Transitioning into Leadership:
Skills and Competencies for Success

Grounded Theory Research Project: Emerging Leaders

Kimberley A. Ilott

Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Athabasca University

MAIS640: Grounded Theory, Exploration, and Beyond

Professor Russ Wilde

June 2024

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Executive Summary

New leaders, those who are shifting into a leadership position from a staff position, can feel unprepared for the shift. This paper provides an overview of the research surrounding the benefits and challenges of this career shift, with the intention of identifying what skills and competencies are needed for a new leader to enable a successful transition. To support the proposed emerging theory that there is a commonality across skillsets and behaviours required by individuals who transition into leadership irrespective of experiences, the research anchored itself to conversational first-person social media platform data and grounded theory methodologies. With the use of first-person conversational data, research data collection, coding, and analysis resulted in the discovery of overlapped data categorizations even though the data stemmed from individual leader experiences. Further research activities enriched these findings with visualizations and statistical analysis. This paper reviews the grounded theory research process and methodologies employed that resulted in unexpected outcomes and enabled the emerging theory to be grounded in, and anchored to, data.

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1.0 Introduction

“To be a good leader you are forced to grow and learn continuously. Leadership is a good place to be to learn your weaknesses” (Reddit, 2024a). Being a leader is complex and multifaceted, often requiring extensive people skills as well as a willingness to learn both professionally and personally. In this paper, an emerging theory is proposed on the commonality across skillsets and behaviours that are required by individuals who transition into leadership, moving from a staff position into a leadership position. This paper will describe the key elements of the research process including the literature review and methodologies employed, as well as outline the high-level outcomes of the research including observations that could be expanded upon for a future study. Grounding the emerging theory to first-person data collected from a conversational social media platform, this grounded theory research project aims to identify the benefits and challenges associated with transitioning into leadership to enable the identification of patterns and cross-pollination amongst categories, leading to the discovery of key characteristics individuals should focus on when attempting to be successful in their leadership career shift.

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2.0 Literature Review

The initial scan for literature followed a traditional review process, identifying scholarly articles that spoke to transitioning into leadership from a staff position. However, through consultation with Russ Wilde (2024), it was noted that

“The challenge is that articles written by others will necessarily lead to coding of highly structured work that has already passed through another writer’s interpretation and synthesis. This is not a bad thing, but the more you can work from ‘raw’ conversational data, the better the practice in developing codes and categories that are grounded in the source data”.

 

Stemming from the above guidance, I refined the literature review to focus on conversational sources, and as such, I prioritized the truly conversational platforms ahead of those that were more opinion-oriented and contained singular individuals. Through this prioritization, I found Reddit to be the most useful conversational platform as it provided direct, non-curated, first-person responses; Reddit became the primary source of data for this research project due to its platform structure. Within the literature review, I researched Reddit user population statistical data to add an additional layer to the viewpoints (data) within this project; the Reddit user statistics are highlighted below. 

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2.1 Literature Demographics and Geography

2.1.1 Demographics

As I conducted the literature review, the majority of Reddit accounts belonged to men rather than women. Given this observation, I researched statistics on platform user demographics. As of the fourth quarter of 2023, according to Statista (2024a), the majority of Reddit users were male, accounting for 62.1 percent of its audience base, while women accounted for roughly 36.8 percent. Further, United States users were the most predominant user group on the platform; Statista (2024b) identified that the main age range, in the United States, for using the platform was 18-29-year-olds (44%), followed by 30-49-year-olds (31%), and 50-64-year-olds (11%) as seen in figure one below.

Figure 1: Percentage of U.S. adults who use Reddit as of September 2023, by age group

 

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2.1.2 Geography

As for location of users, it was established in section 2.1.1 above that the United Status accounts for the largest portion of Reddit users; to further support this, as of December 2023, Statista (2024c) stated that 48.5% of Reddit users were located in the United States. In addition to the United States, the statistics highlighted the top five countries, globally, where Reddit users originated, with their share of web traffic outlined in Figure two below. These countries were, in descending order, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and Germany.

