Our focus
With organisations facing escalating challenges in an uncertain and volatile world, the Leadership Futures Hub provides cutting-edge research and resources to help leaders from all industry sectors build their capabilities and use problem-solving skills to create new opportunities.
By bridging scholars and industry leaders, the hub seeks to generate evidence-based knowledge about effective and novel leadership practices.
Bringing together scholars and industry leaders, the hub produces advanced leadership knowledge and best leadership practices through collaborative research projects, leadership development, training and mentoring, public forums and consulting services.
Our work focuses on the following areas of leadership:
- crisis leadership
- sustainable leadership
- leadership for wellbeing
- leadership for equity, diversity and inclusion (DEI)
- leadership for digital transformation.
We establish partnerships between organisations, leaders and academics to exchange ideas and investigate solutions to key leadership challenges. Our research also informs Deakin's teaching through course materials for the Master of Leadership program and the development of leadership MOOC (massive open online courses) that are freely accessible by learners around the globe, such as:
The hub's work is released through a variety of channels including academic publications, industry reports and masterclasses.
Listen to our podcast
Leadership is in everyone’s DNA. But being an effective leader requires knowledge, skills, and experience. The Leadership Futures Hub podcast offers insights and knowledge about leadership to help create a more sustainable workplace and a better world.
Our research
Hub members have extensive experience working with organisations such as Australian Bureau of Statistics, Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation, Victoria Police and WorkSafe Victoria.
| Organisation | Project |
|---|---|
| Alo women | An Investigation of Factors that Accelerate Career and Leadership Pathways for Migrant Women |
| Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) | Business Process Transformation and Strategic Change Consultancy Project (Principal Investigator) |
| Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation | Ending violence and aggression: An examination of the implementation of the ANMF's 10-point plan and its impact on the health and wellbeing of nurses working in aged care |
| Baptcare | The under-utilisation of in-home care packages: Examining the reasons, implementing solutions and assessing progress |
| Bendigo Bank | An Intergroup Contact Perspective to Promoting Allyship |
| CyRise Accelerator Skills Development Program | CyRise is a cyber security accelerator, established as a joint venture between an NTT and Deakin University with the backing of the regional government. The funding for this project allowed for the establishment of a program to develop founder’s skills as part of the accelerator. |
Eastern Health | Examining the role of team-based resilience in buffering the impact of job stressors among Eastern Health workers |
| ManuFutures Export Acceleration Program | A project involving a blend of export-focused skill development, business support, networking events and mentoring models. Supported by a grant from the Department of Industry, Innovation and Science. |
| SIOP | Jeanneret Research Grant for Assessing and Developing Senior Leaders |
| The Intergen Program | Building an intergenerational leadership program for talent retention and development within a large information technology services company in Australia. Based on the results of a global study of intergenerational leadership challenges and enablers. |
| Transurban | Program evaluation for Respect@Work Leadership Training Program |
| Victoria Police | Evaluation of Blended Roster System |
Wannon Water, Achieving Zero Harm | Research was undertaken by a multi‐disciplinary team from Deakin as part of the organisation’s focus on embedding a philosophy of zero harm within the context of OHS, culture, mental health and management systems. |
| WorkSafe Victoria | Quality Assurance Program (QAP) Evaluation and Piloting Project |
Our team
Our members include leadership scholars who have published their research in top-tier international journals and have extensive experience collaborating with organisations in a range of industries.
Directors
Dr Fannie Wu
Dr Fannie Wu’s research focuses on helping leaders and employees from minority groups to attain success and effectiveness through managing their leadership, emotions and social capital. Fannie developed a Mass Open Online Course on crisis leadership and teaches Leadership Practice with Impact in the Master of Leadership program.
Dr. Andrew Wang
Dr Andrew Wang’s research focuses on helping leaders to optimise team performance and to understand various within-team micro-dynamics. He has particular interests in the roles of emotions, voice behaviour, and social hierarchy in team functioning, as well as the strategies that leaders can employ to harness their potential.
Dr. Zitong Sheng
Dr Zitong Sheng researches the promotion of employees’ prosocial and proactive work behaviour, and focuses on effective transition into the workforce for newcomers. She has collaborated across multiple industries (e.g., councils, healthcare), teaches Leadership and Organisational Behaviour and supervises Master of Leadership research projects
Faculty members
Dr Claudia Escobar Vega
Dr Claudia Escobar Vega’s research focuses on leadership cognition, implicit leadership theory, and socially constructed theories of leadership aiming towards effective strategies to promote leadership equity, diversity, and inclusion.
Professor Ferdinand Gul
Professor Ferdinand Gul has held senior positions in various universities in Australia and Hong Kong and has consulted on corporate governance reform to the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region Government. He has published in top-tier journals including Journal of Accounting and Economics, Journal of Accounting Research, The Accounting Review and The Journal of Financial Economics.
