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

In slightly more detail, the main conclusions from this review are:
This report by the Management and Leadership Development Research Network (MLDRN)
for the Leadership and Management Unit (LMU) of the DfES and DTI addresses the
question, based on a review of existing literature and research, of how confident we can be,
on the basis of evidence, that management and leadership development enhances
management and leadership capability, and that this in turn contributes to increased
performance.
It is useful to think of management and leadership, and indeed entrepreneurship, together as
aspects of organising to achieve productive outcomes, while recognising that these terms
helpfully label different aspects of this process.
Management and leadership activity in the UK (and elsewhere) is substantial and the quality
of the capability is difficult to assess. The overall conclusion is that (a) weaknesses in
management and leadership capability cannot be proved to be a source of competitive
disadvantage in economic and social terms for the UK, but that (b) there is an opportunity to
gain further advantage from its enhancement.
Therefore, although the research generating the evidence is not as extensive as we would like
it to be, it can be concluded with reasonable confidence that management and leadership
development can lead to increased management and leadership capability which in turn
enhances performance.
Whether it does so in all situations where this might be possible is far from clear, and there is
every reason to believe that it could make a bigger impact with more, and more precisely
focused, investment. This latter point is important, since it suggests, from a cost benefit
point of view, that improving the precision with which investments in management and
leadership capability is made, not just increasing the size of the investment, has the potential
to enhance benefit.
While the case for the potential for management and leadership development to contribute
more can be made, suggesting some support for the argument of a ‘tail’ of both organisations
and people who are not developed to their full management and leadership development
potential, the case cannot be made for a particular UK deficit in this respect. In a sense this
matters less than the implication that there is scope for adding value. It may be better to
think of the opportunity in the UK as being to get distinctive advantage through better
leadership and management, both through being good at old forms of business and quick to
reap the advantages of new ones, rather than facing a catch-up, deficit situation.
It is also concluded that there is no single form of management and leadership capability that
enhances performance in the same way in all situations, and no single way in which
management and leadership development creates this capability. Rather there are many
different forms of management and leadership development that can generate many different
forms of management and leadership capability, which in turn can increase performance in
different ways.
Furthermore, the forms of management and leadership development that create different
forms of management and leadership capability which in turn create effective performance of
different kinds, vary very much with situation and context – public private and voluntary
sectors, large and small organisations, different economic sectors and others.
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