Dedication Celebrating the Life and Work of Professor J. A. S. K. Jayakody, Leader Extraordinaire

guiding them towards new avenues of thinking. My best memories of Jayakody are the hours of discussion we had (through the glass partition open at the top), about research methods, about different concepts in whatever the massive tome he would be reading at the time


Introduction
This special issue of the Colombo Business Journal (CBJ), on Organisational Leadership, is dedicated to the late Professor JASK Jayakody (1968-2020)a scholar, administrator and teacher who exemplified in his actions the leadership qualities he taught and researched.
Jayakody played a pivotal role in raising the academic standards of the Faculty of Management and Finance, University of Colombo, and several other leading management education institutes in Sri Lanka through his extraordinary contributions to research, teaching postgraduate and undergraduate students, and initiatives in developing and streamlining academic and administrative functions. A reputed scholar in leadership, his work was published in several top ranked journals, and he also served on the editorial boards of several journals, including the prestigious 'Leadership'. This dedication is somewhat unorthodox; going beyond his contribution to leadership research, we reminisce about Jayakody's academic life, as a researcher, an academic administrator, and a teacher and mentor. He was a leader who walked the talk. A visionary outlook and a curiosity for learning, coupled with administrative excellence, generosity in sharing knowledge and expertise, and exemplary behaviour were characteristic of his involvement with any activity or person. These qualities contributed to his success as a scholar, administrator, and teacher, and made him a leader extraordinaire; his conduct resembled a case study in leadership. Therefore, recounting his life in the academia is an apt opening for this special issue on organisational leadership.
Beginning with a brief description of his early life and career, we attempt (as best as we can!) to capture the essence of his contributions as a leader in the spheres of research and academic administration, and in inspiring others to become excellent academics and administrators.

Early Life and Career in the Academia
Jayakody was born on 2 nd November 1968, in Nikapotha Watte, Wellawa, Kurunegala, Sri Lanka. He received his secondary education in the Wellawa Central College, where he displayed early signs of his academic orientation and leadership being an avid reader, a multi-talented student, and serving as the Deputy Head Prefect, and captain and a student coach of the school volleyball team. In tertiary education, he received his bachelor's degree in public administration (1993) from the University of Sri Jayewardenepura, and an MBA (1999) and PhD (2011) from the Postgraduate Institute of Management of the University of Sri Jayewardenepura, Sri Lanka.
He started his academic career as an instructor at Dudley Senanayake Technical College, after which he served as a temporary lecturer in the Open University of Sri Lanka and the University of Sri Jayewardenepura. Jayakody joined the permanent cadre of the Faculty of Management and Finance, University of Colombo in 1997, where he ascended the career ladder to become a professor in 2017, and served until his untimely demise, at the age of 52, in 2020.

A True Leader in Leadership: Practicing what he Excelled in Research
Chronicling the 23 years of service of this extraordinary person in a dedication of a few pages was a difficult task, but one that was an honour to undertake. We thought the best way to approach this task would be to 'give voice' to some academics and academic administrators who had the privilege of learning from him or working with him in research and/or administration. When we invited his former colleagues and students to share their reflections, the response was overwhelming, to say the leastsome ran into several pages. The most difficult task was selecting the best quotes to capture the essence of the leadership influence Jayakody has had, which was wide ranging, in terms of the nature of influence, the people and institutions influenced by him, and the geographic spread of these people and institutions. In the following sections we attempt to summarise not only the ideas, but also the affection, gratitude and admiration expressed by those who contributed their reflections to this dedication.

