Leadership Development and Leadership Effectiveness - Assignment Example

1. Introduction Contrary to the belief of many, an effective leader is made not born. Indeed, if an individual has the aspiration and willpower, he or she can develop into an effective leader. Northouse (2007, p3) defines leadership as the process through which an individual influences others to realize a certain common objective and guides the organization in a manner that encourages cohesion and coherence. Consequently, to be able to inspire other into advanced levels of teamwork, effective leaders must possess certain attributes, knowledge, and skills. These attributes are not inborn but are acquired and developed through continual work, education, training, self- study and experience. Further, according to Northouse (2007, p5) even though effective leadership is achieved through learning; abilities and knowledge possessed by the leader are also influenced by his or her individual attributes or traits, such as character, beliefs, values, and ethics (Northouse, 2007). As such, knowledge and skills augment the process of leadership, whereas the other individual attributes provide the leader with characteristics that make them exceptional and unique. The concept of effective leadership is a vital feature of Human Resource Development. In fact in today's dynamic business world and increased globalization, the emergent and growing role of HRD experts is to help firms to build, sustain, and persistently advance the policies, approaches and strategies that are necessary to acquire and maintain a position of competitive advantage and market forte (Lord & Brown, 2004). Moreover, the competitive nature of today’s marketplace demands human resource professionals with an extended role within the organization, as a result of the increased significance of societal and relationship capital. The challenge for the human resource professional is to acquire and apply influence to develop into a more superior strategic partner; to define where the organization is going, and to utilize the organization’s human resources purpose to help show the way. In view of that, effective leadership is vital to the realization of high performance among employees, both new and seasoned (Leonard, 2010). In this individual assignment, the paper aims to explore the concept of effective leadership. The assignment is divided into three parts whereby in the first part the paper discusses leadership attributes displayed by George Washington. The second part discuss efficiency of training and development in developing effective leadership traits while the third part is dedicated to planning an HRD program to prepare new and aspiring employees for promotion to leadership positions. 2. George Washington as an Effective Leader George Washington was the founding president of the United States of America and is generally revered for his role in the establishment of America as a democratic nation. He successful led Americans to independence from the British and helped bring different states and colonies together to establish the great nation that is America. A number of attributes set George Washington apart as an exceptional and effective leader. a. Visioning and Planning Effective leaders provide a vision of the future, inspire others to accept that vision, and empower those within his or her team to realize that vision (Leonard Jr & Hilgert, 2004). George Washington articulated a vision of the ultimate future, which he crafted against the short-term goals. Washington then established a mission statement that stipulated the actions or steps that had to be undertaken taken to realize the vision. Further, George Washington shared his vision and mission with his team in order to create a sense of joint or shared ownership and allow the team to take up responsibility for the accomplishment the identified goals (Hodges, 2011). b. Decisiveness The second attribute that established Washington as an effective leader was decisiveness. Indeed, leaders are always looked upon by the followers to provide well consulted, cogitated, logical and justified decisions. Accordingly, at all times, he was assisted in making hard and apt decisions by looking for advice from others, after which he would reflect on their views, and ultimately make a decision. Consequent, once he made the decision, Washington hardly altered it except in unique situations that justified a revision. Washington realized the fact that, indecisiveness is catastrophic to effective leadership and that nobody trusts and believes in an indecisive leader (Hodges, 2011). c. Trust People Effective leaders let their team members to work out of their own ingenuity and initiative. As an effective leader, Washington acknowledged that he could not accomplish everything on his own. Thus, he delegated responsibility and power to other individuals, and empowered them to accomplish extraordinary deeds. For instance, during the in French and Indian War, Washington selected Gist as his chief aide while, during the Revolutionary War, he chose Generals Greene, Lafayette, and Knox to critical leadership posts; and during the Constitutional Convention, he endorsed Madison as a vital figure. Washington provided direction where