Leadership and Management Development Program - GlaxoSmithKline - Case Study Example

LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM By Location Introduction Leadership and management development is an approach aimed at expanding the ability of people in leadership positions to perform in an organization (Keast & Mandell 2013). The development process takes some stages to equip leaders with skills that will catapult their organizations to greater heights. There are various programs that may serve to help leaders and managers such as systematic approach that has been successful for many companies. The systematic approach considers the differing expectations of leaders and managers and organizational practices that will allow them to work at peak efficiency. Leaders and managers work together with upper management on a plan that will help their development. Leaders and managers must work together to document goals and any projected problems that would hinder success (Latham & Seijts 2013). Companies can also organize workshops to inform their employees on the basics of leadership and management by focusing on companies values and principles. GlaxoSmithKline Company can use induction, reflective experience process, mentoring programs, and consolidation of skills to develop managers and leaders. Background of GlaxoSmithKline GlaxoSmithKline is a British international pharmaceutical company that has headquarters in London. The company was established early in this century by an amalgamation of Glaxo Wellcome and SmithKline. GlaxoSmithKline is a science-led global healthcare organization that researches and develops various innovative products in the areas of Vaccines, Pharmaceuticals, and Consumer Healthcare. The company has a considerable global presence since it operates in more than 150 countries and boasts of 86 manufacturing sites in more than 35 countries. It has Research and Development centers in the United Kingdom, United States, China and Belgium (GlaxoSmithKline 2015). The company’s Pharmaceuticals business develops and manufactures medicines to treat different diseases. The Pharmaceutical business is made up of patent-protected and off-patent medicines that have impacted the whole world. The company develops and promotes various health products that are based on scientific innovation. The company’s brands include Oral health, Total Wellness, Skin health, and Nutrition; they include TUMS, Aquafresh, and Sensodyne (GlaxoSmithKline 2015). GlaxoSmithKline invests in people to ensure a lasting sustainability of its business. The company’s employment practices assist in creating the right place of work culture where every person feels valued, esteemed, and inspired. The company has about 100,000 employees around the world in 150 different nations. In the United States alone, GlaxoSmithKline has more than 16, 000 employees in every state, including almost 3,600 in Research Triangle Park and 5,000 in the Philadelphia area (GlaxoSmithKline 2015). The overall learning strategy of the program The Leadership and Management Development Program of GlaxoSmithKline will offer an outstanding opportunity to succeed in business today. The company value employees who can apply innovation and imagination to make the company successful in all ways. The company requires incredible leaders and managers who can produce high-performance and promote engagement among employees. At the core of the business, it is the ability to make future leaders who can take the company a step further. Participants in the leadership and management program will be in a position to demonstrate leadership competencies. The following are the benefits of leadership and management program (Collins et al. 2011): Inspire and develop managers and leaders Manage their businesses and understand the key drivers for their businesses Create strategies and cause change Adapt to doing business in the world market Ensures that the priorities of functions agree with business goals The implementation and evaluation strategy for the program Before the implementation of the leadership and management development program, the company needs to consider what employees will find valuable and what the company wants to accomplish. A needs assessment done by GlaxoSmithKline will assist the company first to identify the program objectives of the program. Besides, the company will know the skills employees want to gain. Designing a curriculum that will address the needs of participants will help managers and leaders to be passionate about the program. The following steps can be taken before implementing a development program (Keast & Mandell 2013): Developing Framework: Before GlaxoSmithKline can implement its leadership development program, it is imperative to describe what skills, knowledge, and abilities are necessary for leaders and managers to be taught. If the company fails to understand these needs, it will be hard to measure the effectiveness of its development program.  Establish Need: It may be very hard for managers and leaders to see their challenges; it is critical to help them understand their challenges. For instance, leaders and managers can instinctively settle into one management style that allows them to be contented. The challenge with this is that not every management style is suitable for all occasions.  Provide Training: Leaders and managers must be taught the necessary competencies to help them perform their duties.  Encouraging Experiential Learning: Leaders and managers need to get that opportunity to exercise their skills. They need to be motivated to embrace new challenges that will expose them to opportunities they can use their skills. If a manager or a leader is learning financial management skills, then he or she needs to be put in charge of a team that experiences financial challenges.   