Leadership in Research
Jayakody was a true visionary and pioneer in Sri Lanka in the field of management research: With a thirst for new knowledge, insightful thinking, and innovative approaches, in his short life he changed the landscape of management research in the country and inspired several generations of scholars and practitioners. Jayakody's conceptual knowledge was vast, and his research wide rangingfrom human resource management, knowledge management, and management controls to consumer behaviour and consumerism, to name a few (see, for example, Atapattu & Jayakody, 2014;Chandrasekara et al., 2023;Damayanthi et al., 2021;Jayawardana et al., 2013). Several years after his passing, some of his work is still being published by his coauthors. Here we present only a fraction of his work, related to his primary area of research interest, namely, leadership.
One of Jayakody's prominent attempts in leadership research was to conceptualise charisma as a multidimensional, cognitive-affective phenomenon rather than an observable extraordinary behaviour of the leader. His publication drawing on the concept of charisma from diverse disciplines to enumerate the broader dimensions of charisma from a follower-centric perspective (Jayakody, 2008a), can be considered as a pioneering attempt at conceptualising charisma as a multidimensional, cognitive-affective phenomenon. His suggested scale of charisma followed an integrative approach to constructing charisma as a constellation of meanings consisting of leader prototypes, leader archetypes, leader extraordinariness and leader group prototypes that develop concurrently through multiple cognitive processes. At the same time, in an effort to broaden the comprehension of charismatic leadership, he empirically studied charismatic leadership in Sri Lanka using the Conger and Kanungo (C-K) model, while taking into account the distinctive characteristics of the South Asian region, in terms of development levels, religion, and cultural values (Jayakody, 2008b).
Jayakody further pursued his interest in charismatic leadership in his doctoral work, in which he explored why change initiatives in Sri Lankan business organisations decline with the departure of the leaders who initiate them. He addressed this as an issue of routinisation of charisma and argued that as long as the charisma of the leader induces self-discrepancies in a follower and thereby creates follower personal identification, the follower would make self-sacrifices, extend extra-effort and tend to be dependent on the leader; thus, the leader's endeavour continues to be dynamic. Consequently, when charisma dilutes as a result of the leader's departure and the self-discrepancies created thereby diminishes, in turn, follower personal identification weakens, the follower withdraws his or her selfsacrifice, extra-effort and dependency, and thus the dynamism of the leader's endeavour weakens (Jayakody, 2011).
Transformational leadership is another area that attracted Jayakody's research interest. For example, Jayakody and Sanjeewani (2006), illustrate how transformational leadership provides an appropriate approach for understanding relationship marketing dynamics at the level of salesperson-individual customer interactions. Exploring this idea further, Abeysekera and Jayakody (2011) examined the impact of transformational leadership behaviour of salespersons on corporate customers' relationship commitment behaviour in the corporate banking sector in Sri Lanka.
In one of his final studies, Jayakody, together with several others (Selvarajah et al., 2020) explored the cultural embeddedness of leadership practices examining leadership perceptions of Sri Lanka, asserting that the phenomenon of excellent leadership rises to the occasion if the values of organisational dynamics are known.
Although, through an incomprehensible twist of fate, Jayakody never had the opportunity to receive research training from a globally renowned university in the West, the high-quality collaborative research he undertook with overseas academics bear evidence for his commitment to excellence in scholarship: Professor JASK Jayakody was recognised internationally as a leading scholar of leadership and management in South Asia. I had the privilege to publish several journal articles with JASK. … JASK demonstrated his superior statistical skills and his knowledge of organisational behaviour theory during the drafting of both papers, which were published in the International Journal of Human Resource management and Economic and Labour Relations Review.… I am continually impressed by the quality of the conceptual analysis that underpinned these research projects and the excellence of the training in statistical methods and research methods that JASK provided to his students, many of whom went on to complete successful PhD theses in Sri Lanka and Australia.

Michael O'Donnell (Research collaborator) Professor, University of New South Wales, Australia
As noted by Michael above, Jayakody's contribution to management research in Sri Lanka was not only through his own research, but also through the numerous research training programmes he designed and contributed to. His insistence on instilling critical and conceptual thinking in his students and providing rigorous training in research methods laid the foundation for a stream of young researchers. His approach to his own research work and the work of his students is best summarised by his colleague (who had also previously been one of his lecturers when he was reading for the MBA) during Jayakody's term as the Head of the Research Centre at the Postgraduate Institute of Management (PIM), University of Sri Jayewardenepura: He always wanted the best out of his doctoral students. He would go through a PhD Thesis even a hundred times until he was satisfied with the contribution to new knowledge. He would not hesitate to challenge an existing theory and demand his followers to do so. At every possible turn, he would motivate and inspire the doctoral students to contribute significantly to knowledge, which positively changed the attitudes of the students and the entire student group. AKL Jayawardana, PhD (Colleague and former teacher) Senior Lecturer, PIM, University of Sri Jayewardenepura, Sri Lanka

Leadership in Administration
Jayakody's leadership in the field of management education was not limited to research. His commitment to translating theoretical understanding and sense making into practical applications made a tangible impact on organisations, communities, and society at large. The contributions he made in leadership positions in various institutions of management education are too many to enumerate here. Therefore, we include reflections on his contributions to three institutions where his impact was most prominent. Jayakody's success as an administrator was due, in no small measure, to his uncanny ability of identifying talented colleagues, supporting them, and utilising them to achieve organisational goals: Last but not least, a hallmark of Jayakody's administration was the genuine concern he had for his colleagues and subordinates, and the wish to support their growth. As seen in almost every quote in this section, this character trait not only led to the growth of his colleagues and subordinates, but also contributed immensely to the success of the academic programmes and institutions he led as an administrator.

