Finding George Bailey: Wonderful leaders, wonderful lives

 
 
 
 

Finding George Bailey: Wonderful leaders, wonderful lives

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dc.contributor.advisor Wergin, Jon en_US
dc.contributor.author Light, Mark en_US
dc.date.accessioned 2008-07-07T02:31:40Z
dc.date.available 2008-07-07T02:31:40Z
dc.date.created 2007 en_US
dc.date.issued 2008-07-07T02:31:40Z
dc.identifier.uri http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=antioch1197743345 en_US
dc.identifier.uri http://hdl.handle.net/2374.OX/4037
dc.description He is underpaid and overworked, his organization lives from payroll to payroll with an overtaxed and underpowered staff and a contentious board of directors. He sacrifices for the mission, but is frustrated about forgone personal dreams. He is George Bailey, the central character in Frank Capra's film It's a Wonderful Life and he practices Leadership for Good by being a mission centered, visionary, results driven, and adaptive difference maker. Through a construct-building non-generalizable mixed methods study with two concurrent, but independent phases—instrumental case study and Delphi—this study searched for real-life Baileys, to test whether or not Leadership for Good extends beyond the silver screen, to see whether or not life imitates art. The results supported all five propositions, although certain elements within the propositions were refuted and new elements substantiated. In addition to gaining a deeper understanding of the Leadership for Good construct, enriching the literature about nonprofit leadership, and reinforcing the usefulness of mixed methods research including Delphi technique, the study suggested that there were two primary types of leaders—those with a bias for growth and those with a bias for execution—who delivered equally superior financial results to the bottom line. As part of this finding, it appeared that these leaders practiced situational leadership in the here-and-now, but used contingency leadership over the long run to gravitate to preferred contexts—growth or execution—that corresponded roughly to periods of evolution and revolution. Other implications of the study were the reinforcement of the centrality of mission at the personal and organization levels, a more comprehensive understanding about what causes stress for those who practice Leadership for Good, and the ways in which leaders think about change. The electronic version of the dissertation is accessible at the OhioLINK ETD center http://www.ohiolink.edu/etd/. en_US
dc.format application/pdf en_US
dc.format 310p. en_US
dc.rights unrestricted en_US
dc.rights Copyright and permissions information available at the source archive en_US
dc.subject leadership en_US
dc.subject change en_US
dc.subject purposeful en_US
dc.subject servant leadership en_US
dc.subject self-sacrifice en_US
dc.subject trustworthy en_US
dc.subject vision en_US
dc.subject visionary en_US
dc.subject results driven en_US
dc.subject decisive en_US
dc.subject determined en_US
dc.subject dependable en_US
dc.subject adaptive en_US
dc.subject alert en_US
dc.subject aligned en_US
dc.subject allied en_US
dc.subject empowerment en_US
dc.subject nonprofit en_US
dc.title Finding George Bailey: Wonderful leaders, wonderful lives en_US
dc.type Electronic Thesis or Dissertation en_US
dc.degree.name PhD en_US
dc.degree.discipline Leadership and Change en_US
dc.degree.grantor Antioch University en_US
dc.contributor.publisher Antioch University / OhioLINK en_US

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