Feedback: Leaders and managers need to get feedback on their performance to know their progress. They must be informed if their performance has improved and what they can do to make their performance better. They need to be continuously provided with feedback until they achieve the target they are set out to realize. Appraise Success: The success of the program must be assessed to know if it meets its objectives. There are different standards a company can use to know if the leadership and management program was successful. For instance, if a leader or manager was focusing on his/her ability to motivate employees, the company will know if there are any changes by studying employees’ turnover.  To assist managers and leaders use what they will learn in the program, it is imperative to develop an action plan towards the end of the program. There will also be a follow-up to see if they use the skills in their places of work. The following are ways in which the company can use to know if managers and leaders are using the acquired skills (Benard 2012): Conducting interviews to know if leaders and managers are progressing Conducting follow-up meetings to see how the managers and leaders are applying the concepts they learned in the program. Leadership and management development program Leadership and development program of GlaxoSmithKline will start with induction to help all managers identify with the goals of the company. Reflective experience will help them reflect on the performance of the company and their performance before deciding on the steps to take. Young leaders must be mentored to help them develop skills that will assist them in their careers. Induction Efficient induction is necessary to ensure that all employees appointed to leadership positions know all the aspects of the areas as fast as possible. There will be a consistent approach to the induction, and all staff needs to be part of it. It is projected that the induction process will take one year. The training program expected by new leaders and managers will involve (Latham & Seijts 2013): Equipping them for their jobs Ensuring that they will learn the business of leading and managing their posts Providing training that they can complete based on their experiences Ensure that they anticipate reviewing so that their next steps may be identified at the right time for one year Ensure that managers and leaders can create personal action plans that are connected to their development needs Reflective experience Reflective experience helps to build a reflective culture across the company for leaders and managers (Keast & Mandell 2013). To guarantee that the company remains responsive to the changing needs of its customers and the desire to enhance services, managers must be encouraged to get some time and reflect on the quality of services offered by their regions. Personal reflection and evaluation of working standards and office will help managers to identify areas that need improvement. There must be time commitment from all managers so that their development endeavors could lead to improvement. It is critical for this time commitment to be offered during the regular working hours of the managers since it is as important as the services they provide in their places of work. Following the Induction year, all managers and leaders must carry out a reflective study as part of their role and build Action Plans (Keast & Mandell 2013). They need to consider how their leadership styles could be improved and identify what their professional learning needs are to realize the improvement. It is critical to develop employees that can take responsibility for their learning and are reflective about their practices. The outcomes of the reflective activities shall be documented in a learning log by showing their activities and effect on the practice as a consequence of the reflection. The report may be shared with other colleagues where there is a need for change. It is critical for all the leaders and managers to be motivated to get involved in reflection for them to get an advantage of the development program. The following are examples of reflective activities that might be undertaken by managers and leaders of the company (Keast & Mandell 2013): Reading reports relevant to ones department or region Reading current research relevant to ones roles Undertaking online studies Reflecting on practice concerning other regions or countries Asking colleagues to support reflection on ones performance Participating in learning some topics Sharing with colleagues from different areas about a manager’s performance Doing research with other managers on a topic of mutual interest Reading programs that will help in improvements of the effectiveness of managers Establishing study programs on topics relevant to ones establishment Program for aspiring leaders A program for aspiring leaders, will last for approximately nine months. The program will help those who aspire to be leaders to assess themselves and their suitability for leadership roles. The aspiring leaders will go through a 3-day course where the following leadership skills will be evaluated (Keast & Mandell 2013): The ability to share vision and strategies for change Improving performance Coaching / mentoring Building connections The purpose of the program is to create a knowledge base where managers and leaders can build understanding and skills. Every aspiring manager will update their plans based on competencies that are evidenced on the expectations of the company to all leaders. There will be a follow-up session after the lapse of the nine months for managers and leaders to revisit issues and get feedback on their career development. After a successful completion of the program, participants will receive a certificate of completion and be considered for the other stages of leadership programs. For employees to qualify for the course, they need to: Have at least one year experience in their work Show evidence of