He was such an influential leader in my career growth with whom I worked on many different academic and administrative assignments. He was the main person who unlocked and guided me to unleash my hidden capabilities in relation to academic and administrative work. Not only did he identify my potentials, but he also had a natural instinct for using them for institutional development. Sampath Kehelwalatenna (Colleague and student) Professor, University of Colombo
However, this care, support and influence extended well beyond the boundaries of his formal role and responsibilities and is perhaps the most significant aspect of his legacy. We therefore devote the third and last section to reflecting on how he helped others to reach their potential and how, in so doing, he embodied many aspects of the transformational and charismatic leadership he so passionately studied.

Influencing Others to Reach Their Potential
If we are to identify one characteristic that permeated the entire leadership style of Jayakody, this would be it. As succinctly expressed by Jayawardana: For him, the simple act of putting your people first starts with you. AKL Jayawardana, PhD (Colleague and

former teacher) Senior Lecturer, PIM, University of Sri Jayewardenepura, Sri Lanka
The majority of those who benefitted from this influence were his students. With them, Jayakody had a (seemingly paradoxical) combination of a strict, paternalistic style of influence, characteristic of a traditional Sri Lankan father, and a more empathetic style including a willingness to listen, share ideas and provide feedback. In combination, these characteristics made his students feel empowered and encouraged (and sometimes persuaded!) to take ownership of their learning journey. The former style is expressed by one student as follows: He, of course, used all forms of power he had to push us beyond our (self-imposed) limits, be it the reward power of opening many new opportunities for young academics or the coercive power of shouting at us when we did not utilise opportunities that came our way for career development. I often got scolded by Professor Jayakody for not living up to my potential, which he realised more than I.

Prabhashini Wijewantha, PhD (Student) Senior Lecturer, University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka
It is noteworthy that Prabhashini, above, is appreciative of Jayakody's use of coercive power with the knowledge that it was one way of driving them towards reaching their potential.
What is overwhelmingly present in all the reflections we received is this trait of striving to support others (both students and colleagues) to reach their potential. The following ideas expressed by a few of his former students, and a PhD candidate in the UK whom he had helped during a short period of commonwealth fellowship at the University of Exeter, are simply echoes of the voices of many of his former students scattered across the globe. The innovative techniques Jayakody used to bring out the best in his students and colleagues, his commitment, generosity, inclusivity and humanity in general, are all exemplified in a quote we extracted from a lengthy reflection, packed with appreciation, by a Guest Editor of this special issue: The two authors of this dedication are among the fortunate people who benefited immensely from the generous support of Jayakody. Simply by being a colleague and friend, the inspirational and supportive influence Jayakody had on the academic career (especially research) of Dinuka Wijetunga is invaluable. He had a greater and more direct influence on Mayuri Atapattu who was a first a student and then a colleague. Therefore, we wish to end this section with two personal notes of reflection.
Mayuri wishes to present her thoughts in second person, as a tribute addressed to her teacher:

Some Concluding Remarks
Jayakody was never directly involved with the CBJ. However, his indirect influence, through suggestions for improvement, and even more, through the influence he had as a colleague or teacher, on many who are directly involved with the journal, is profound.
In direct contrast to the subject of his PhD thesis -dilution of a leader's influence following his departurethe impact Professor JASK Jayakody had on the CBJ, the University of Colombo, the other institutions he served, and the numerous students and colleagues whose lives he touched, is characteristic of his understanding of what 'leadership' is: Professor Jayakody once said to me "… leadership is about making others better due to the leader's presence and making sure that the impact of people you groom lasts even in the leader's absence…" Sampath Kehelwalatenna (Colleague and student) Professor, University of Colombo May this special issue on organisational leadership be a tribute to the legacy of this true leader in management research and education.