Bringing Theory into Practice: A Study of Effective Leadership at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

Leadership development, a component of HRD, is becoming an area of increasingly important practice for all organizations. When companies such as Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory rely on knowledge workers for success, leadership becomes even more important. This research paper tests the hypothesis that leadership credibility and the courage to lead are important contributors to leadership effectiveness, where leadership effectiveness is defined by Laboratory measures of effectiveness including performance appraisal, ranking, salary, and subordinate evaluation. This study was designed to explore the relationship between "character" and effective leadership of the knowledge worker and was conceived from a desire to better understand how to develop effective leaders at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Having worked in leadership development for a number of years, both in the public and private sectors and currently responsible for leadership development at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, I wondered why our programs often failed to develop effective leaders. Our development programs improved skills and competencies and increased self-awareness. Yet, bottom-line business results did not necessarily improve over the long run and staff continued to report problems with management valuing and involving them in the work of the organization. This situation, I believed, was complicated when managers, such as those at the Laboratory, were leaders of knowledge workers. Leader-managers of knowledge workers are faced with the additional challenge of inspiring a workforce to shape company success by causing the talent they lead to generate the intellectual capital needed to achieve business results. To cause a workforce to generate intellectual capital, more than learning about and applying leadership and management competencies seemed to me to be needed. I thought it was something implicit rather than explicit, and believed it to be leadership credibility and self-efficacy. This study focused on exploring this belief. Background The study hypothesized that the two "character" dimensions, leadership credibility and self-efficacy, were essential ingredients to effectively lead knowledge workers - one who turns aspiration into action to accomplish results for the organization. Both of these "character" dimensions have more to do with substance than with form; personal attributes rather than competency and skill. The leadership development programs at the Laboratory are currently focused on form (competency development), and have done little to enhance substance (personal attributes such as values, beliefs, belief in self). The study was conducted at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory located in Livermore, California, which is approximately 30 miles east of San Francisco. The Laboratory is a research and development institution with $1.6B dollar budget, run by the University of California for the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration. The Laboratory's mission is to ensure the safety and reliability of the U. S. nuclear weapons stockpile; to reduce threats to U. S. security; and to provide technical solutions to key energy, environment, infrastructure, and health security problems. The Laboratory is a facility comprised primarily of knowledge workers who provide services that conform to Reich's (1994) definition of symbolic-analytic services, services that cannot be codified and controlled and services upon which the organization is dependent for competitive advantage. According to Reich, to perform symbolic- analytic services a college degree is usually required. The Laboratory workforce of 8650 individuals is comprised of scientists and engineers (40%), technical and crafts (22%), and administrative and clerical (22%) employees. Nearly half of the Laboratory scientists and engineers have a Ph. D. and another 30% have a master's degree. Of the remaining 20% of the scientific workforce, only one percent of the employees do not possess a college degree.