Engaging Research

[Debbie Payne]

Where would you start if you were writing a literature review leadership research paper on the topic of engage others as it relates to fostering development, communicating effectively, building teams, and contributing to the creation of a healthy organization? I'm looking for the top authors in the field in these topic areas. specific journals to look at, or bodies of knowledge that I need to include and need to write the 25 page paper fast as it has the potential to be used as a published book chapter. Any direction on the "need to include" and the "nice to include" references are deeply appreciated. Im happy to share back a link to the paper in this network once it is complete.

[Debbie Payne]

Hi Lisa,
The focus is to illustrate that there is evidence based research to support that "engage others" is one of five leadership capabilities in a new leadership development framework. Im not looking for older, classic studies but rather current topical literature that supports this premise. Hope this clarifies and thanks for asking!
Debbie

[Tim Wright]

Debbie -

Several books that I've read/enjoyed/learned from have impacted how I work with managers and leaders in stimulating their thinking about building a culture that engages.

Don't know that these are "top authors" in their fields. In fact, a couple of these are single excellences. But I find them rich in thought. And well expressed.

The Art of Original Thinking, Jan Phillips
The Art of Possibility, Benjamin Zander and Rosamund Zander
Blink, Malcolm Gladwell
Blue Ocean Strategy, Kim and Maugborgne
Storycatcher, Christina Baldwin

Tim

[Rich Tomsinski]

One book you may want to read and include is Followership, by Barbara Kellerman.

The book demonstrates the importance of followership by examining historical situations in the author’s engagment classification framework. The classifications are: Isolates, Bystanders, Participants, Activists and Diehards. This framework is based on levels of engagement, and is very intuitive. The historical stories are intellectually relevant and emotionally dramatic. For example, Kellerman poses that Hitler’s diabolical, effective and powerful leadership would not have been possible without Isolates and Bystanders. In fact, in a little known situation, the Nazi troops released the Jewish husbands of German women when the wives – Participants – at great personal risk demonstrated for their release. What if more of the German citizenry had become more engaged – moving from Bystander to Participant – when the unjust and lethal activities were perpetrated against their neighbor Jews? Other examples include Merck and their Vioxx debacle, and the Catholic church with the Voice of the Faithful, about bringing to light the sexual misconduct of priests.

This book may help expand one's understanding of engagement and possibly change thinking about leadership. I think you will find it to be excellent.

[Stephen J. Gill]

I suggest you look at the Network Forum on "The Latest Research on Employee Engagement" started by David Zinger. Some of those references might be useful to you.

[Kurt McDowell]

Don't forget to study why employees leave. There is a book by Leigh Branham called Seven Hidden Reasons Employees Leave which took over 20,000 exit interviews and created these seven factors. He also has a site called keepingyouremployees.com or keepingthepeople.com (something like that).

The usual suspects are in this book, but the empirical evidence is there to support it.

[Nicole Aitken]

This is one of my favorites.

The Quality of Work: A People Centred Agenda
by Graham S. Lowe

Also, the new journal from APA's I/O division called "Industrial and Organizational Psychology: Perspectives on Science and Practice" has dedicated the first issue to research in employee engagement. I thought people might like to check it out. Here is a link to the online table of contents.

http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/toc/iops/1/1

[Warren Young]

We used the Corporate Leadership Council (which has since launched it own EE tool) for building a business case which included a literature review. Their strength was that they use aggregated reaserch from client organisations which precludes "consultancy" views. So its rich in case studies that demonstrated the organisational impact of engagament levels.

[Faye Schmidt]

Hi Debbie: Sounds like an interesting project! As a little time has now gone by I'm wondering if you completed your lit review and, if so, if it is a public document you can share. Seeing a review of the current literature on engagement and its link to leadership would be really interesting.
Cheers
Faye Schmidt