Staff development and evaluation is an essential leadership process that plays a vital role in an organization’s success. It is of vital importance to provide employees with high-quality professional development and then analyze the results. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the necessary elements of effective staff development and evaluation techniques, including leadership characteristics, and explain the role of humility in this process.
The most essential goal of a staff development system is to train employees so that they are able to meet the organization’s main standards for hiring and promotion. Those standards have to match with the organization’s strategies, vision, and mission and support them (Dudin et al., 2017). In addition, in order to be effective, they must be based on competency. To satisfy the organization’s needs, it is necessary that training is ongoing and an important part of a staff development system, which includes supportive written material, accurate feedback, mentoring, evaluation, and assessment.
There are many effective employee development methods, and some of them are simulations, task or job rotations, and mentoring. It is possible to suggest that simulation is the most unusual and interesting technique. Its point is in role-playing some situations so that an employee becomes aware of the actions they need to take. This is extremely helpful and useful in taking textbook and conceptual knowledge and learning how to apply it to a real situation. This method gives the worker the necessary experience, exposure, and comfort in handling such tasks. Another necessary and rather helpful technique is mentoring, when senior leaders who are rather experienced take, junior employees, under their wing to teach and help to develop important skills that are necessary for the organization. This is a rather classic and usual but beneficial method, especially for developing leadership characteristics both for the mentor and the junior employee. As for the elements of effective staff development, they are being content-focused and of sustained duration, incorporating active learning, supporting collaborations, using models of effective practices, providing coaching and expert support, and offering feedback and reflection.
After any staff development method was applied, it may be necessary to check if it was useful for the workers. That is where evaluation techniques are needed, and here are some of their key elements. Staff development evaluation starts with identifying and engaging key stakeholders and describing all professional development activities and goals (Ellis & Hogard, 2018). Then, it is necessary to define the questions and objectives of the evaluation and the indicators that have to be measured. The final step is to analyze and interpret results and define the following actions. After evaluation, the leader of the organization may understand if the chosen staff development method was good and useful or not.
Several characteristics determine whether a leader is good and successful, and humility is one of them. Humble leader uses their experience, knowledge, and skills to bring the employees together, improve quality and production, and increase sales. According to Eng (2019), “a recent study at a healthcare company showed that teams with humble leaders showed better performance with higher-quality work” (para. 3). For instance, if a leader demonstrates humility, the employees are more comfortable with expressing their ideas, sharing thoughts, and are more relaxed about possible minor mistakes. They are not afraid of their leader but full of respect. Moreover, such a leader will find the best ways for their staff’s professional development and will evaluate them fairly.
The following situation may be an example of a leader who showed humility. At a Philadelphia Starbucks, a manager who did not let two African-American men use the Starbucks’ bathroom without ordering anything, called the police, and they were arrested for trespassing (Dishman, 2018). Some days later, Starbucks’ chief executive officer called this situation reprehensible. Like a humble leader, he closed all eight thousand locations to give his workers bias training. He also apologized for the way the two men were treated and wanted to meet them and express regret for the situation in person.
References
Dishman, L. (2018). Work smart. These are the best and worst leaders of 2018. Fast Company. Web.
Dudin, M. N., Vysotskaya, N. V., Frolova, E. E., Pukhart, A. A., & Galkina, M. V. (2017). Improving professional competence of the staff as a strategic factor for sustainable development of companies. Journal of Business and Retail Management Research, 12(1), 133-142.
Ellis, R., & Hogard, E. (2018). Handbook of quality assurance for university teaching. Routledge.
Eng, J. (2019). Bend the knee: Why humility is a core quality for leaders. Instructure. Web.