Work Foundation sets up three-year probe into how good leaders drive inspired performance

The Work Foundation research organisation has launched a new study into leadership.

'Leading for High Performance' is a three-year programme that will focus on the specific role played by leaders in creating the conditions for high performance.

The study aims to look at how the behaviour of the leader affects the team and organisational performance and use this information to establish how applicable this behaviour might be to other organisations.

Penny Tamkin has been appointed to lead the project, joining The Work Foundation after 13 years at the Institute for Employment Studies.

She said: "The enormous outpouring of material on leadership during the past few years has been characterised by a surfeit of hope, hunch, superstition and guesswork. Our project will be different.

"We plan to ground our research in the evidence and in close observation of how real leaders work in real organisations."

The sponsors of the programme are: Guardian Media Group, RBS Group, Tesco, Unilever,  Serco, BAE Systems, and EDF Energy..