Figure 2: Regional distribution of desktop traffic to Reddit.com as of December 2023, by country

 

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2.2 End User Perspectives

As the literature review progressed, the origins of end user perspectives became more evident, with patterns emerging on the type of professional engaging on the Reddit leadership forums. A significant portion of the data reviewed and collected appeared to be from leaders new to the role, interested in soliciting feedback from well-established leaders in the hope of identifying areas for growth in relation to the new leader’s leadership craft. As noted above, well-established leaders were present in the conversational source data, providing guidance based on their professional and personal experience. Given the conversational tone of Reddit, new leaders that took to the social media platform fostered dialogue that interviewed, informally, established leaders and capitalized on their experiences, especially their lessons learned.

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3.0 Methodology

3.1 Data Collection

The study utilized the Reddit social media platforms to collect first-person data; interviews were not chosen for this study, although they would elicit more finite results, due to course time constraints and ethics board review considerations. Data collection occurred in three phases. In phase one, an initial literature scan alongside a prioritization of data sources based on the conversational style of the source, while phase two included a deep dive into the prioritized sources with memo recording. Finally, phase three encompassed memo review and transcribing data into the emerging leader mind map ahead of data analysis. Using a methodical research approach for data collection and analysis, efforts were divided into

1. an initial quick search to identify sources,

2. followed by a deep dive into the prioritized sources,

3. leading to memo writing on the sources,

4. using the memos to catalog the data onto the mind map,

5. creating six main data categories and nineteen sub-categories.

 

The below sections 3.1.1, 3.1.2, 3.1.3, and 3.2 discuss in further detail the actions associated with the divided methodological approach applied to research activities.

 

3.1.1 Phase One: Literature Scan

Keeping the generic topic of interest, transitioning into leadership from a staff position, at the forefront of the research, a literature review was undertaken to identify the various benefits and challenges associated with this type of career shift. The intention with focusing on the benefits and challenges was to find overlap in qualitative data allowing for the identification of an emerging theory on the potential for a standardized set of skills and or competencies that would provide a leader an easier transition into the field. As noted previously, the initial literature review contained scholarly peer-reviewed journals but was subsequently expanded to include first-person conversational sources from social media platforms. Stemming from Russ Wilde’s (2024) guidance, it was understood that first-person conversational sources should be prioritized as they were sources of truth for personal thoughts and experiences. To identify relevant sources, quick source searches were used to flag data that may be useful, the sources were organized in descending order based on applicability to the transition into leadership research topic.

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3.1.2 Phase Two: Source Review

Once the prioritization of first-person conversational sources had been completed, review of the prioritized sources began. Working through the sources, a mix of scholarly journals and social media, it was determined that the data from the various Reddit sources were most suited to my research as the social media platform provided individual experiences and two-way transactional conversations between end users. As I reviewed the Reddit sources, memos were created for each, capturing high-level takeaways linked to the anonymous individual who wrote the experience. To standardize memo-taking, a template was created that captured data that fell within the following headers: source, username, theme, notes, and reference. An example of the standardized template and memo content can be found in Appendix A. As source review and associated memo recording occurred categorizations began to become apparent, and because of this observation, there was an overlap between phase two and phase three activities.

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3.1.3 Phase Three: Memo Review & Transcription

With phase three’s overlap with phase two, the review of memos ran in parallel with the memo writing, enabling data patterns to emerge quickly. The transcription of data from the memos into the mind map coincided with the end of phase two, allowing the collected and recorded data to provide a natural delineation for data categorizations. As supported by Appendix B, the structure of the mind map was built around two topic categorizations, benefits and challenges. Each of the two topic categories contained three nested main categorizations for a total of six nested main categorizations; the six main categories were further split into nineteen sub-categories. Once bucketed into the sub-categories, the data was coded into concepts and behavioural competencies. Transcription continued until no new findings emerged from the data (saturation), leading to a natural stopping point for data collection, and kicking off the process of data analysis.

