User:Zlongshore/Leadership development
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Leadership Development
[edit]Leadership development is the process which helps expand the capacity of individuals to perform in leadership roles within organizations. Leadership roles are those that facilitate execution of an organization's strategy through building alignment, winning mindshare and growing the capabilities of others. Leadership roles may be formal, with the corresponding authority to make decisions and take responsibility, in order to lead to the positive results for the team or company. They may also be informal roles with little official authority (e.g., a member of a team who influences team engagement, purpose and direction; a lateral peer who must listen and negotiate through influence).[1]
Developing Individual Leaders
[edit]Traditionally, leadership development has focused on developing the leadership abilities and attitudes of individuals. These individuals undergo rigorous training and education in where they learn how to lead others, run programs, and cultivate success. [2]
Different personal trait and characteristics can help or hinder a person's leadership effectiveness[3] and require formalized programs for developing leadership competencies. Those that tend to take action when faced with difficult situations tend to become better leaders, and those that look to others for help or answers in a difficult situations are often the ones who find their leadership capabilities hindered.
Classroom-style training and associated reading for leadership development may ail from the possible divergence between knowing what to do and doing what one knows; management expert Henry Mintzberg is one person to highlight this dilemma. A 2015 study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences estimated that as little as 15% of learning from traditional classroom-style training results in sustained behavioral change within workplaces.[4][5]
Baldwin and Ford link success of leadership development efforts to three variables:[6]
- Individual learner characteristics
- Quality and nature of the leadership development program
- Support for behavioral change from the leader's supervisor.
Military officer-training academies, such as the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, go to great lengths to accept only candidates who show the highest potential to lead well.[7] Personal characteristics that are associated with successful leadership development include leader motivation to learn, a high achievement drive and personality traits such as openness to experience, an internal focus of control, and self-monitoring. In order to develop individual leaders, supervisors or superiors must conduct an individual assessment.[8]
Development is also more likely to occur when the design of the development program:
- Integrates a range of developmental experiences over a set period of time (e.g., 6–12 months). These experiences may include 360 degree feedback, experiential classroom style programs, business school style coursework, executive coaching, reflective journaling, mentoring and more.
- Involves goal-setting, following an assessment of key developmental needs and then an evaluation of the achievement of goals after a given time period.
Among key concepts in leadership development one may find:
- Experiential learning: Positioning the individual in the focus of the learning process, going through the four stages of experiential learning as formulated by David A. Kolb:
- Concrete experience.
- Observation and reflection.
- Forming abstract concepts.
- Testing in new situations.
- Self efficacy: The right training and coaching should bring about 'self efficacy' in the trainee, as Albert Bandura formulated: a person's belief about his capabilities to produce effects. If a person believes that they can achieve a goal, they are much more likely to achieve it than if they have doubt in their ability to achieve the goal.
- Visioning: Developing the ability to formulate a clear image of the aspired future of an organization unit.
- Attitude: Attitude plays a major role in being a leader. Being able to connect and communicate well with others of many different walks of life and personalities is important in being a leader.
Developing Leadership at a Collective Level
[edit]Leadership can also be developed by strengthening the connection between, and alignment of, the efforts of individual leaders and the systems through which they influence organizational operations. This has led to a differentiation between leader development and leadership development. [9]
Leadership development can build on the development of individuals (including followers) to become leaders. Programs are designed to train multiple individuals at once, but the training is specific to each individual person. It also needs to focus on the interpersonal linkages in the team, and the goals and aspirations that the team or company has in mind.
Following the credo of people as an organization's most valuable resource, some organizations address the development of these resources (including leadership).
In contrast, the concept of "employeeship" recognizes that what it takes to be a good leader is not too dissimilar to what it takes to be a good employee. Therefore, bringing the notional leader together with the team to explore these similarities (rather than focusing on the differences) brings positive results. This approach has been particularly successful in Sweden where the power distance between manager and team is small. [10]
Succession Planning
[edit]The development of "high potentials" to take over leadership when the time comes the current leadership to leave their positions is known as succession planning. This type of leadership development usually requires the extensive transfer of an individual between departments. In many multinationals, it usually requires international transfer and experience to build a future leader.