having undertaken reflective work in Stage 2 Show proof of matching to the necessary criteria Get support from line managers and having shown qualities of sound leadership To evaluate successful completion, participants would need to: Provide evidence of actions completed through a written report Provide proof of self-reflection and the impact of the self-reflection on their career development Work and ensure they are signed off by their leaders Mentoring programs The company will allow input by having mentors and mentees fill in an information sheet that shows what they plan to offer and get from mentorship. The company needs a system that makes mentoring matches such as interviews, questionnaires, and committee recommendations for all mentors and mentees. The other way is to offer both mentors and mentees different options for partners and give them an opportunity to choose one (Benard 2012). For the company to retain skillful workers and develop future ones is imperative to understand to align employees’ objectives with those of the company. When the company encourages a learning culture by using mentoring, it ensures that aspiring leaders play a big role in spreading knowledge and enhance best practices in the company. Mentoring programs develop employees and their interpersonal links leading to improved engagement. It facilitates career and leadership development to assist employees have new skills and feel part of the company. Mentoring will help to create an atmosphere of belonging, trust, indulgence, and support to leaders and managers. The program will give employees a chance to share their concerns, overcome challenges and get solutions for different problems and inspire employees to perform to the best of their abilities. The influence of diversity mentoring will help the company to differentiate from its competitors and obtain new customers as it provides long-term support for its staff (Benard 2012). Consolidation of Skills-Strategic Experience The company is committed to involving its leaders and managers in making strategic decisions to make the company the most efficient. A majority of managers and leaders are involved in making strategic decisions that need time commitment on their part. To improve the ability of leaders and managers, all of them should be motivated to undertake a strategic commitment to the company (Sánchez-Núñez at al. 2015). Although the strategic engagement is critical to the professional development of top executives, leaders and managers and all aspiring leaders should be motivated to participate in the strategic direction of the company. The time commitment is provided from the regular working hours, and it helps in the development of skills that enables good leadership. The program will look at the fundamental principles of management as they apply to the modern workforce and investigate management behaviors that play a role in personal and interpersonal efficiency. The modern professionals must mix technical execution with leadership skills so as to realize the goals of their organizations. Management and leadership excellence is an opportunity for managers and leaders to strengthen their management skills as they build lasting interagency connections. Managers and leaders will participate in programs such as workshops, seminars, and events that will allow them to access to resources and best practices from different professions (Sánchez-Núñez et al. 2015). The program will help managers and leaders learn how communication, strategic thinking, and stakeholders’ engagement play an important role in companies’ operations. Implementation and evaluation strategy for the program The implementation of the leadership and management development program will take a period of three years. The headquarters of the company will draw the implementation program that will involve all the stakeholders. To assess the effectiveness of the program, the company will do the following (Shen & Cooley 2012): Conduct interviews to identify if leaders and managers have implemented any changes Examine the output of managers and leaders to identify any positive changes Consider the success of the whole company in the last few months Examining the attitudes of leaders and managers towards their roles Conclusion Leadership and management development programs are very critical to all companies and must be taken with all the seriousness it deserves if a company wants to experience success. GlaxoSmithKline development program seeks to help managers and leaders identify with the goals and objectives of the company and help them gain skills that will help them in their roles. The full implementation of the programs will help the company develop leaders and managers that will take the company a notch higher. References Benard, MK 2012, Grow your own leaders: Case study of a community college leadership development program. Collins, C, Emsell, P, & Haydon, J 2011, Leadership and Management Development, Oxford University Press. GlaxoSmithKline 2015, About US. Available at: http://us.gsk.com/en-us/about-us/ [Accessed June 4, 2015] Keast, R, & Mandell, MP 2013, 3 A Composite Theory of Leadership and Management. Network Theory in the Public Sector: Building New Theoretical Frameworks, 17, pp.33. Latham, GP, & Seijts, GH 2013, Management development. A Handbook of Work and Organizational Psychology: Volume 3: Personnel Psychology, pp.254. Lussier, R, & Achua, C 2015, Leadership: Theory, application, & skill development, Cengage Learning. Sánchez-Núñez, MT, Patti, J, & Holzer, A 2015, Effectiveness of a Leadership Development Program that Incorporates Social and Emotional Intelligence for Aspiring School Leaders. Journal of Educational Issues, 1(1), pp.65. Shen, J, & Cooley, VE 2012, Learning-Centered Leadership Development Program for Practicing and Aspiring Principals. Advances in Educational Administration, 17, pp.113- 135. Read More