1. Executive Summary
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Leadership Development Among Scientists: Learning Through Adaptive Challenges
A Dissertation Presented by Anyana Banerjee, M.P.H, Ed.D.
University of Georgia, May 2013
The health workforce is very complex and comprised of many feeder disciplines including technical disciplines emphasizing
training in the quantitative sciences. For quantitative scientists in the health field, workforce development efforts often miss the
mark, because they emphasize honing already strong technical skills. Effective approaches to develop the non-technical
capabilities are needed to work in an applied multiprofessional, multidisciplinary environment. Without the appropriate tools or
support to meet non-technical challenges, professionals become frustrated, their performance suffers, and they are more likely to
leave the field. Given that the health field is in need of a skilled workforce to meet the 21st century health system’s demands, how
do facilitators of adult learning create the conditions to help meet these emerging demands?
Context
A postdoctoral fellowship program aims to improve the development of its scientists. This program is responsible for training and
developing the largest number of early-career scientists of a specific discipline in the Federal government. The program has
experienced attrition in the past few years that were traced back to gaps in non-technical skills either on the part of the early-
career scientists themselves, or those who support their development. For example, gaps in self-awareness, interpersonal
communication, and collaboration. Yet, engagement in traditional educational approaches, such as workshops, has had poor
learning outcomes. Additionally, the majority of early-career scientists and those who support their development do not see the
relevance of developing non-technical capabilities.
Purpose and Research Questions
The purpose of this study was to identify types of non-technical challenges that arise in a scientific health organization, and to
develop learning approaches that support and challenge early-career scientists to grow their capabilities for skillful and timely
action. The following questions guided this study:
(1) What are the non-technical challenges that early-career scientists face in the transition to an unfamiliar, multiprofessional,
and multidisciplinary applied context?
(2) How does a Collaborative Developmental Action Inquiry (CDAI) method work in practice to identify the non-technical
challenges and develop capabilities to meet those challenges?
(3) What can be learned about how CDAI methods can create a culture of learning at the individual, group, and organizational
system levels to meet non-technical challenges?
Methodology
In the role of an action researcher positioned within the above mentioned organizational unit, I took a Collaborative
Developmental Action Inquiry (CDAI) approach to guide first-, second-, and third-person inquiry into the research questions. I
formed two groups: the action research group comprised of supervisors and mentors, and the intervention group of early-career
scientists. My role was to facilitate the two groups through the stages of action research to co-explore the research questions and
generate learning on the individual, interpersonal, and organizational levels to enable impacts on the system level. I ensured
trustworthiness of the data by engaging in ongoing member checks, establishing an audit trail, and engaging in data triangulation
between the two groups.
Findings
Finding 1: Not Enough Support for Learning and Leadership
The types of challenges that posed the greatest conundrums for the early-career scientists, in working within their organizational
unit and across organizational boundaries, were adaptive in nature. These adaptive challenges required different kinds of learning
beyond the technical and expert knowledge they already possessed. In their attempt to move forward and do their best learning
and work, a key theme across the challenges was “Not Enough Support for Learning and Leadership”. The external conditions of
their work were not supportive or encouraging enough to help them meet their vision of being good learners and good emerging
scientists. The unsupportive conditions within their work unit manifested as (1) inadequate skillful supervision or mentorship,
(2) and colleagues who did not know how to take up their leadership to support the early-career scientists in their path
toward contributing and leading. When the early-career scientists worked across organizational boundaries to implement their
action learning group project, they encountered multiple, confusing, and unpredictable obstacles that threatened to prevent
the creative leadership idea from being implemented. The obstacles were (1) internal rivalry and formality, (2) limitauthority but
keep responsibility, (3) defamation, (4) fear-based communication, (5) passive-aggressive communication (6) doubt consisting of
the following elements: (1) lack of trust for new ideas, (2) fear of the unknown, (3) not enough support in navigating the
risk/reward challenges, and (4) uncertainty about the return on investment of the project. However, despite these obstacles the

2. Executive Summary
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early-career scientists’ creative ideas survived and were implemented. What were the conditions that enabled the leadership and
creativity of the early-career scientists to emerge and survive?
Finding 2: Flexible and Adaptive Learning Space
CDAI theory and methods helped to create a learning space that adapted in five ways to support early-career scientists through
their challenges: First the space shaped itself as a place (1) for connection, and this represented outer protection from the doubt
and discouragement the early-career scientists faced in their adaptive challenges. The action inquiry space reshaped to enable (2)
creativity to emerge, then it adapted to help (3) early-career scientists strategize on their action learning project, and the space
helped early-career scientists to (4) stay focused. The action inquiry space also offered a more powerful level of protection at the
level of the mind, that is, inner protection through helping early-career scientists (5) make meaning or reinterpret their
challenges and face them in skillful and timely ways. Through these adaptations early-career scientists engaged in double-loop
learning (changes in strategy) and triple-loop learning (changes in intention/vision). The reframing of their strategies and
intentions enabled early-career scientists to “take up [their] power” on internal and external levels to overcome their adaptive
challenges.
Finding 3: Learning and Leadership Micro-Culture
Combining action inquiry and action learning methodologies enabled three levels of impact: shifts in learning at the individual
level, group learning, and a demand for this learning sub-culture, made possible by the action inquiry methods, to continue at the
system level. CDAI methods created a micro-culture of innovation within the organization, where adaptive learning and leadership
can now occur. This micro-culture is having an impact on the early-career scientists’ sub-culture within the organizational culture.
Implications
Theory
This research deepened the understanding of how CDAI can be applied in a context of learning and leadership. Specifically, this
study showed how CDAI theory and methods (1) integrated developmental theory to understand how the way we make meaning
affects our actions, and (2) created second-person action inquiry communities for the development of learning and leadership.
This research is an example of how a complex theory was applied in a complex context – complex in that the organizational context
was unfamiliar with non-linear learning methods and there were no pathways established for implementing CDAI practice.
Practice
This study offers a practical example of how leadership development, grounded in CDAI methods that emphasize action inquiry
and appropriate developmental supports, can develop leadership at all levels of an organization.
Model for Creating a Micro-Culture of Learning and Leadership
This study generated insights into how organizations may wish to implement micro-cultures of learning and leadership to make
progress on adaptive challenges. For example, what emerged from this research is a strategy for leadership development that
could apply to any group of professionals transitioning to an unfamiliar work context marked by adaptive challenges (e.g.,
ambiguity in the problem, solution, or process for how to move forward). The strategy involves an iterative six-step process: (1)
Inquire into the local challenge and frame leadership in a relevant context, (2) Engage learners in applied learning though a non-
linear method such as case-based learning, (3) Overcome internal/external obstacles, (4) Manage stakeholders, (5) Create multiple
holding environments, and (6) Evolve from reflecting on past experience to learning in the midst of action. These six-steps can help
facilitators of adult learning to create conditions for the development of the next generation applied practitioner who is competent
in meeting the 21st century adaptive challenges of the field.
Future Research and Practice
 Experiment with how to scale up CDAI practices within organizations to larger groups and across national boundaries in the
case of national workforce development programs. This could include engaging in scholarship and practice around using
technology for adult developmental learning.
 Innovate how individual, interpersonal, and organizational research practices are used from a sequential and somewhat linear
approach to presenting all three at once within each CDAI session.
 Explore how to implement individual learning practices, such as reflective journaling and mindfulness awareness practices, in
contexts where these practices are unfamiliar, especially those operating at speeds where it is challenging to stop and engage in
reflective writing or mindfulness practices on one’s own. This may involve creating spaces for fostering emotional intelligence as
part of the system of learning and leadership.