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3.2 Data Analysis

Data collection and data analysis were not sequential activities. Data analysis overlapped with data collection phase three as patterns were documented as they emerged during memo transcription into the mind map tool (Appendix B). Once transcription had completed, the deep-dive analysis of the mind map began, and coding occurred. Coding consisted of five levels of categorizations, with level one being the highest and level five being the lowest (farthest away) connector. In certain instances, the data could have been split out further than the level five categorization, and the additional potential breakdowns have been flagged for a future concatenated research project as further research would be needed to conclude whether other areas of the mind map could have applicable deeper categorizations (level six and so on).

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Expanding on the categorization identification discussion above, mind map analysis of the benefits (level one) coded data provided tiered categorization outcomes, or bucketed themes. Through analysis, the benefits were bucketed into three themes: professional growth, relationships, and personal growth. Digging into these level two themes, the data provided component parts for each, such as strategic thinking, behavioural competencies, and skill sets. The hierarchy of benefits category analysis can be seen in Figure three below.

Figure 3: Data analysis: hierarchy of benefits categorization coding

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The analysis conducted for the benefits level one categorizations was repeated for the challenges level one categorization coded data, and tiered categorization outcomes, or bucketed themes, related to the challenges new leaders may face were identified. Analysis of the data related to challenges resulted in three themes: personal, interpersonal, and environmental. The data within these three themes revolved around concepts such as self-management, misalignment with priorities, and organizational culture and structure. The hierarchy of challenges category analysis can be seen in Figure four below.

Figure 4: Data analysis: hierarchy of challenges categorization coding

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Alongside the analysis of the tiered categorizations, the mind map enabled the identification of connectors between data elements. Mind map tiered categorizations that are directly tied to a parent or child category are connected by a solid black line, while the indirectly connected sub-categories are connected through a perforated gray line. Through the connecting of these indirect sub-categories, the analysis provides insight into the multi-faceted dynamic of being a leader regardless of whether you’re a new or seasoned professional. Additionally, the indirect connections showcase how the qualitative elements related to the benefits and challenges of a career shift are largely dependent upon external factors and personal experience.

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4.0 Findings

4.1 Data Analysis Outcomes

The mind map visual, in conjunction with coding and data analysis, articulated the connectivity between the benefits and challenges associated with being in a leadership position. The analysis also showed that more often than not two or more categories would overlap depending on the data’s qualitative variables (i.e., a person’s experience). Additionally, the data found that there were many aspects of being a leader that cross-pollinated between the research benefit and challenge categorizations, whether crossing between benefit categories, between challenge categories, or a combination of two or more. “Having a good set of skills in relation to your craft, so you’re not just delivering hypothetical knowledge”, as Reddit user Autobear (Reddit, 2022) flags, is an example of one of the reasons why the data analysis resulted in a significant overlap of concepts as well as cross-pollination between benefits and challenges. Furthermore, overlap and cross-pollination of concepts can be attributed to the unique experiences individuals have as they develop their leadership craft; external environments, situational awareness, morality, education, demographics and physical location, among others, can influence the experiences of professionals as they cultivate their leadership craft.

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4.2 Importance of Communication

As an example of the impact of qualitative variables, I observed in the data that the concept of communication may be one leader’s benefit and another’s challenge. The data showed that some leaders thrived with interpersonal communication, flagging it as a benefit, whereas others identified their struggles with reading behavioural tells or identifying target audiences and messaging tone. Highlighting this overlap in the data, Figure five below identifies, in red font, areas of the mind map visual that could be considered to relate to communication; the data identifies 24 of 99 mind map level two through level five categories, or 24.24%, related to communication coded data.