Dr Huw Flatau Harrison
Dr Huw Flatau-Harrison's research is occupational health, wellbeing, safety, and intensive research modelling and data analysis. He has particular interest in the role of leadership in safety contexts and has conducted research with organisations such as WorkSafe Vic, BGC and Eastern Health.
Dr Jooyoung Kim
Dr Jooyoung Kim’s research centers on strategic leadership. She is specifically interested in examining on how senior executives’ personal characteristics and their diversity can impact the organization at different levels.
Dr Florian Klonek
Dr Florian Klonek’s research focuses on understanding effective leadership and team functioning. He has worked on research projects across the globe and within various industries (e.g., automotive, energy, and healthcare). Florian also works on developing innovative research methods to better understand complex leadership and group processes within situated contexts (e.g., pattern and computer-aided text analyses).
Dr Jennifer Ann Lajom
Dr Jennifer Ann Lajom’s research area informs how organisations and its leaders facilitate adaptive work experiences that benefit its employees. Jen investigates the experiences of passionate employees and explores why job passion can either make or break employees’ work performance, discretionary behaviours, and well-being. She also studies the role of recovery experiences and effective management of one’s work and family domains.
Dr Nicole Larson
Dr Nicole Larson's research aims to advance the science and practice of high-performance teamwork, with a focus on team processes and emergent states. Nicole has worked with several organisations in Canada and is currently working with Eastern Health in Australia.
Dr Heather Round
Dr Heather Round teaches innovation, creativity and management and runs an entrepreneurship program for business leaders. She has extensive industry experience, consulting globally and running large-scale organisational change programs. Heather’s research interests include creativity, innovation, identity and leadership and she is an accredited Entrepreneurial Mindset Profile practitioner.
Associate Professor Jeff Shao
Dr Jeff Shao’s research focuses on leadership, emotions, and cross-cultural management. His research has been funded by the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation (ANMF), Baptcare, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), Eastern Health, and the Ian Potter Foundation. Jeff also serves as Director of Master of Leadership program at Deakin University.
Affiliated scholars
Dr Dana Ott is a Senior Lecturer in International Management at the University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand. Her research focuses on improving the global mobility experiences of individuals pursuing international careers and on helping organizations to support neurodivergent employees. She examines expatriate management, cultural intelligence, neurodiversity in organizations, macro talent management, and literature review methodology. Dana is the Director of Postgraduate International Business Programmes for the Otago Business School and the Vice President – Marketing and Communication of the Australia and New Zealand International Business Academy (ANZIBA).
Associate Professor Tom Kelemen received his Ph.D. in management from the University of Oklahoma. He is currently an associate professor of management and the Robert F. Hagans Chair of Business at Kansas State University. He is a former Fulbright Scholar. His work has been published in outlets such as the Academy of Management Journal, Journal of Management, Journal of Organizational Behavior, and The Leadership Quarterly. His research focuses on leadership, organizational citizenship behavior, and work-life interface.
Advisory Board Members
Cameron Edgar – LinkedIn profile
Chief Superintendent, Director Helicopter Operations, Ambulance NSW
Gloria Yuen – LinkedIn profile
Head of Regulatory Enablement and Delivery, Personal Banking, NAB
Eva Chye – LinkedIn profile
Founder of If Innovation Could Talk; Board member of Australian Innovation Management Institute
Jennifer Conley – LinkedIn profile
CEO, Geelong Manufacturing Council (GMC)
Jolene Morse – LinkedIn profile
Director, Financial Services Risk Management (FSRM), Ernst and Young (EY)
Rhonda Andrews – LinkedIn profile
Founder, Principal Senior Psychologist and Managing Director, Barrington Centre
Kate Roache – LinkedIn profile
Executive Officer of Leadership Great South Coast Inc.
Publications
We have published in a range of journals including the Academy of Management Annals, Academy of Management Journal, Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of Management, Strategic Management Journal, and The Leadership Quarterly.
Journals
Escobar Vega, C., Billsberry, J., Molineux, J., & Lowe, K. B. (2024). The development of implicit leadership theories during childhood: A reconceptualization through the lens of overlapping waves theory. Psychological Review. https://doi.org/10.1037/rev0000484
Flatau-Harrison, H., Wilson, M. K., & Vleugels, W. (2023). The reciprocal relationship between safety behaviour and person-job fit: A self-regulation perspective. Safety Science, 168, 106289.
He, Y., Sheng, Z., Griffin, M., & Yao, X. (2024). A multilevel model linking altruistic motivation to workplace safety: The role of servant leadership. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 45(4), 497-517.
