Reference no: EM132987904

Modern Leadership in a Professional Association

For this project, you are an organizational development (OD) professional with expertise on Leaderless groups and movements. You belong to a multi-national professional association (ODPA) whose membership has declined steadily for the past five years.

ODPA's board of directors (Board) conducted a member satisfaction survey last month and the results were startling:

• More than half of OPDA members question the relevance of ODPA in light of the current environment.
• Sixty-five percent of OPDA members are independent contractors or work for companies with fewer than 10 people.
• More than 30% of members received advanced degrees 30 years ago or longer, more than 50% between 10 years and 29 years ago, and fewer than 10% graduated within the last nine years.
• Fewer than 5% of the members could name one OPDA Board member.

In light of the survey data results, the OPDA executive director (Director) has called to ask If you can help. The Director, located in Toronto, Canada, is concerned that the Board is out of touch with current organizational environments, OD trends, and escalating challenges for organizational development professionals. The current seven Board members are geographically distributed in Australia, England, Germany, Japan, and the United States. The Board holds an annual meeting in Toronto and quarterly web-based conference meetings.

The Director wants to "educate" the Board as a necessary step to raise a sense of urgency about the organization. Otherwise, the Director fears ODPA may not be sustainable. The Director's assessment is that the Board:

Question 1: Does not fully appreciate its leadership role

Question 2: Has not embraced workforce demographic changes that impact membership

Question 3: Cannot make sense of classical versus autonomist leadership or traditional versus evolved leadership theory

Question 4: Does not understand leadership discourses of modern times