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Keywords Leadership, Growth, Continuing education
Abstract This article examines the demands of emerging technologies, particularly electronic and mobile enterprises, for executives who are externally and internally expansive. Expansive leaders are people who are avid continuous learners. They may have an external focus (learning and developing technology, organizations, and work teams) and/or an internal focus (developing themselves and their relationships with others). The paper offers diagnostic questions for assessing situations and individuals, and offers recommendations for management development interventions to enhance individual expansiveness and faci&tate the value of expansive leadership.
The digital revolution has produced remarkable advances in information collection, speed and volume of information transmission, modes of reception, and breadth of access. Information availability and analysis can be customized to answer specific questions with high precision and reliability. Applications include data analysis and decision making in the form of expert systems and artificial intelligence. New information systems, products, and services are emerging in such fields as health care, public policy, financial analysis, entertainment, human resource administration, manufacturing operations, and transportation. Internal organizational processes and operations are changing with the advent of enterprise-wide, distributed data systems. Information technology also assists individuals in daily activities such as time management and communication.
Technological infusion requires expansive leaders - people who are continuously learning about technology, investing in their organization's success, and building effective interpersonal relationships. Expansiveness is continuous development of competencies needed to meet the demands of technological, economic and global change. Expansive individuals are the technical experts who conceptualize and bring about innovations, the organization power brokers who establish new enterprises, and the operations experts who create productive work methods and structures for delivering technology. They are passionate and driven. However, they need to balance their own external growth (for instance, acquiring technological expertise) with internal growth (refining self-knowledge and being sensitive to others' goals and capabilities).
The foundation of expansiveness
The concept of expansiveness derives from motivation and learning theories. Considering motivation theories, expansiveness is closely related to the concept of "growth, need, strength", which has been defined as individuals' readiness to respond positively to job challenge (Hackman and Lawler, 1971; Hackman and Oldham, 1975, 1980). However, the concept of expansiveness goes beyond reactions to job enrichment in that it entails a desire for...