The Development of Management and Leadership Capability and its ...

3: The Nature and Current State of Management and Leadership
Capability
This chapter examines some of the definitional and background issues as background to the
following chapters. It addresses the questions:
• What is the population of managers in the UK? (section 3.1)
• What do we mean by 'management and leadership capability'? (section 3.2)
• What do we know about the scale and nature of management development activity in the
UK, and how it is changing? (section 3.3)
Chapter overview
The population of managers and leaders in the UK
• We can estimate that there are 4-4.5 million 'managers' in the UK, including those in
small firms (perhaps 40% of managers). There is a demand for about 400,000 new
entrants to management each year, both to renew and to grow this population.
• Many people who are not occupationally classified as managers carry out management
and leadership roles, in particular very many professional workers.
Management and leadership capability
• Our current ideas about the nature of management and leadership have evolved through
several decades. New ideas, such as emotional intelligence, tend to add themselves to
older ideas, such as planning and organising. The debate about management versus
leadership will no doubt continue, but has probably served its purpose. Suffice it to say
that the aspects of management concerned with giving people direction and motivating
them are now seen as very crucial.
• There has been significant research into attributes of managers who are 'high
performers.' However, different researchers have approached this task in different terms.
Some have looked at tasks/ activities, some at skills/ behaviours and some personal
qualities. Research has usually been focused on improving selection, so has not told us
much about the relationship between capability and management development.
• 'Competence' frameworks are used in many organisations as summaries of descriptions of
desired management behaviours, often including activities and personal qualities as well.
National Management Standards have been in existence for a decade, and have been
amended several times over that period; mainly reflecting informed opinion about
management and leadership rather than rigorous research. Major employers continue to
use their own competence frameworks, even in the public sector, although the National
Standards are widely used to accredited vocational management education. The research
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