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

Richardson and Thompson (1999) conclude:
• 'It is unlikely that merely adopting a specified set of HR policies is the high road to
organisational success'
• We need more attention to the intervening links between HR policies and
organisational performance, and a more specific understanding of the types of
policies which are most effective (e.g. what types of training).
• How something is done is often more important than what is done, so we need to look
at how clusters of HR strategies are implemented.
4.3 Management and leadership development, individual capability and
individual performance
In this section we turn from an organisational focus to an individual level one. We examine
the evidence of a link between management and leadership development, management and
leadership capability and individual performance. In doing so we exclude management and
leadership development delivered in higher education, partly because the extensive study of
the MBA rather eclipses the lack of evidence of the impact of MD more generally. The
impact of higher education is considered in section 5.4.
So we are here thinking of management and leadership development delivered by or through
the organisation's training function. We are also including management and leadership
development which occurs in or very near the job - what we might call 'work-based' learning
and development.
Compared with the large literature on how HRM, and to some extent management and
leadership development, affect organisational performance, there is astonishingly little
evidence on how management and leadership development affects individual capability and
performance of managers.
Keep and Westwood (2003), looking at the same question, find very little evidence that the
supply of MLD is addressing the right skills, improving skills, or impacting on performance.
4.3.1 Impact of HRM and management and leadership development at individual level
Just as there is evidence that HRM relates to organisational performance, so there are some
studies showing the link between HRM practices and outcomes at the level of the individual
employee.
These give us some clues at to the nature of general links which are likely to occur between
HRM practices and the performance of individual managers and leaders. A few of these
studies have looked at managers, but more have looked at the whole workforce.
Impact of HRM and management development on individuals
• Gratton, Gratton et al (1997; 1999) conducted in depth case studies with seven large,
UK based companies, in which they sought to examine the linkages between business
strategy, intended HR strategy, strategic HR context, realised HR interventions and
outcomes. The outcomes included such measures as organisational commitment ('the
ambience of the firm in terms of morale, satisfaction and shared commitment') and
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