A logo-leadership intervention: Implications for leadership development

Abstract

Orientation: Logo-leadership development challenges leaders to move beyond financial or individual gain to accepting leadership as a calling.

Research purpose: The objective of the study was to ascertain whether an intervention embedded in the life and teachings of logo-therapist Viktor Frankl affects the way aspiring leaders construct leadership in terms of meaning (logo-leadership).

Motivation for the study: A consideration of Frankl’s life gives rise to the question of whether aspiring leaders can learn from and use his life teachings as an inspiration in the discovery of meaning for themselves as leaders.

Research approach, design and method: Participants comprised 20 students registered for an MCom degree at a South African metropolitan university. The research process involved three phases: (1) a pre-intervention questionnaire, (2) an appreciative inquiry intervention and (3) a post-intervention questionnaire. Framework analysis and a comparative method were used to analyse the data.

Main findings: A meaning-centred leadership development intervention may impact the leadership role orientation of aspiring leaders, changing it from a predominantly career orientation to a calling. However, this effect largely occurred on an explicit (extrinsic) level.

Managerial implications: Organisations that wish to develop logo-leadership may consider using the life teachings and work of Frankl as a development tool.

Contribution/value-add: This study contributes theoretically to a relatively new development within the field of Frankl’s logotherapy, leadership with meaning (logo-leadership). On apractical level, this study introduced the concept of logo-leadership for leadership development and suggests that leadership may be influenced by exposure to a leadership intervention.