Search results

The purpose of this paper is to examine the prevalence of purposeful and ethical leadership in a UK county police force – referred to by the pseudonym PoliceOrg. The paper also evaluates the extent to which officers feel their values fit with those of the organisation, and the outcomes achieved by purposeful and ethical leaders.

A questionnaire survey, interviews and focus groups were conducted at PoliceOrg. The findings are compared with those from a public sector case study and with a representative sample of the UK working population.

Purposeful leaders at PoliceOrg have a positive impact on important outcomes for their direct reports and provide a sense of direction and guidance to those who do not feel a strong fit between their values and those of their organisation.

The study focuses on a new construct (purposeful leadership) that has not previously been explored in the academic literature. Consequently, the findings cannot be directly compared with those of other studies. The survey focused on the views of police sergeants and constables, and only one police force participated as a case study; hence, the generalisability of the findings is limited.

Police organisations should nurture and sustain workplace environments where leaders can translate their personal moral code and ethical values into their role behaviours to address the policing challenges of the future.

This study elucidates the concept of purposeful leadership in the context of a police force.

This article aims to question the narrow focus of the existing approaches to leadership development, and guide organizations to a more systemic perspective.

The findings are based on the review of academic literature on the subjects of leadership and management, as well as surveys of 2,069 UK employees (including 806 individuals with managerial responsibilities), 467 HR professionals from the CIPD membership database, 128 senior HR professionals, and 250 senior decision-makers.

Although most organizations today provide leadership development activities to their employees, the focus of those activities, and the lack of enabling organizational systems and processes, may inhibit leader behaviors in practice, potentially explaining the lack of leadership and management skills in UK organizations.

In developing a leadership development strategy that is aligned with business priorities, organizations should consider which segments of the workforce can add value by demonstrating leader behaviors, which aspects of organizational context might act as enablers or barriers to individuals demonstrating those behaviors, and which incentives are in place to stimulate leader behaviors.

The argument steps away from discussing the construct of “leadership”, assuming that its definitions will vary among organizations, and emphasizes the context in which leaders operate and HR practices as having impact on the effectiveness of leaders.

This paper aims to introduce the concept of shared-value and propose how it could be applied in the field of human resource management (HRM).

Conceptual paper presenting key ideas.

The ability to connect the interests of people and the business is seemingly within the remit of human resource (HR), yet the people management function has been slow to implement the shared-value creation idea. A principles-based approach to HRM, underpinned by a body of knowledge, is proposed as the way forward.

While many other professions have adopted a principles-based approach to setting standards of good practice, the development of principles of human capital management is nascent. This paper discusses the feasibility of this approach for the HR profession.