required and showed ongoing interest, but never attempted to ‘micro-manage’ the delegated tasks. His primary interest was in the accomplishment of the set objectives. He strived to develop relationships with his associates that were founded on trust and open communication. (Hodges, 2011) d. People skills and Conflict Resolution Washington exhibited exceptional ability in management of resources, particularly human resources. For instance, he never asked his soldiers to attack entrenched British troops since he felt it was wise to attack an unprepared enemy, thus increasing chances of victory. Notably, at Trenton, he sanctioned a dawn attack on drunken Hessians, catching them off guard and subsequently secured a key victory for Washington. In addition, Washington exercised caution not to de-motivate his staffs with excessive red tape; not to treat his staff with mistrust or suspicion, or practice disrespectful command and control techniques to issue orders. In addition, Washington showed respect for the diversity amongst his soldiers' varied cultures, races and religions. The greatest issue facing Washington was prejudice amongst the soldiers from the four New England colonies adjoining the British at Boston. As it was, soldiers from one colony would not agree to work under an officer from a different colony. Accordingly, Washington appealed to the soldier’s pride of belonging to the entire Colonial effort, rather than individual colonies and hence the soldiers agreed to work together. Moreover, this trait spoke to his ability to solve and diffuse conflicts (such as the one in the highlighted example) so as to build and maintain constructive working relationships (Hodges, 2011). e. Fairness, availability and being a good listener Effective leaders exercise fairness in all their decisions and also find time to listen to hi or her team members on an ad hoc basis. During his tenure, George Washington nurtured an open door policy whereby, even the lowliest private who sought to see him was accorded the opportunity and received with respect. f. Consistency in behavior Leaders are constantly required to adapt their style in regard to the abilities, requirements and settings of individuals. However, effective leaders endeavor to treat everyone equally regardless of their position in the organizational hierarchy. Effective leaders are respectful to everyone in their charge and circle, people diversity notwithstanding. Moreover, effective leaders keep their emotions in check and do not let them cloud their judgment in any situation. Washington exhibited this trait extensively and showed consistency in his decisions, as well as leadership approaches. Conclusively, George Washington's leadership methods were exemplary and unique. Indeed his example shows the variety of characteristics essential for effective leaders in any area of business or leadership. Furthermore, form the analysis it is clear that effective leadership is a mix of several attributes rather than a single characteristic. 3. Training and Development Recent sudden failures of high-profile corporate firms have elicited numerous questions; key among them is the question of leadership effectiveness. Accordingly the failures have raised the need for leadership training and development among professionals. Accordingly, individuals, seeking to take up leadership roles, who find themselves “weak” in certain aspects, can participate in numerous training and development programs. Such leadership development programs and initiatives are holistic in their scope, and explicit in tackling the analytical, conceptual, emotional, and spiritual fields of leadership training and development. These leadership development programs help guarantee that business leaders will take up roles as stewards of limited social resources and designers of corporate organizations that protect civil society (Quatro, Waldman, & Galvin, 2007). Indeed, effective leadership training and development can develop an individual’s ability to be more effective in leadership as evidenced by the Red Lobster’s Case study. However, the analysis of training needs should be guided by the status or level of the employees that is, whether they are new or current/seasoned employees. In the case of new employees, analysis of training needs involves to determining what the job requires and to subdividing it into subtasks that will be taught to the new employee (Rowe, 2007). On the other hand, analysis of current employees’ training needs is more complex since there is a need to establish the effectiveness the program as a solution, to the identified problem areas (James & Arroba, 2005). A number of programs exist that provide avenues for effective leadership development. These include On-the-job training (OJT); Informal Learning; Apprenticeship Training; Job Instruction Training; Seminars and Lectures; and Programmed Learning. 