Over the years, numerous studies have reported that female managers score better than male managers in the areas of empathy, communication and collaboration. Now, recent research conducted by Prof. Katleen De Stobbeleir and researcher Céline Claus of Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School shows that they score better for coaching, stakeholder management, handling diversity and results-orientation as well.
Posted on Wednesday, February 08, 2012
Every manager demonstrates a unique set of qualities, skills and values through their behaviour. But certain common factors have a bearing on how effectively they manage themselves and their subordinates. These are the findings of researchers at Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School in Flanders, after undertaking a study of how cognitive style influences managerial behaviour, specifically around decision-making, conflict-handling and feedback.
Posted on Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Entrepreneurs may exhibit common characteristics and cognitive styles. But are they unique? And can they be learned? A new study provides employers and investors with fresh perspectives.
Posted on Wednesday, November 09, 2011
How might compatibility between cognitive style and cognitive climate influence individual job satisfaction and loyalty to employers? A study by researchers at Vlerick Gent Management School shows that employees with a creating-oriented cognitive style (typically intuitive and receptive to change or new ideas) are more likely to want to change jobs if they find the predominantly cognitive climate not to their liking. But those with a knowing-oriented style (logical and objective) or planning-oriented style (structured and orderly) are less likely to make a dash for it. However, cognitive style and cognitive climate appear to have separate influences on people’s attitudes to their work – which means that, regardless of the predominance of one climate over another, understanding those relationships is essential for job design, selection, assessment, training and workforce planning.
Posted on Friday, September 16, 2011
It can no longer be denied that we will have to work longer to keep the social security system affordable. But how can we boost older employees' ability to continue in a rewarding job until they do finally retire? The fact that training plays a crucial part here is no revelation. The training does, however, often fail in its purpose because it is not adapted to the specific expectations and needs of this target group. This has become apparent from research conducted by Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School together with the Belgian Federal Public Service Employment, Labour and Social Dialogue and the European Social Fund (ESF) into specific training expectations among the over-45s. The most important conclusions? To ensure a good mix of ages, to focus on their strengths instead of what they cannot (any longer) do, and to make use of their high motivation to learn more skills.
Posted on Monday, August 22, 2011
In today’s dynamic workplace employees are expected to be proactive - seeking feedback, taking the initiative, selling ideas, taking charge, revising tasks and building social networks. But a new study shows that some employees may, in fact, pay a price for sticking their head above the parapet if they are not known to be top performers.
Posted on Friday, April 29, 2011
Inspiring a team to go forth and conquer demands more than just forging a common purpose – effective leaders must motivate members at a personal level, too. Teamwork propels competitiveness in today’s companies and teams have become an increasingly popular model for organizing the workplace. But teams are made up of individuals - and this can pose a significant challenge for managers eager to optimize performance by getting the very best out of all their staff. A new study explores how best to manage individuals and the whole team at the same time.
Posted on Friday, April 22, 2011
The Vlerick Centre for Excellence in People Performance has published a practical guide to managing employee performance called 'The Performance Generator'. This toolkit is full of questionnaires, frameworks and exercises – all developed from extensive research conducted over the past several years. How do you strengthen the capabilities that are so vital to managing people and performance? The Performance Generator provides tools to support people managers in developing these abilities. This article zooms in on the 5 skills crucial to generating employee energy.
Posted on Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Innovation is usually highly prized by employers. But how might employees selfregulate their own creative stimulus by seeking feedback? Might they be more inclined to share or try out new ideas if they know feedback will be forthcoming? And if that’s the case, what can employers do to create the conditions in which people are unafraid to brainstorm out loud?
Posted on Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Globalisation, the explosion of technology, rapidly changing laws that keep piling up, increasing consumer demands, takeovers and mergers, periods of crisis… what all these things have in common is that processes of change are becoming increasingly frequent and intense. We have no doubt that organisations are continually subject to change. The question remains how we can best deal with change to obtain a committed change process.
Posted on Monday, December 13, 2010