An initial analysis of leadership competencies for organization development intervention: a case study of educational QA agency

Abstract

This research is aims to determine the leadership competencies for organization development intervention; it is a case study on educational quality assessment (QA) agency in Thailand. The objectives consisted of first, to identify and compare the current and expected perception toward leadership competencies of employees and management, and second, to identify the most important leadership competency. The nature of this research work is research and development while employing the mixed method for data collection, analysis and interpretation. The eighty-one employees completed the questionnaires and ten of them were interviewed. The content validity on the instruments were reviewed by three experts prior to the realiability, Cronbach’s Alpha was tested. The result of reliability Cronbach indicated 0.968 on all questions in the questionniare. Key findings based on the survey showed that leaders “sometimes” demonstrated leading behaviors. Top three leadership competencies that are frequently perceived comprised professional knowledge, decision-making/problem-solving, and development of others. Statistically, there was significant difference between current and expected perception in every leadership competency component with the P value of 0.01. When comparing the perception between management and employee, it was found to have significant difference in driving result, strategic thinking and communication. When ranking all components of leadership competencies to determine the most important factors, the most important leadership competencies were professional knowledge, following with driving results, and strategic thinking. Qualitatively based on the interviews, employees recognized the needs for leadership competency to be develop with the emphasis on development of others, building a team, and supporting work performance. In conclusion, based on mixed methods data, the recommendations for leadership competency of the participating organization were that first, a roadmap to leadership competency development is essential, and second, customization on leadership competency in practices is to be done appropriately to minimize leadership competency gap among the management level.