative to setting only a distal goal or urging participants to do their best. Young adults (N = 39) were paid on a piece rate basis to make toys. An analysis of variance revealed that the amount of money earned by the participants who were urged to 'do your best' was significantly great...

If faculty are truly committed to becoming more effective teachers, they should set learning goals, proximal goals, behavioural goals, or a combination thereof. Commitment to these goals will be optimized when faculty hold beliefs that contribute to high self‐efficacy and when outcome expectancies are personally valued. Furthermore, individuals nee...

The ability to foresee and anticipate, to make plans for and organize future possibilities, represents one of the most outstanding traits of individuals. Theories of work motivation, however, appear to have ignored the construct of future time perspective. In this article, the relationships between future time perspective, the capacity to plan acti...

Examined whether the type of appraisal instrument (behavioral observation scales [BOS], behaviorally anchored rating scales [BARS], trait scales, or using no formal appraisal instrument) affected satisfaction with a peer appraisal and perceptions of fairness. 91 managers, while working in teams on a simulated task, provided one another with feedbac...

In a laboratory study using undergraduate students ( N = 200), perceived task importance was found to moderate the relationship between goal level and performance. Moreover, participants performed better when both the goal and performance were public rather than anonymous. These findings suggest that by manipulating task importance and publicness o...

This article discusses the beneficial effects of setting goals in health behavior change and maintenance interventions. Goal setting theory predicts that, under certain conditions, setting specific difficult goals leads to higher performance when compared with no goals or vague, nonquantitative goals, such as "do your best." In contrast to the grad...

To explore behavioral factors that determine whether children (aged 7 to 13 years) wear bicycle safety helmets. Cross-sectional survey. Three Dutch primary schools in Breda, Maastricht, and Terneuzen, the Netherlands. Two hundred fifty-nine children aged 7 to 13 years. Wearing a bicycle safety helmet for 6 consecutive weeks. Information about exper...