Leadership and Management Development - Essay Example

Leadership and Management Development Introduction Coaching refers to a process of training individuals by providing with the necessary support in order for them to achieve particular objectives. Leadership and management coaching is therefore a similar process employed by organizations in training effective managers to either succeed the retiring managers or to provide the organization with adequate managers to foster the company’s growth and development (Kelliher & Anderson, 2010). Most business organizations currently have varied management trainee jobs, which they use to train managers. The process is productive owing to the numerous benefits and efficiency of the process. However, the process is equally hectic with both the trainers and the trainees facing numerous challenges. Despite the numerous challenges, coaching is the most effective way of ensuring the provision of future leaders and managers, the process requires effective consideration with the trainers using particular appropriate theories in selecting and coaching the future leaders in order to achieve the desired success as the discussion below portrays. In 1938, Chester Barnard defined leadership as the ability of a leader to influence the behaviors of subordinates thus persuading them to a particular desired action. Organizational leaders and managers require numerous types of power that they only acquire through professional training and exposure. This validates the need for management trainee in organizations. Through the dedicated coaching, an organization equips the individuals with adequate professional skills besides exposing them to the operations of the company. This way, they acquire the expert skills coupled with adequate experience on the operations of the company. As such, the managers become holistic individuals who will not only influence their subordinates to particular actions but also guide them in the process of effective implementation of the policies. Through the tailored management trainees in organizations, the trainees acquire effective interpersonal skills that enhance their operations in the companies a feature that is likely to enhance their productivity as future leaders at the company. Managers often formulate policies that influence the production process. The process of formulating a policy requires effective understanding of one’s role at the organization coupled with unparalleled access to the resources of the company. Through the leadership coaching, the organization exposes the students to the intricate features of the company thereby equipping them with the analytical skills to enable them carry out effective forecasting while in the company. Each organization operates in particular industries a feature that proves the effectiveness of leadership and management coaching. Through the process, the organization introduces the students to particular industries. Expert power arises from the manager’s understanding of the industry. Coaching provides managers with superior professional skills in order to influence the operations of their subordinates. Coaching leaders is an effective way of ensuring that the organization has a dedicated supply of leaders. The process provides leaders equipped with knowledge and professionalism in particular industries. The process is likely to sustain the productivity of the respective companies owing to the fact that it equips the leaders with effective leadership and management skills appropriate in respective industries besides exposing them to particular companies. Each company has an organizational culture often envisioned in the company’s mission, vision and goals among many others. This implies that the personality and professional expertise of the managers must uphold the values of the organization. Coaching instils such values in the individuals thereby ensuring that they sustain the discipline and professionalism require by both the organization and the industry (Hill & Jones, 2011). Among the theories of leadership that validates caching of leaders in organization, include the behavioral and participative theory. Behavioral theories provide leaders with effective understanding of the employees. Among such theories is theory X and theory Y. theory X posits that employees are inherently lazy and avoid work at any possible opportunity, managers must therefore carry out dedicated supervision of the employees in order to enhance the profitability of the organization (Sims, 2007). Theory Y adopts a contradictory stand postulating that employees love their job and will remains productive voluntarily. While the two theories appear contradictory, they provide managers with effective understanding of their organizations thereby influencing the nature of training that the management trainees acquire during their training process. Theory X describes the situation in unskilled labor while theory Y describes the case in skilled labor. As such, the training process considers the nature of the company’s operations thereby equipping the trainees with appropriate skills that will enhance the company’s productivity. The two behavioral theories for example introduce the role of motivation and supervision in enhancing productivity. The junior managers must understand effective way of motivating and supervising their employees in order to enhance the productivity of the company. Through the coaching process, the trainees acquire appropriate interpersonal skills besides professional ways of motivating and supervising the employees in order to sustain the productivity of the company. Managers often influence the operations of their subordinates; the process becomes natural when managers have the innate skills of motivating and supervising their subordinates. This way, they possess legitimate power that therefore influences the actions of their subordinates at the company. Additionally, through the two, a manager acquires the coercive power. Coercive power arises from the manager’s ability to punish the employees effectively. Punishment is effective in deterring