Flexible Leadership: Creating Value by Balancing Multiple Challenges and Choices, (2004).

Yukl and Lepsinger provide an excellent overview of these competencies and illustrate them with business examples such as Southwest Airlines, an American company that has taken a lead in employee and customer satisfaction. By listening to employees, encouraging innovation and instituting changes based on their input, the company has been able to instill a culture of leadership where employees are encouraged to assume a variety of roles in their work day. Southwest is also mentioned as being an exemplary organization that scans the external environment then making "tactical changes without losing sight of the core competencies or disrupting its image."

Much the same can be said about research offices in universities. Yukl and Lepsinger would probably agree that the image of leaders in the administrative field would not be tarnished if they assumed a flexible approach to coordination of research projects. Instead they would be lauded for their innovation and ability to foster a climate of trust and cooperation.

Frances Chandler

Brock University

September 2006