Impact of Contextual Factors on Leadership and Management Development
Leadership Development
Leadership development entails activities designed to prepare current and future leaders to perform their roles efficiently. One of the primary roles of leadership development entails boosting employee engagement. This strategy trains leaders on increasing interaction, encouraging feedback, and improving workers’ efficiency. Additionally, leadership development helps deal with gaps present in the talent pipeline by identifying what talents are needed in what sections. This development allows people to harness essential skills and attributes required for effective communication, inspiration and effective decision making. Based on L&D, their leadership development strategy focuses on developing the available talent, which can be through means such as establishing pathways and programs that allow talent growth and coordinating HR processes and actions that enhance talent development (Cheung-Judge, 2021 p. 386). Based on the organizational context, developing talent is imperative as the current leaders apply traditional leadership strategies transitioned from their previous companies before the merger was formed. This requirement means that the leadership development strategy adopted should provide ways in which talent can be promoted within the organization, thus meeting the aim of ‘talent development which is of the utmost importance with L&D.
Another key contextual factor in the company is ensuring all systems and processes are working consistently and effectively while maintaining the present number of managers. The company’s need to keep the current management but yield effective methods means that the leadership development program needs to incorporate competence, commitment and character when nurturing the already available management. L&D team will need to ensure that the leadership development program offers competence training as competence will ensure these managers have their skills and values continually refined. Secondly, the program can integrate commitment in its training program to ensure that a strong teamwork culture, transparency and open communication are present among the available managers. Lastly, the program needs to focus on impacting character development, enabling the current management to self-reflect on their experiences, allowing them to nurture the behaviors of different departments in the organization (Gamba, 2021). Ultimately, the leadership program needs to incorporate competence, character, and commitment to ensure the present managers effectively ensure all systems run efficiently.
Based on the L&D team’s needs and requirements, which include developing the firm’s leadership and management capability via a two-way approach and attracting talent development, the leadership management strategy would be the ideal design to adopt in the organization. The main reason behind this choice is the strategy’s needs based on the organizational priorities in the quest to execute operations more effectively than the company’s rivals. The two most crucial requirements in the organization include ‘attracting’ and ‘developing’ talent. The leadership development program seems to serve both roles in the case study. It will focus on retaining most employees after thoroughly engaging them through learning and training in the engagement that will enhance the managers. More reasons behind the choice of the leadership development program are provided in the following details.
Impact of Organizational Culture on Leadership and Management Development
Leadership
Organizational culture influences the aims of leadership development in most organizations. One of the corporate cultures evidenced by the L&D case study is the award orientation, where the employees, including the board, are oriented to get awards such as the ‘Best Companies to Work for’ (BCW) prize. According to the company, these awards may improve brand awareness and promote L&D to new prospective customers, making awards a high priority even to the board. This type of organizational culture affects leadership development by specifying what the product needs to focus on when adopted (Frasier, 2019, p. 80). According to the board, the new leadership development should engage and retain employees’ talents, forming a ladder towards getting the BCW award. Despite most of the company’s employees concentrating on the prize benefits, the adopted leadership development strategy can also help improve performance as the initial objective of L&D, which includes attracting and developing talents, will be achieved in the long-run (Gamba, 2021). Generally, organizational culture such as award-oriented makes firms focuses their leadership development strategy on sectors that can increase their chances of winning the award.
Organizational culture can act as a form of leadership development by influencing leaders’ attitudes in the organization. When an organization runs on an employee-centric culture, it is easier to develop leaders from the present staff as the employees believe that leaders are cultivated within them. When other managers subsequently adopt this culture, the net result will be fostered internal growth. Additionally, an organizational culture that believes leaders should be rewarded after depicting inventive thinking will foster the manager’s problem-solving attitude, resulting in better leadership(Gamba, 2021). Generally, corporate culture can influence subsequent managers’ actions and attitudes by incorporating what employees consider the most valuable thing in the company.