unwanted operations at the company. A manager punishes the employees appropriately depending on their mistakes and the punishments often vary depending in the nature of the mistake. Effective coaching and training on behaviors provide managers with appropriate ways of punishing under productivity at the company. Effective punishment serves as a warning to other employees but may also act as a demoralizer depending on the nature of both the mistake and the punishment. This therefore validates the extensive coaching process that equips with the effective behavioral theories as they therefor obtain the ability to evaluate the behavior of the employees and punish them appropriately. Additionally, effective training provides the managers with appropriate personality traits thereby acquiring them the referent power. The analogy that leaders are born and not trained is a management fallacy. With effective professional skills, training equips managers with appropriate personality skills and traits thereby enabling them to lead besides manage. Managers are leaders owing to the fact that they manage varied groups of human resources at the organization. This underscores the need for personality training, which naturally provides managers with the referent power that refers to the fact that fact that subordinates identify with numerous personality features of the managers (Heizer & Render, 2011). Personality traits arise from effective training, students often come from schools with the professional expertise. The management coaching and training process thus only exposes them to the operations of the company besides equipping the trainees with appropriate personality traits to enhance their operations at the company as they influence the operations of their subordinates at the company. Participative theory on the other hand posits that leaders influence the actions of their subordinates through participating in the operations of the society thereby championing for particular changes. A leader can only participate in the operations of the group if they have the appropriate professional skills and appropriate interpersonal skills. Training manager provide the trainees with adequate personality traits that will enhance their identification of problems thereby devising appropriate measures to counter the problem. Managers with the technical skills often command respect from their subordinates owing to their ability to provide practical skills in overcoming challenges at the organization. Additionally, such managers readily provide orientation to new employees thus motivating them appropriately to appreciate the values and cultures of the organization. With effective technical skills on the operations of machines at the organization, managers will easily supervise the employees owing to the fact that they know the features to investigate and observes in order to determine optimum operations of the machines. Through leadership coaching, the trainees acquire effective professional skills about the operations of the company as the training process rotates them through the numerous departments within the organization. Leadership coaching is therefore the most efficient way of providing an organization with effective managers who understand the operations of the organization. However, the process presents numerous challenges key among which is the wastage of resources. Most companies prefer hiring experienced managers instead of training managers. Among such resources is time, productivity in companies relies on the time of production. Training of managers requires adequate time within which the company equips the trainees with adequate skills and exposure on the operations of the company (Collins, 2006). The fact that the process further requires the company to invest increased funding in training and exposing the junior managers on the operations of the company is an additional challenge that most organizations face in the training process. Business organizations exist solely to make profits; this implies that organizations often strive to minimize costs while maximizing profitability. As such investing additional resources in training managers is an unnecessary costs that not many companies may opt to incur. Instead, most of such companies often source for trained and experienced managers. Additionally, the fact that a company may invest in training of managers who thus quit the company to work for competing companies once they acquire the desired professional and management skills is a major deterrent to the training process (Bimrose, 2006). Competition is a major factor that influences the profitability of companies in a particular industry. The fact that a company may not provide the required working environment for all its employees is a major factor that results in employees shifting from an organization to another. When managers leave especially after acquiring the desired training is an expensive process that contributes to the losses an origination occurs. Such is the greatest challenge that faces the training process possibly affecting the profitability of an organization. In a summary, while coaching presents numerous challenges to the companies the process is the most effective way of sustaining the supply of leaders and managers in organizations. The extensive training and coaching process equips the trainees with effective professional and interpersonal skills thus providing them with adequate exposure on the operations of the company and its key resources including the human resources. Through the training process, the managers obtain the desires exposure and professional expertise to steer the profitability of the company. Additionally, most employers often require adequate experience before employing an individual. With adequate experiences, a manager has the adequate interpersonal and professional skills to influence the operations of the subordinates in undertaking particular activities at the company. This way, an organization enjoys a steady supply of trained and experienced managers. 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