Learning

and
Development
CHAPTER 17

Developing leaders and

managers

THE PURPOSE OF THE CHAPTER

To explore how an organisations leadership and management
development processes can help to build its future capability
as well as aiding the achievement of excellent performance in
a current situation.
KEY THEMES
The leadership pipeline
How effective is leadership and management development?
Assessing the evidence
Putting findings into practice
What kind of development?
Tasks for HR professionals

THE LEADERSHIP PIPELINE: THE TOP LEVEL

Corporate leadership
Those responsible for setting and executing corporate
strategy
Key tasks
Building and sustaining vision and values
Achieving an organisational culture and a quality of life
that will engage internal and external stakeholders
Leading a regular organising process
Working with a broad-based group in a continuous
strategising process
Developing and maintaining a learning culture.

THE LEADERSHIP PIPELINE: THE MIDDLE LEVEL

Operational leadership
Those in charge of a department or geographical area or
with other leadership responsibilities
Key tasks
Creating a high-performing workplace by:
making critical decisions about opportunities afforded by
communication and information technology
ensuring the success of organisational change
creating a culture of lifelong learning for all employees
ensuring engaged and healthy employees

THE LEADERSHIP PIPELINE: FIRST-LINE LEVEL

First line leadership
Team leaders and others with people leadership
responsibilities.
Key tasks
Creating a workplace context in which individuals and
teams can collectively achieve high performance
Ensuring that individuals and team have the attitudes,
motivation and opportunity to apply their
knowledge and skills to going the extra mile for the
organisation
Encouraging and supporting individuals and teams in
the use of discretionary power

Research findings: KEY FAILINGS IN LEADERSHIP AND

MANAGEMENT DEVELOPMENT ACROSS THE WORLD
Lack of appropriate leadership development strategies
Poor implementation and evaluation of leadership development
programmes
Lack of effective succession planning
Neglect of multinational leaders
Poor partnership between HR and corporate leaders

Leadership and management development:

RESEARCH-RELATED ISSUES
Much MD practice in the UK lacks a convincing evidence
base.
MD practice makes little use of qualitative research
findings.
Researchers fail to agree on what leadership constitutes.
Most research ignores the middle and first-line levels of the
leadership pipeline.
Much MD practice is based on inappropriate management
models and is unclear about what managers actually do
in the particular organisation.
MD programmes can serve as an instrument of control
exercised by senior management over those in lesser
positions. This makes it hard to ensure their objective
evaluation.

DEVELOPING LMD STRATEGY: THE STARTING

POINT (Beard and Irvine, 2005)
What do we mean by leadership and management in
this organisation?
What is the culture of our organisation or what shift in
culture do we want our LMD strategy to help us
achieve?
What are the best methods of developing individuals in
the leadership and management skills and behaviours
needed at key transition points in the
leadership
pipeline?
How can we evaluate our LMD effectively, in terms both
of whether training and learning needs were accurately
identified and of the impact of that activity on the
business and on individuals?

PRINCIPLES TO GUIDE LEADERSHIP AND

MANAGEMENT DEVELOPMENT

The Hays Consultancy case:

TASK 1: KEY QUESTIONS TO ASK
What specific outcomes for the business were the three enhanced sets
of skills intended to achieve, and what measures were used to
operationalise and measure them?
Who decided on the measures and their implementation?
What specific outcomes were set to change the culture and behaviours
of top management, and how were they measured?
When were outcomes measured?
What systems, processes and procedures are there in the workplace to
ensure that participants action plans are carried through and are
regularly updated?
What will the company do to identify and develop those with the
potential to enter the leadership pipeline in future?

The Hays Consultancy case:

TASK 2: KEY INFORMATION NEEDED
Programme design and methods reflect a strategy of experiential
learning. Will new leadership tasks and methods be supported or
initiated by changes in business processes, and will unlearning and
relearning be supported by organisational systems?
How will desired changes in values, attitudes and behaviour be
reinforced after the programme?
Do the programmes methods encourage lateral thinking and doubleloop learning?
What criteria determined the use of the development methods
mentioned, and were any other methods of work-based learning
included?
On what basis was the leadership competency framework produced,
and what has been the organisational impact of the competencies?
Was there an assignment component in the programme, and is any
intended for the programme now being rolled out?

Educational programmes can provide value for:

potential managers
managers involved in structural and role change
managers who are set in their ways
managers preparing for more strategic roles

RESPONSE TO THE COMPLACENT MANAGER . . .

Organisationally-based development must have a clear
strategic focus
New tasks and methods in which leaders and managers are
being developed need the support of changes in
business and HR processes and practices
Educational programmes can play an important part in
leadership and management development
There must be an organisational culture which ensures that
unlearning can occur and that new learning can be
effectively applied in the workplace
There must be regular monitoring and effective evaluation
of the business and individual outcomes of any
development strategy or programme

SEVEN AREAS OF IMPACT FOR LMD

1 Integration of LMD strategy with talent and career management
and other areas of HR strategy
2 Active involvement of business units as well as the centre in
planning, operating and evaluating the LMD system
3 Proactivity of HR professionals in interpreting business priorities
and translating them into LMD policies and practices
4 Close partnership between HR professionals and business leaders
to achieve the necessary cultural change
5 Operational leaders and managers competent to train and develop
others and to implement LMD strategy in their workplaces
6 Formal LMD programmes that encompass a critical mass
7 Measurement of key outcomes of LMD strategy, and monitoring
and evaluation of the operation of the whole LMD system