Needs Analysis
Approach to Needs Analysis and Design of Unified Development Program
Influence of the Output of Need Analysis on Program Design
One of the needs presents in L&D company is to attract talent as it allows the company to get more awards and achieve a competitive advantage. The leadership development program helps to serve the role of recruiting talent as the primary focus based on the organizational culture of managing talent and retaining employees (Burrell et al., 2018, p. 90). The outcome of the need analysis requires that the development program adopt a multicriteria in developing talents as this will also attract many employees in the labour market. For instance, L&D can decide to advertise what sets it apart from its competitors, such as showing the company’s brand to prospective customers. Another way the needs analysis informs the development program is to create a talent pipeline where L&D can conduct benchmarking studies with recruitment software providers such as Lever, allowing the company to access effective methods for attracting talent (Tingle et al., 2019, p. 15). Generally, the need analysis requires decision-makers on the development program to incorporate talent pipelines and company advertisement in attracting talents.
The other need presented by the needs analysis is developing talent within the organization. As decision-makers plan to adopt a leadership development program in attracting talents, they also need to focus on developing the available skills in the company’s environment. The needs analysis requires the decision-makers to identify opportunities that require reskilling and upskilling the organization. This identification will allow the company to determine which employees possess basic skills that it should focus on developing. Additionally, the needs analysis requires the leadership development program to provide numerous learning options and methods by applying a tailored approach to personal development. For instance, L&D can build a program that allows mentorship and in-job learning programs that will ultimately enhance the talents in the company. Lastly, the need analysis requires the company to promote performance coaching as this helps employees improve their skills and talents during their daily interactions (Lerman & Jameson, 2019, p. 1862). Generally, the outcomes of the need analysis require the leadership development program to adopt procedures such as performance coaching that will enhance talent development in L&D.
The Design of Leadership Development Program
Define Company’s Needs
The first step in developing the leadership development program is identifying the specific gaps that the organization is likely to face shortly. Identifying the niche present in the firm mars the initial step as it helps the company foresee the challenges or the benefits it might experience soon. For instance, L&D company can assess whether leaders are planning to retire soon or if the present leaders leave and how the outcome will impact the organization’s reputation. It is also necessary to consider both short-term and long-term strategic goals at this step. In the case study, one of the company’s goals is to get the BCW awards, which is part of a short-term goal. L&D now needs to align the development program to ensure the firm has the exemplary leadership that will allow it to get this award (Beddow, 2018). Generally, decision-makers need to identify prospective gaps and strategic goals before aligning the program into their operation.
Develop Leaders
The main aim of the leadership development program is to nurture leaders for them to become more successful and not train them. In this step, the L&D company will need to place some of the leaders in situations that require them to learn and grow. For instance, they can assign a leader an opportunity when other leaders are away. Additionally, the company can encourage the present leaders to collaborate with colleagues in other departments when a particular project is involved. Other activities that facilitate the program’s viability include mentoring, organizational planning, project leadership and job rotation (Lucas et al., 2018, p. 230). Generally, the second step in adopting a leadership development program is developing controllers via mentoring.
Identify Potential Leaders
L&D company needs to identify leaders beyond the most apparent top-performing candidates. While the organization may be motivated to get the desired BCW awards as soon as possible, it may focus on identifying top-performing leaders only. However, an effective leadership development program will encourage the company to identify leaders of all potential. L&D should pinpoint leaders with different abilities and help them ascend the career ladder, thereby increasing their chances of staying in the organization even after climbing in their roles (Prommer et al., 2020). Generally, L&D companies should consider all candidates, including the top-performing and the under-performing ones, as all of them host leadership potential.
Measure Results
This step ensures companies have methods of measuring the success and impact of the program in achieving the set goals. L&D company needs to adopt measurement options such as the number of participants who finished the program successfully, hikes in employees’ leadership responsibilities or even the number of candidates promoted after undergoing the program. Generally, this step will ensure L&D assess whether employees developed leadership skills that increase the level of effectiveness in their current responsibilities.
Example of Approaches
Reference List
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