The reason for my topic selection
The case study is very important and synonymous with the course – human resource development and some concepts of leadership. It has a whole lot of connotations which have to be explained and understood. Human resource has to be developed because this is what constitutes an organization. In fact, we can see the whole of humanity to be a significant resource of skills and talents that are just waiting to be tapped, trained and managed. Training and development of individuals must fit with organization’s goals and objectives.
This case study will greatly improve my knowledge of leadership and human development. Neale, Thapa and Boyce (2006) indicated that through case studies knowledge acquisition is processed in an orderly fashion, for example planning, developing instruments, training researchers, collecting the data, analyzing the data, and disseminating findings.
Through these steps, concept and theories of human resource development and management are explained and easily understood. This is what we can expect of this case study. I am sure that after the end of the last topic of the case study, we would all be prepared to be a part of an effective human resource of our respective organizations.
One of the relevant topics that must be cleared is the role of each individual employee and how he/she could execute this role efficiently. First, this role must be clearly understood before it can be executed out and help in the attainment of the organization’s goals and mission.
Human resource development involves training, or moulding, to state it allegorically. Moulding a clay is like moulding a child. This is what I understood of the word development and management. Before an employee can be called a regular employee, he/she has to be called a trainee or an apprentice, to be placed under training and “moulded” into the kind of effective employee for the organization.
The text starts with a historical background, providing terms that were first used for HRD and HRM. My first understanding of these terms was really vague before I came to read the initial pages. Back then, HRD and HRM were just simple courses that were taken for granted. I did not know that they are very important to my understanding of my role in an organization, or my part of “my” future organizations. This is the importance of training and development – to discover our role and how we can play it correctly in an organization (Neary & O’Grady, 2000).
Learning-in-Action Journal
The old cliché goes that some people are born nature leaders, others are not. For me, there’s no problem whether a leader is born or not. Understanding the process of an individual leader is the key to understanding the larger phenomenon of leadership. Understanding leadership is to see how people are transformed, not just how they follow. At first, they may follow, or when they see that you have authority they will do so, but they might complain when you are not around. If you are working at top management in an organization with a team working for you, would you not be inspired all day long and be happy that you have a workable team and a transformed team? But how would I do it, how could I attain such a team?
It may require some time, and some charisma to transform people into loyal followers, and I have failed tremendously in this field. Looking back, I should have hoped to have a charisma because this is what leaders need. I know I cannot lead people by just a few steps, or learning the rope for a short period of time.
Looking further back in time, I know I failed. But this is not to say that my goal of becoming a leader has failed, because leadership can mean doing difficult tasks and learning through your mistakes.
I can lead an organization, which is new to the international arena of business, and we are not really sure if we can make it; meaning there is a great possibility that we fail because the organization’s human resource is not clearly informed about the concepts and contexts of leadership. However, there is valuable time ahead of us.
Through our studies we learn and are enlightened. Books are there for us to digest and understand. They open our eyes to the importance of knowledge and work.
References
Neale, P., Thapa, S., & Boyce, C. (2006). Preparing a case study: A guide for designing and conducting a case study for evaluation input. http://www2.pathfinder.org/site/DocServer/m_e_tool_series_case_study.pdf
Neary, D., & O’Grady, D. (2000). The role of training in developing global leaders: A case study at TRW Inc. Human Resource Management, 39(2/3), 185-193.