Succession planning requires a sharp focus on the organization's future and vision, in order to align leadership development with the future that the organization aspires to create. Thus successive leadership development is based not only on knowledge and history but also on a dream. For such a plan to be successful, a screening of future leadership should be based not only on "what we know and have" but also on "what we aspire to become".
Persons involved in succession planning should include current leadership members who can articulate the future vision. Three critical dimensions should be considered:
- Skills and knowledge;
- Role perception and degree of acceptance of leading role; and,
- Self-efficacy.[11]
See Also
[edit]- Action learning
- Organization development
- Executive education
- Business acumen
- Collaborative leadership
- Leadership studies
- Trait leadership
- YGLP
- Halogen Foundation, an international programme to develop young leaders
- Kolb's experiential learning
References
[edit]- ^ Schwartz, Norton (February 18, 2006). "Leadership and Force Development" (PDF). Government Info. Retrieved July 23, 2025.
- ^ "Leadership Development Program" (PDF). September 01, 2000.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ Stawiski, Sarah; Jeong, Stephen; Champion, Heather (2020-11). Leadership Development Impact (LDI) Framework (Report). Center for Creative Leadership.
{{cite report}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ "A racing heart makes the mind race, too, mouse study finds". AAAS Articles DO Group. 2023-03-01. Retrieved 2025-07-24.
- ^ Cromwell, Susan E.; Kolb, Judith A. (2004-12). "An examination of work‐environment support factors affecting transfer of supervisory skills training to the workplace". Human Resource Development Quarterly. 15 (4): 449–471. doi:10.1002/hrdq.1115. ISSN 1044-8004.
{{cite journal}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ BALDWIN, TIMOTHY T.; FORD, J. KEVIN (1988-03). "TRANSFER OF TRAINING: A REVIEW AND DIRECTIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH". Personnel Psychology. 41 (1): 63–105. doi:10.1111/j.1744-6570.1988.tb00632.x. ISSN 0031-5826.
{{cite journal}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ Bois, Hélène (1986). "Stephen P. ROBBINS : Organizational Behavior. Concepts, Controversies and Applications. 3rd ed., Englewood Cliffs, Prentice-Hall, 1986, 554 pp., ISBN 0-13-641549-0-01". Relations industrielles. 41 (4): 879. doi:10.7202/050272ar. ISSN 0034-379X.
- ^ ARMY RESEARCH OFFICE WASHINGTON DC (1962-11-12). EIGHTH ANNUAL ARMY HUMAN FACTORS ENGINEERING CONFERENCE 16-19 OCTOBER 1962, UNITED STATES ARMY INFANTRY CENTER AND UNITED STATES ARMY INFANTRY SCHOOL, FORT BENNING, GEORGIA (Report). Fort Belvoir, VA: Defense Technical Information Center.
- ^ "Organizational Leadership: What It Is & Why It's Important". Business Insights Blog. 2023-01-24. Retrieved 2025-07-24.
- ^ Mutonyi, Barbara Rebecca; Slåtten, Terje; Lien, Gudbrand; González-Piñero, Manel (2022-05-13). "The impact of organizational culture and leadership climate on organizational attractiveness and innovative behavior: a study of Norwegian hospital employees". BMC health services research. 22 (1): 637. doi:10.1186/s12913-022-08042-x. ISSN 1472-6963. PMC 9102259. PMID 35562748.
{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: unflagged free DOI (link) - ^ Bandura, Albert (1977). "Self-efficacy: Toward a unifying theory of behavioral change". Psychological Review. 84 (2): 191–215. doi:10.1037/0033-295X.84.2.191. ISSN 1939-1471.