Kansas State University

search

The Loop

Category: Third Floor Research

Third Floor Research Sheds Light on the Need for Leadership Development in the High-Tech Industry

Posted on by Staley School of Leadership

What about the problems that can’t be solved with our technical expertise? What about the problems that do not follow “If A then B logic? Workplace challenges like team conflict, burnout, or lack of communication aren’t like a computer crash that can be handed off to an expert to fix.

This article is the fourth entry of a blog series showcasing Third Floor Research’s findings. In this entry, we present the results of a study which highlights the specific needs of high-tech companies in their work environments that can be addressed through the application of leadership skills.

The graphic cover for the Third Floor Research Report, Leadership Development for Global Organizations in the High-tech industry. Over 2019-2020, Third Floor Research conducted a study on a five-week leadership development program at the Kansas Leadership Center, involving approximately 230 employees from a high-tech company across five global sites. Phase 1 of the study, utilizing a survey-based qualitative approach, explored the challenges faced by organizations and their teams in the workplace, as well as the ways peers, employees, and superiors should address these challenges. Researchers Tim Steffensmeier and Tamas Kowalik from Kansas State University, along with Tim O’Brien from Harvard University, point our attention to these challenges in their published report Leadership Development for Global Organizations in the High-tech Industry. The findings revealed a significant need for companies and corporations to saturate their workplace with leadership concepts and skills.

The study identifies eight pressing challenges reported by high-tech industry participants in their companies: Continue reading “Third Floor Research Sheds Light on the Need for Leadership Development in the High-Tech Industry” →

How Kansans beat the virus: Third Floor Research reveals the impact of civic leadership in addressing public health challenges

Posted on by Staley School of Leadership

This article is the third entry of a blog series showcasing Third Floor Research’s findings on the impact of leadership development programs and civic engagement efforts. In this entry, we showcase findings from a Third Floor Research study on the Kansas Beats the Virus campaign.

The COVID-19 pandemic posed significant challenges, prompting Kansas communities to innovate. In response, the Kansas Leadership Center (KLC), in partnership with state and local communities, launched the Kansas Beats the Virus (KBTV) in 2020 and 2021. These efforts mobilized citizens across the state to address public health issues. The projects highlight the significance of large-scale community engagement and underscore the transformative potential of collective action.

How Kansas united to drive change: What we learned from our Mass Civic Action Campaign

The global pandemic disrupted daily life and demanded new ways of working and interacting with others, especially in Kansas during the fall of 2020. A strong community spirit emerged, amidst lockdowns, school closures, and economic challenges. Recognizing the need for collective action, the state of Kansas partnered with the KLC to launch KBTV, a citizen-led initiative to slow the virus’s spread. The KLC organized 1,000 community meetings over five weeks, demonstrating how empowering local communities to create their own solutions can exercise leadership and lead to impactful action projects. Continue reading “How Kansans beat the virus: Third Floor Research reveals the impact of civic leadership in addressing public health challenges” →

Third Floor Research unveils the impact of leadership programs on individuals

Posted on by Staley School of Leadership

“Is it worth attending leadership training?” This article is the second entry of a blog series showcasing Third Floor Research’s findings on the impact of leadership development programs and civic engagement efforts. In this entry, we explore recent insights into how these programs enhance individual competencies.

There was a time when the term “leader” was associated with genetic, innate, and inborn capabilities that not everyone possesses. This definition confines leadership to specific times and places where a leader emerges. Although this belief remains widely accepted, a new paradigm has replaced “leader” with “leadership,” defining it as an activity that can be learned and practiced by anyone, anytime, and anywhere. Third Floor Research, an applied research partnership between the Kansas Leadership Center (KLC) and the Staley School of Leadership, has recently provided empirical evidence supporting this idea.

Recently, Third Floor Research, in collaboration with the LeAD Labs at Claremont Graduate University, conducted a study assessing the impact of KLC’s Your Leadership Edge (YLE). YLE is a monthly leadership development program aiming to shift people’s understanding of leadership from a “leader-centric” to a “leadership as activity” perspective in response to their tough organizational and community challenges. The assessment was conducted on YLE online, which included more than 2,000 participants and took place February 2021 to February 2022, during the pandemic. Continue reading “Third Floor Research unveils the impact of leadership programs on individuals” →

Third Floor Research: Taking leadership learning to the next level 

Posted on by Staley School of Leadership

Take a moment to reflect on the context in which you carry out leadership, maybe it is in your organization or within your community. When trying to learn about leadership imagine the floors of a building. Starting with the first floor to make sense of context, this is where leadership action occurs. You can think of the second floor as a reflective site, here, people get up on the balcony to see what is happening on the first floor from a different perspective and make the case for a third-floor approach. Reflection and sense making occur on the third floor by evaluating and researching what takes place on the first and second floors.  

In this blog series, we invite you to join us on the third floor to gain a deeper understanding and critically assess what is and is not working in our leadership efforts. Authors will spotlight Third Floor Research, a joint research initiative between Kansas Leadership Center and Staley School of Leadership and explore several projects designed to advance the exercise of leadership and its development. The series will start by introducing Third Floor Research in this blog post with each blog that follows sharing a deeper dive into our findings that might be useful to individuals, leadership educators, organizations and communities.  

Author Carlie Snethen is a Leadership Communication Ph.D. student in the Staley School of Leadership and a Graduate Research Assistant with Third Floor Research. With the first blog in this series, she will introduce the work of Third Floor Research while describing the levels of impact that organizes their projects.  

What is Third Floor Research? 

Making change on large system issues can be a complex, challenging, and difficult journey to embark on. With programs across the country seeking to prepare and equip attendees to complete this work the need for impact assessment heightens along the way. As the Kansas Leadership Center (KLC) continues to prepare leaders to tackle their most compelling challenges, our curiosity for determining what is effective and how it impacts participants has increasingly become a priority. Taking an evidence-based approach to their framework, KLC continues to push the boundaries of how we understand leadership through an innovative partnership. 

Since its creation in 2007, KLC has been working to empower organizations, corporations, individuals, and communities to make progress on their toughest challenges through the idea that anyone can lead, anytime, and anywhere. KLC facilitates leadership development programs and has collaborated with over 15,000 alumni from 44 states and 62 countries across six continents. These alumni are from five primary sectors including education, non-profit, government, faith, and business. With this large swath of participants KLC engages a diverse range of community members through five core principles. Continue reading “Third Floor Research: Taking leadership learning to the next level “ →