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

5: How can Management and Leadership Development Work?
Overview
The overall conclusion of the review of the evidence on how management and leadership
development works is that it works in different ways in different situations. The practical
implication of this is that to get the benefit of management and leadership development
requires the design of appropriate approaches for specific situations rather than the adoption
of a universal model of best practice.
This point applies to both the process by which management and leadership development
create management and leadership capability and the processes by which the utilisation of
this capability contributes to performance.
Evidence about the first link suggests that development needs to fit and support a variety of
learning strategies on the part of learning individuals and groups. These are however likely
to include a high proportion of experience and action based learning processes. Context
sensitive methods, like coaching, mentoring and action learning have a special part to play.
Formal and informal learning methods need to be designed to support and complement the
natural learning that goes on in the execution of all management and leadership work.
While the form of management and leadership capability that contributes to performance in
specific situations varies with those situations, there are underlying ‘building block’
capabilities that these tend to draw on, and it is useful to think of a changing overall set of
capabilities some of which carry more weight than others in specific situations. Many or
most capabilities can be learnt, but some, more to do with will and motivation may be more
fixed in people, or set in early life.
The overall form of management and leadership capability does change with changes to the
nature of society and the economy. There has always been an important role for the softer,
more human leadership oriented capabilities, but these have been given more emphasis with
some movement towards the knowledge economy and the enhanced importance of managing
knowledge work. However there is also a pluralisation of organisational work and forms
(rather than a universal shift to the knowledge economy) which adds to the diversification of
the nature of management and leadership capability. Aspects of management and leadership
capability that relate to entrepreneurship, creativity and innovation have increased
significance in many situations.
The ways in which management and leadership development contribute to performance, and
the ways in which they can develop, does vary by the sector and size on the organisational
side, and gender, ethnicity and other diversity categories for learning individuals and groups.
Learning methods and approaches are particularly different for smaller organisations. The
difference between the public and private (and voluntary) sectors undergoes change and there
is variety within these categories as well as between them. The differences are best thought
of in terms of the different ranges of management and leadership capability that they draw on
in different circumstances. Capabilities concerned with working politically and in networks
outside organisational settings appear to be increasingly important in both private and public
sectors, with specials significance in the public sector in comparison with previous practice.
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