In organizations across the world, the need to design and implement evaluation systems as a means of improving leadership performance is growing. Such interest has been fueled in part by an increase in unethical leadership behavior in public, private, and academic settings, but also due to the impending surge of senior executive retirements expected in the next several years. Faced with a real crisis of available leaders, many organizations have implemented leadership development systems. Such programs hold much potential to support leader and managerial self-development efforts, increase succession-planning programs and provide a tangible measure of leader accountability for organizational performance and employee engagement.
Given that the development of effective leaders is a significant concern in organizations, I/O psychologists have been at the forefront of determining leaders and leadership development methods. Leadership development is “a process that concentrates on the leader-follower relationship and on developing an environment in which the leader can build relationships that enhance cooperation and resource exchange” (Landy & Conte, 2013, p. 481). This process has been distinguished from leader development, which focuses on developing attributes of a leader (i.e., knowledge, skills, or abilities) (Day, 2001b). So, leader development focuses on the intrapersonal competence of a leader, while leadership development focuses on the interpersonal competence of a leader. Both leader and leadership development programs are necessary to ensure successful leadership. While leadership development is crucial, leadership development takes leader ability to the next level by helping the leader empower their subordinates to relate to one another, engage in cooperative action, and encourage leadership to be carried out by the entire group (Day, 2001b).
It is critical to note that effective leadership development does not occur only through specifically designed programs, but that it is a continuous process that evolves daily based on the work environment. In order to provide leaders with appropriate guidance and support, leader and leadership development programs typically involve leader assessment coupled with feedback for development purposes. Many leaders and leadership development programs include the leader assessments discussed in Week 7; for example, personality assessments, 360-degree feedback, or assessment centers. Based on the results of those assessments, leaders are often provided both positive feedback and feedback for improvement. Typically, this process is ongoing and includes regular coaching, mentoring, and networking strategies. Another popular method used to emphasize the ongoing nature of leader/leadership development is to create a leadership development toolkit, or roadmap, as a guide for self-awareness, training, and competency development. The purpose of this is to assist organizations in providing tools for leadership development that are linked to performance-evaluation systems. Such guides help current or future leaders or managers improve their skills and create a workplace environment where employees and their leaders or managers have equal responsibility for leadership development.
Your Signature Assignment allows you to integrate your learning from throughout the course. As you have learned throughout this course, there are many different types of leaders and leadership styles. Despite differences in theory and approaches to motivating followers and employees, individuals can learn to be more effective leaders via training and development. For your Signature Assignment in this course, you will create a leadership development guide aimed at managers and supervisors who are seeking to develop into more effective, competent leaders via self-guided learning and training. Your guide should help motivate users to contemplate how to develop their skills into clear steps for specific training and development actions. The guide should address how to assess current leadership skill levels and identify where they need to improve in order to be more effective. You will want to provide ways to identify their strengths and weaknesses, their personal leadership or managerial styles, and their continuous-learning opportunities—such as developmental assignments or self-directed activities, which would increase their competencies as leaders.
Be sure to review this week’s resources carefully. You are expected to apply the information from these resources when you prepare your assignments.
References
Day, D. V. (2001b). Leadership development: A review in context. The Leadership Quarterly, 11(4), 581-613.
Landy, F. J., & Conte, J. M. (2013). Work in the 21st century: An introduction to industrial and organizational psychology. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.