Operationalisation of Management and Leadership Development into Practice - Research Paper Example

Operationalisation of management and leadership development into practice In business context, a leader will be ‘born’ when as a ‘founder’ founds or establishes an organisation and as a ‘builder’ builds a team of workers in an organisational setup. After that process of building a workforce, with organisational targets and strategies, the leader will manage his/hers organisation to achieve success. On the other hand, Management is a structure (both in the physical as well as in the hierarchical sense) and a process, in which one or more individuals will manage the functioning of an organisation either temporarily or permanently. Leadership and management are the two most confused terms in the corporate world, with both used interchangeably in the corporate parlance. One is thought to be the replacement of the other. Although, management or managers and leaders are two different spheres in an organisational environment, at many places both of them overlap each other. So, we will look at the various aspects of leadership and management with respect to the company GE (General Electric) and see how the two integrate while maintaining the disparity to make this organisation number one enterprise and importantly the best training or developmental ‘school’ for future leaders and managers. To discuss, the management and leadership development, the paper will first critically discuss the current literature on leadership development, focusing on the two leadership developmental processes, leadership training (Flowers 2004) and leadership development programs. Then the paper will delve into pros and cons of each process to judge whether both the leadership development processes can work effectively with specific emphasis on GE. Background to the Issue In recent years the importance of leadership in the organisation has become an area of principle interest. Leadership has been noted to impact corporate culture (Ruchlin 2004), employee commitment and response (Chiok 2001) and the overall performance of the organisation (Peterson, Smith, and Martorana 2003). A precursory overview of the current literature on leadership in the organisation suggests that there are currently two different programs that are utilized for improving the outcomes of leadership: leadership training (Flowers 2004) and leadership development programs (Pernick 2001). While each type of program appears to have the same intent in terms of optimizing leader efficiency, both types of programs are different with each having pros and cons. With the realization that optimizing leadership in the organisation is such an important, there is a direct impetus to examine these two types of programs and make some assessment about which will work best for improving leadership in the organisation. At the same, which program is having a positive impact in the real life organisation of GE. Based on the current literature on the importance of leadership in the organisation and the different types of programs that are available for leadership development, some assessment of these programs must be made. Review of the Literature In order to provide some understanding of the differences that exist between leadership development and leadership training programs, it is necessary to consider what scholars examining these programs have noted. Once the literature on these subjects has been examined, it will then be possible to consider research which has provided some comparative analysis of these two programs. This literature will provide a springboard for empirical investigation into the topic, so effective leadership development program can be cornered in, with specific emphasis to GE. Leadership Development Programs Critically reviewing what has been noted about leadership development programs, it becomes evident that this process is oriented toward providing the leader with comprehensive skills that can be used for improving leadership abilities (Pernick, 2002). According to Pernick (2002) leadership development programs go beyond simple skills training to provide the leader with a better understanding of his or her leadership capabilities. Coaching and mentoring can be used as one of the principles for facilitating both personal and professional development. “Recent CIPD surveys have reported that the use of coaching and mentoring as development tools are on the increase within organisations. According to respondents, 72% use formal mentoring schemes and 88% expect line managers to deliver coaching as part of their day to day work.” (trainingzone.co.uk). Pernick asserts that leadership development is more focused on the ability of the leader to maximize strengths to provide better leadership for the organisation. Venn and Simerson (2003) in their investigation of the instructional design of leadership development programs note similar components. According to these authors, leadership development programs have a specific instructional design that allows participants to engage in practices such as reflection, analysis and evaluation. These activities are focused on helping the leader understand specific strengths and weaknesses. By understanding these issues, leaders can improve their leadership abilities by focusing on activities that will enable them to exploit their strengths. Finally, Levy (2004) in his investigation of leadership development programs notes that these programs are often focused on the individual needs of the leader or manager. Attention to soft-skill training and individual nuances in interpersonal interaction are essential to leadership development. Through these programs, leaders and managers learn to fine tune specific skills that will promote more effective leadership behaviours in day-to-day interactions. Shockley-Zalabak (2008) states that strategic organizational communication is a communication processes during which the management and the employees come up with “organizational messages”, which are mainly guided by organizational objectivesThese programs must be tailored to the individual needs of the client to ensure that they provide results that are specific to individual and his or her strengths and weaknesses. Leadership Training Programs Leadership training programs have also been widely utilized by organisations to optimize leadership capabilities. Mawson (2001) argues that leadership training programs are typically utilized to provide managers and leaders with specific skills training to improve leadership capabilities. Skill development is an essential part of leadership training and as noted by Mawson: “Skill building turns leadership development into a tangible reality. It recognizes specific leadership behaviors that can be taught—such as team building, public speaking or effective negotiating.” (p. 44). Whitten (2000) espouses the central philosophy of leadership training programs noting that with training any individual can become a competent leader. This statement is one that has been widely debated in the scholarly literature as many believe that leadership cannot be taught, only refined. However, Whitten (2000) argues that the push for competent leadership in the organisation has created an expansion of leadership training programs, which attempt to teach the hard skills needed by individuals to be effective leaders. Leadership training programs can take place in a classroom setting and provide content information to a number of students. Incorporation of Leadership Development and Leadership Training in GE Based on the brief descriptions presented here, differences in development and training programs can be