Liang, J., Jain, A., Newman, A., Mount, M. P., & Kim, J. (2024). Motivated to be socially responsible? CEO regulatory focus, firm performance, and corporate social responsibility. Journal of Business Research, 176, 114578.
Lin, X., Tse, H. H., Shao, B., & Duan, J. (2024). How do humble leaders unleash followers' leadership potential? The roles of workplace status and individualistic orientation. Journal of Organizational Behavior. https://doi.org/10.1002/job.2793
Ott, D. L., & Presbitero, A. (2024). A multi-level systematic literature review of contextual influences on international career behaviors and directions for future research. International Business Review, 102322.
Round, H., Yamao, S., Shao, B., Klonek, F., Sekiguchi, T., & Newman, A. (2024). Fostering psychological capital self-efficacy in emerging female leaders: Practical insights from an international leadership development program. Organizational Dynamics, 101085.
Shao, B. (2024). The leader affect revolution reloaded: Toward an integrative framework and a robust science. The Leadership Quarterly, 35(1), 101756.
Kelemen, T. K., Matthews, S. H., Matthews, M. J., & Henry, S. E. (2023). Humble leadership: A review and synthesis of leader expressed humility. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 44(2), 202-224.
Lai, K. M., Khedmati, M., Gul, F. A., & Mount, M. P. (2023). Making honest men of them: Institutional investors, financial reporting, and the appointment of female directors to all-male boards. Journal of Corporate Finance, 78, 102334.
Lajom, J. A. L., Teo, S., de Carvalho Filho, M. K., & Stanway, A. (2023). Passionate and psychologically‐undetached: A moderated‐mediated investigation of psychological distress among engaged employees. Stress and Health, 39(5), 1026-1036.
Matthews, S. H., Wang, D. D., & Kelemen, T. K. (2023). No access? No problem! Taking stock of unobtrusive measures for executives’ deep-level characteristics. The Leadership Quarterly, 35(1), 101754.
Murthy, S., Gul, F. A., & Yao, J. (2023). CEO regulatory focus and management earnings forecasts. Journal of Contemporary Accounting & Economics, 19(3), 100375.
Russo, E. R., Ott, D. L., & Moeller, M. (2023). Helping neurodivergent employees succeed. MIT Sloan Management Review, 64(3), 1-11.
Shao, B., Lin, X., & Duan, J. (2023). How leader emotional labour is associated with creativity: A self‐determination theory perspective. Applied Psychology, 72(3), 1020-1042.
Wang, F., Liu, W., Ling, C. D., Fan, P., & Chen, Y. (2023). Combating team hopelessness: How and why leader interpersonal emotion management matters. Personnel Psychology, 76(3), 797-827.
Kim, J., Lee, H. W., Gao, H., & Johnson, R. E. (2021). When CEOs are all about themselves: Perceived CEO narcissism and middle managers’ workplace behaviors amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Journal of Applied Psychology, 106(9), 1283-1298.
Wu, Y. L., Shao, B., Newman, A., & Schwarz, G. (2021). Crisis leadership: A review and future research agenda. The Leadership Quarterly, 32(6), 101518.
Books/ Book Chapters
Lajom, J. A. L., & Sibunruang, H. (2024). The Rise of Flexible Working in Southeast Asia: Insights from Thailand and the Philippines. In Work-Life Research in the Asia-Pacific: Implications for Justice, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (pp. 23-45). Cham: Springer Nature Switzerland.
Liu, W., Wang, F., & Liao, Z. (2021). Leader’s anger and employee upward voice. In Emotion and Proactivity at Work(pp. 193-214). Bristol University Press.
Round, H. (2018). Leaders and followers: Co-constructing a creative identity. In: Adapa, S., Sheridan, A. (eds) Inclusive Leadership. Palgrave Studies in Leadership and Followership. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
Conference Proceedings
Flatau-Harrison, H., Sheng, Z., Wood, J., Yan, H., & Newman, A. (2024). A diary study of the impact of challenge demands on safety-specific transformational leadership. In Academy of Management Proceedings, Vol. 2024, No. 1, p. 10246). Valhalla, NY 10595.
News
Please visit the hub’s newly established podcast series to learn more about leadership insights from evidence-based research conducted by our members.
Read about the Leadership Futures Hub in Deakin Business School's Newsroom.
- Leadership is in our DNA – bringing industry and academics into dialogue
- Leadership Futures Hub: Interview with Alex Sobel, Shadow Minister for the Environment and Member of Parliament (MP) for Leeds North West, UK.
- Leadership Futures Hub ready to help industry leaders
- Dr Lee Martin among 2021's most influential Asian-Australians
- What makes for effective crisis leadership?
Contact us
Please get in touch with us via email if you would like more information about the Leadership Futures Hub: leadershipfutureshub@deakin.edu.au