4. Preparing new and aspiring employees for promotion to leadership positions According to a survey conducted by the Center for Effective Organizations at the University of Southern California approximately, one-fourth of high profile U.S companies employed leaders lacking any HR experience to top human management positions. This is such individuals find it easier to offer more strategic importance to the firm’s human resource management efforts and are better equipped to incorporate the organization’s HR efforts into the other organizational activities (Werner & DeSimone, 2005). Steps in Preparing New Employees for Leadership Positions i. Identification of the explicit job performance skills required, and assessment of the potential trainee’s skills, to develop specific, measurable knowledge and performance goals founded on identified deficiencies. ii. Development of the instructional design including formulation of content for the training program and sourcing for content materials such as exercises, workbooks, and activities. The preferred training techniques are on-the-job training and programmed or computer-assisted learning. iii. Validation step, whereby the designed program is tested and tried to ensure its effectiveness as a training approach through a pilot study. iv. Implementation of the program v. Evaluation whereby the organizational leadership assesses the program’s achievements or failures to formulate remedial activities as required. Further, with reference to William Berliner and William McLarney, the on-job training would be broken down into four main steps, to guarantee maximum positive effects. These steps include Step 1: learner Preparation; Step 2: Present the Operation or the Job or position requirements; Step 3: Practical Activity and step four Step 4: conducting Follow up. 5. Conclusion Generally, education is defined as mind preparation and is conducted remotely from the actual work area while training is the organized development of the attitudes, knowledge and ability patterns necessary for an individual to execute a given task or job satisfactorily. Furthermore, development involves the progression of the individual in terms of capability, understanding and cognizance. (Simmonds & Tsui, 2010) Consequently, it is essential to implement education, training and development within the organization in order to develop employees to assume higher profile tasks; offer the required training and orientation of new and young staffs; elevate and supplement the existing efficiency and standards of performance; inform and equip employees to function in a dynamic corporate world, and satisfy legislative requirements for professionals conduct (Mumford & Gibson, 2011). The training programs should be designed to include activities learning through observation of trained personnel; mentoring by senior employees; discovery though project team membership or presence at meetings; job exchanges both internal and external to the organization; participating in structured reading, or self–teaching materials; and learning through participation in research, report writing and case studies. In addition, formal effective leadership training courses may be supplemented by other training opportunities. These opportunities range from lectures and talks by key effective leaders, discussion groups or conference and meeting activities; briefing by exemplary effective leaders; role-playing exercises and role simulations; ICT teaching activities; to case studies (Francis , 2009). It is vital to conduct evaluation and monitoring of the chosen leadership development program. This evaluation of the effectiveness of the training is conducted to ascertain that it is cost effective, to identify areas to modify or extend what is offered, to identify new knowledge needs and gaps and redefine priorities and most importantly, to guarantee that the goals of the training are being accomplished. References Francis , A. (2009). Leadership development and leadership effectiveness. Management Decision, Vol. 47 Iss: 6, 989 - 999. Hodges, J. (2011, Mar 15). Example of Effective Leadership: George Washington. Retrieved June 02, 2012, from Leadership by George Washington: http://leadershipbygeorge.blogspot.com/2011/03/example-of-effective-leadership-george.html James, K., & Arroba, T. (2005). Reading and carrying. Management Learning, 36(3), 299−316. Leonard Jr, E., & Hilgert, R. (2004). Supervision: concepts and practices of management. Mason, Ohio: South-Western. Leonard, H. (2010). Leadership Development via Action Learning. Advances in Developing Human Resources vol. 12 no. 2, 225-240. Lord, R., & Brown, D. (2004). Leadership processes and follower self-identity. Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Mumford, M., & Gibson, C. (2011). Developing Leadership for Creative Efforts: A Preface. Advances in Developing Human Resources vol. 13 no. 3, 243-247. Northouse, G. (2007). Leadership theory and Practice. (3rd ed.) . Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Quatro, S., Waldman , D., & Galvin, B. (2007). Developing holistic leaders: Four domains for leadership development and practice. Human Resource Management Review 17, 427–441. Rowe, W. (2007). Cases in Leadership (Ivey Casebook). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc. Simmonds, D., & Tsui, O. (2010). Effective design of a global leadership programme. Human Resource Development International Volume 13, Issue 5, 519-540. Werner, J., & DeSimone, R. (2005). Human Resource Development (4th ed.). Boston, MA: South-Western College Publishing. 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