*1.2. The Achieving Styles Model*

The nine styles are grouped into three sets of domains: direct, instrumental, and relational. Each of these three domains subsumes three styles, resulting in the nine-fold achieving styles repertoire (see Figure 1).

**Figure 1.** Connective Leadership Model (Reprinted with permission from reference [1], Copyright Year: 1996, Copyright Owner's Name: Jean Lipman-Blumen, Ph.D.).

A brief overview of the domains and dimensions of the Connective Leadership/Achieving Styles Model [1] is offered in Table 1 below. For a more thorough explanation of these elements, please consult Appendix A.

**Table 1.** The Connective Leadership Model domains and dimensions.


In sum, these nine achieving styles that constitute the Connective Leadership Model [1] represent the available repertoire used effectively by connective leaders. The styles may be utilized in various combinations. While no individual style is intrinsically better than any other, the purpose of the Achieving Styles Model is to identify leadership strategies appropriate for each specific situation. Moreover, the Connective Leadership Model [1], based upon the nine achieving styles, describes the wide range of behaviors for promoting effectiveness in a world pulled in multiple directions by broad-based diversity and increasing interdependence.

The Connective Leadership Model [1] has wide applicability and flexibility in helping to assess and direct individuals, teams, and organizations to achieve greater and more fulfilling success through its emphasis on diversity and interdependence. This model of leadership is useful in understanding all individuals' profiles, whether they are in management/leadership positions or not, since it assumes that all individuals accomplish their tasks and achieve their goals through their Achieving Styles Profile. The authors of this study leveraged the fact that the participants had been educated in this model and had taken the ASI previously to explain how they had adapted to the COVID-19 pandemic. This also ties in well with the crisis model employed in this study.

#### *1.3. Crisis Leadership*

Convinced that the Connective Leadership Model [1] is a highly effective model for leaders during good times and difficult times, especially the COVID-19 pandemic, we identified a crisis leadership model to support our research project. We believed that this additional lens would bring focus to our study of the competencies and skills necessary for leaders as they navigate a crisis.

Sriharan et al. [21] conducted a meta-analysis of 35 crisis leadership and pandemicrelated articles drawn from business and medical sources published between 2003 (since SARS) and December 2020. The purpose of this study was to identify the leadership skills and competencies deemed critical during a pandemic. The analysis resulted in the creation of a model that organized crisis leadership into three thematic categories, task, people, and adaptive competencies, while recognizing the relationship with and importance of identifying politics, structure, and culture as contextual enablers and/or barriers [21], p. 482. The three overlapping competency groupings were illustrated and described as follows:


Sriharan et al.'s [21] meta-analysis reinforced that of Marcus [4]. This earlier work evolved through the founding and research work of the National Preparedness Leadership Initiative (NPLI). The formation of NPLI emerged from a gathering of government leaders and faculty from across Harvard University post-9/11, who met to gain an understanding of and plan for a more effective national response to crises [4] (p. ix). This work has been applied to the Boston Marathon bombings as well as the COVID-19 pandemic [4].

Through their extensive studies, Marcus [4] created a transformational crisis leadership model, Meta-Leadership [14], that consists of three dimensions of leadership (see Table 2) used to describe the various leadership behaviors and means (or tools) in a crisis to "seize the opportunity" as leaders to "find and achieve a complex equilibrium that extends [beyond a single leader or organization] to the broader community" [4] (p. 19). Circling back to the Connective Leadership Model [1] and linking these two models, the leader must understand the complexity and dynamic nature of a situation and modify their leadership style accordingly to see the opportunity and challenges ahead. We believe that this reciprocal relation validates the Connective Leadership Model [1] as one that can be used in a crisis and beyond; one that embodies the competencies, skills, and behaviors included in other studies, especially compared to the Meta-Leadership Model [4]. Table 2 below compares the two models.

**Table 2.** Comparison of the Meta-Leadership [4] and Connective Leadership Model [1] and their dimensions.


The Connective Leadership Model [1] and the additional lens of the Meta-Leadership Model [4] provide leaders with tools and processes to achieve high levels of authenticity, accountability, accessibility, and adaptability as they lead in a crisis.

Their behaviors "represented a blend of task and relational skills" described as elements of complexity leadership theory and their capacity to "initiate the development of 'care' behaviors as part of an androgynous approach to leadership" [15] (pp. 406–407). Through their understanding of the complexities or context of their situation, they were able to facilitate adaptive responses individually and through their teams, allowing for innovation, learning, and growth—"adaptive space"—giving them the opportunity to achieve a variety of system changes [10] (p. 403).

As in Kolga's 2023 study, our women leaders demonstrated indispensable behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic for effective communication and relationships that included "nurturing, empathy, cooperation, sensitivity, and warmth, behaviors often attributed to women's or feminine leadership" [15] (p. 405); behaviors consistent with Eagly's [14] gender social role theory that "women are communal and men are agentic" [22]. However, our women leaders, as noted above, utilized a "blend" of leadership behaviors embodying a "blended androgynous approach" [15] (p. 409). They are leaders who employed the broadest and most flexible leadership repertoire to meet the complex challenges manifested through a variety of contexts, meeting the demands of leadership in the Connective Era.

The participants in our study were able to "seize the opportunity" as leaders to "find and achieve a complex equilibrium that extends [beyond a single leader or organization] to the broader community" [4] (p. 19), employing the broadest and most flexible leadership repertoire to meet the complex challenges of the Connective Era.

#### **2. Materials and Methods**

We performed a mixed-method study employing the Achieving Styles Inventory (ASI) and an interview protocol with the 15 women participants; it was primarily a qualitative study with the psychometric inventory being used as a framing tool (see Appendix B to see a sampling of ASI items and Appendix C to see the interview protocol). Each participant completed the ASI prior to the onset of COVID-19, within 10 years prior to spring 2022 and again during that same spring before the interviews were conducted. The interviews were all conducted over a two-month period in the spring of 2022. The ASI results from the pre- and post-tests were shared at the time of the interview as a heuristic and a catalyst for the dialogues that ensued. The interviews were conducted via Zoom, and were either transcribed or recorded in typed notes.