clearly delineated. However, there are many similarities and issues which compliment each other. Wright (2001) in his examination of leadership training and development asserts that the two programs contain elements that compliment each other—i.e. soft-skills and hard-skills training. For this reason, Wright believes that both types of programs should be offered in any organisation and that was done at GE due to the maximal efforts of Jack Welch, former Chairman and CEO of General Electric, who was considered one of the greatest business leaders of all time. GE has acquired its leadership legacy from Jack Welch, one. He propagated a leadership style, alien to the organisations of that time. He took over GE’s reigns and changed the organisational culture completely. GE has weathered the storms of the economic turmoil over decades because of this leadership style. The principle of 4E’s – Energy, Energize, Edge and Execute, is followed by the leaders at GE. “According to Welch, successful leaders had tremondous positive energy, and the edge, or the courage, to make bold decisions. They also had the ability to energize other people, and the ability to execute or deliver results.” (Hitt, Ireland and Hoskisson 2008) They believe that a leader should be full of energy, so much so that he or she should be able to energize the people around him/her, thereby bringing out the leadership qualities in them. This form of leadership development comes under the leadership development program, where the prospective leaders are imbued leadership qualities without any actual training, but consciously or subconsciously through the actions and decisions of other leader. While they spark the energy in others to perform, they always stand behind them when things go wrong and give them credit for their good performance. Quality and business ethics are the two important traits that the leaders have to instil in the organisation. Among these two, the quality parameters of the process have to be embedded in the process manager’s key deliverables as part of the management or leadership development and are quantified to ensure easy monitoring of his/her performance. That is, when the leader incorporates quality aspects in the functioning of the organisation, taking into account the adoption of those aspects by the employees and prospective leaders, it will leave an impact regarding their leadership potential. When the leaders as part of the leadership development program believes in involving all the employees as part of the quality awareness issues, irrespective of their hierarchy level, it will instil confidence and importantly make them follow those quality aspects. As those employees continue to grow, all those quality aspects will spread to more employees, thereby exhibiting that person’s leadership and facilitating more leadership development. In GE, the managers and prospective leaders also followed this behavior as propagated by the leadership of Welch. This can be seen by the enthusiasm they took in taking up 6-sigma quality projects and delivered immense profits when Welch initiated the six sigma drive to reap benefits of the quality initiative. This importance quality was spelled out Welch himself. “In the next century we will neither accept or keep anyone without a quality mind set, a quality focus” (cited by Slater 2003, p.220) The managers as part of leadership development programs enthusiastically followed their leader and undertook rigorous quality trainings, learned from each other’s experiences and further fired the six sigma drive. They understood quality very well as they compulsorily have to go through quality certification programs. All middle level leaders inside GE were team players and work with others with a boundary-less attitude. They coach and mentor their team members or prospective leaders as part of the leadership development programs to extract the best out of them. So, it is clear that inside GE, leadership development programs were carried out to incorporate quality aspects into the functioning of the employees and importantly prospective leaders, thereby developing a leader who is effective and is quality conscious regarding his/her functioning as well as subordinates. As discussed both the leadership development processes of leadership development programs and leadership training programs were carried out in GE. As part of the leadership training programs, Welch had a training school to develop leaders. That is, developing leaders was an important strategy of Welch as this always ensured a lineage of good leadership for the company. To fulfil this vision, he had setup a leadership development school at Crotonville. Established in 1956, the 53-acre corporate learning campus was the first of its kind in the world and it attracts the world's brightest and most influential minds in academia and business. (ge.com). Importantly it is a forum for “best practice sharing” as leaders or managers from various businesses would share their experiences both theoretical and practical, so it can learned by the prospective leaders, leading to further development. Management development begins with GE’s Corporate Entry Leadership Conference, where approximately 2,000 new hires are brought in from all businesses to GE’s Crotonville corporate university in New York. During the three-day event, attendees learn about GE’s global strategy, competitors and values, etc. (Smith). After discussing the problems and solutions within the work-out group, the points were then discussed with the concerned managers there and then, and they had to decide about whether to accept the solutions or give their view points against them and provide better options or to setup a plan to execute those plans in phases. This way, even the inflexible but prospective leaders are brought into the picture, and made to develop the leadership potential. That is, as the prospective leaders or managers are involved in giving feedback to the main leaders’ views and also involved in formulating a plan to achieve the organisational goals, they will become motivated and will thrive in their new leadership role. Thus, they will develop into effective leaders for the effective functioning of the organisation. Given the fact that leadership is such an important part of organisational development and discourse, effective methods for developing strong leadership in the organisation are needed. Without definitive methods for leadership development, organisations will not be able to optimize the outcomes of leadership in the organisation. For that purpose only, organisations like GE has an optimum in-house as well as external leadership development programs and training. Thus, there is a clear impetus on the part of the organisations to delineate what works best in the context of leadership development. Bibliography Bergen, A and While, A 2000, “A case for case studies: Exploring the use of a case study design in community nursing research. Journal of Advanced Nursing, vol. 31, no. 4, pp. 926-934. Chiok, F 2001, “Leadership behaviors: Effects on job satisfaction, productivity and organisational commitment”, Journal of Nursing Management, vol. 9, no. 4, pp. 191-204. Flowers, C 2004, “Leadership effectiveness: Using partnership to develop targeted leadership training”, Nursing Management—UK, vol. 11, no. 6, pp. 23-27. ge.com, Leadership and Learning: John F. Welch Leadership Development Center, viewed on April 30, 2010 http://www.ge.com/company/culture/leadership_learning.html Hitt, MA Ireland, RD and Hoskisson, RE 2008, Strategic management: competitiveness and globalization, Cengage Learning, London. 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