Figure 5: Communication related data categorization hierarchy

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Reddit user 227leadership_eric (Reddit, 2022), a seasoned leader, highlighted this leadership communication experience juxtaposition well when stating that “communication is not about what’s being said, it’s about being heard… so as you’re working with your team, just make sure you’re coming down to their level and trying to really understand where they’re coming from. You’re essentially a community problem solver”. The intent of this research is to provide an emerging theory that there is a commonality across skillsets and behaviours required by professionals who transition into a leadership position, the data analysis, as seen in Figure five above, supports this emerging theory as the data highlights that for a leader to be an adequate communicator they must have skillsets related to emotional intelligence and organizational culture while ensuring that communication is a focal point for personal and professional growth.

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4.3 Growth Mindset

The data collected on the benefits and challenges of moving from a staff position into a leadership position identified that new leaders need to heavily lean into personal and professional growth as they transition into leadership; alongside communication, having a growth mindset was a prominent theme in the data and continues to support the emerging theory related to leadership skillset and behaviour commonality. Through data analysis, it was identified that of the 49 total level two through level five benefits sub-categories, 34 (69.39%) sub-categories directly relate to growth; in comparison, and importantly, 37 (74.0%) of the 50 total level two through level five challenges sub-categories require some sort of personal or professional growth from new leaders to mitigate or improve circumstances according to seasoned leadership professionals. Reddit user 227leadership_eric (Reddit, 2022) spoke to the need for a growth mindset:

“Everyone’s leadership blueprint is different… I’d keep reading (and listening to podcasts) and when you see/hear something that speaks to you write it down in a notebook and keep doing that. Crave information and keep writing [it] down. Don’t copy them, write them down in your own words. Soon all those thoughts from other people will start to manifest in your own philosophy.”

 

4.4 Data Gaps

The data coding and analysis conducted provided understanding that the research associated with the emerging theory could act as a foundation for a larger future concatenated research project. That said, the small scope of this project, however, did provide insight into data gaps which lead to the realization that future research could occur. When conducting data collection, it was noticed that first-person conversational questions on the Reddit platform were asked and answered predominantly by men, and this observation was supported by the aforementioned literature review on Reddit user demographical and geographical statistical data. While this initial research did provide insight into the benefits and challenges of transitioning into leadership, it could be assumed, based on the collected data, that these insights may be male-focused and experiences from a male-dominant lens. Shawn Andrews (2023), organizational consultant and business school professor, stated that “for women, it can be difficult to succeed as a leader because of gender bias… as a society, we put pressure on male leaders to succeed, be confident, and not show emotions or be vulnerable. We put pressure on female leaders to be supportive, collaborative, and social”. If a future concatenated study were to occur, expanded research to enable the inclusion of female and GBA+ leadership experiences would be a fascinating and beneficial dynamic to identify where cross-pollination of experiences across gender divides may occur, if at all.

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5.0 Conclusion

This grounded theory research project stemmed from an interest in the benefits and challenges of transitioning from a staff position into leadership, with the intention of identifying what skills and competencies are needed when making this career shift. To support the proposed emerging theory that there is a commonality across skillsets and behaviours required by individuals who transition into leadership irrespective of experiences, the research anchored itself to conversational first-person data stemming from the Reddit social media platform. Data collection, coding, and analysis provided visual connections supporting the emerging theory through the identification of data patterns and themes born from individual leader journeys. Further data analysis, assisted by the mind map visualization, provided preliminary results from this small study that suggest that new leaders should focus on their communication skills as well as their personal and professional growth. Additional data categorization overlap, although not specifically outlined in this final project, showcased that new leaders should have an awareness of strategic relationships and organizational culture, both of which are complex multi-faceted areas of leadership. Importantly, researching the benefits and challenges associated with transitioning into a leadership position provided the insight that patterns and cross-pollination amongst data categories can occur even with unique and personal individual leadership experiences. This unexpected outcome reiterates that while the path to becoming a leader is unique to an individual, there is a commonality across skillsets and behaviours that transcends the unique, personalized, underlaying leadership journey.

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References

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Wilde, Russ. (2024). Unit 2 Progress Report Feedback. Retrieved from https://mais.lms.athabascau.ca/mod/assign/view.php?id=54344