(Author, Department, University,
Corresponding Address and email)
Organizations from around the world are working on improving the qualities and capabilities of leaders and managers, and developing new leaders. Moreover, a large number of executives and officials consider leadership development as an important priority not only in the present world but also in the future. Nearly, two-thirds of 500 executives showed leadership development as their top most concern (Gurdjian, Halbeisen, & Lane, 2014). This is due to the fact that organizations can’t flourish with average leaders. Whereas, an exceptional leader can deal effectively with employee commitment, productivity, customer satisfaction, and profitability and these things help effectively in the progress of an organization.
Estimates show that the U.S. companies alone are spending more than 17 billion SGD per year on leadership development. Colleges and universities from around the world are also offering many leadership courses and giving degrees in this field. The cost of customized leadership-development program from top notch business school may reach to an amount of over two hundred thousand SGD per person. However, only 7% of senior managers asked by a U.K. business school consider that their companies are developing global leaders effectively (Gurdjian et al., 2014). Moreover, nearly 30% of the U.S. companies think that the absence of sufficient leaders with the appropriate capabilities was an important reason behind their failure to utilize international business opportunities (Gurdjian et al., 2014). This paper deals with the efficacies and inefficacies of leadership development, and improvement strategies for leadership development programs.
Efficacy of leadership development programs
Tsyganenko (2014) shows that leadership development programs can help a business or organization in getting a competitive advantage in business. These programs can help in developing managerial as well as leadership skills in the participants (Tsyganenko, 2014).
Effect of the program on changing leadership behavior
In a study, Tsyganenko (2014) worked on a leadership development program at a local company in Kazakhstan. They included 44 regional mid-level managers in the study. Pretest-posttest control group design was used to explore considerable differences between trainees and non-trainees. In this pretest-posttest design, Tsyganenko (2014) tried to find out the efficacy of the program by considering the two outcomes; leadership behaviors of the participants and financial outcomes (sales results) of the company, before and after the experimental manipulation. Leadership behavior was the outcome of the study at the individual level and sales result was the outcome of the study at organizational level. The leadership development program, in this study, consisted of three modules including (1) the importance of leadership and its acquaintance, (2) importance of self-awareness as a success factor, and (3) development of effective teamwork skills. After providing the leadership development program to the participants of the study, researcher found that the program was effective and there were significant differences on vision, i.e. ability to see a prosperous future; good behavior; support for others, and relentlessness, i.e. presence of leniency in working, in the two groups. Moreover, trained participants were able to show more sales outcomes as compared to nontrained participants (Tsyganenko, 2014).
The study by Tsyganenko used appropriate statistical techniques that can be considered as an important strength of the study (2014). However, the study has several limitations. One limitation of the study was that the researcher used a small number of participants (managers) in the study. Another limitation of the study was that it was conducted on managers from a small company in Kazakhstan that is reducing the generalizability of the study, i.e. the study would not reflect the outcomes for managers from other parts of the world. In order to improve the generalizability of the study, research has to be conducted on larger scale with the involvement of larger companies in different parts of the world.
Effect of the program on well-being and work attitudes
In another study, Theeboom, Beersma, & van Vianen (2014) performed a meta-analysis to investigate the effectiveness of coaching on individual level outcomes in an organizational setting. Individual level outcomes included skills/performance, work attitudes, coping, well-being, and goal-directed self-regulation. For the meta-analytic review, researchers investigated empirical studies dealing with different forms of coaching including coaching on goal-setting and achievement of goals, coaching on leadership style, and cognitive behavioral coaching. Researchers found that coaching helped in improving all the above mentioned outcomes at different levels, i.e. after appropriate coaching, participants’ well-being, work attitudes, coping, and goal-directed self-regulating improved (Theeboom, Beersma, & van Vianen, 2014).
The study by Theeboom et al., (2014) had some limitations. In this meta-analytic review, most of the studies were based on self-reported surveys that can increase the chances of bias. Moreover, most of the studies did not consider the long term effectiveness of coaching, and empirical studies, i.e. studies with some form of practical aspects rather than surveys, were not there in the research on the effectiveness of coaching.
Inefficacy of leadership development programs
Studies also show that most of the leadership development programs fail (Gurdjian et al., 2014). Some of the reasons behind inefficacy of the leadership development programs are as follows:
Changing the behavior of employees
One of the most important reasons behind the failure of those programs is that the people can’t be changed. Usually, leadership programs spend a huge amount of time and money on the participants of the programs with intent to change their behavior, and to deal with situations in new ways to give better results. However, most of the participants enrolled in those leadership programs remain the same as they were before the start of program. Sometimes, the short research-based trainings help the participants, including employees, temporarily, but a significant and sustained change of behavior does not develop in learners (Obisi, 2011).
Sometimes, the content of the programs are irrelevant, theoretical, and abstract; thereby making it difficult to apply in practical situations. It is important to consider that leadership is not only about the knowledge of leadership but it is also about the emotional intelligence and courage, i.e. willingness to experience the risk, discomfort, and uncertainty of situations. Parrish (2015) noted that emotional intelligence is an important component of effective leadership, and most often leadership programs don’t give training of dealing with mentally challenging and emotionally courageous situations. An emotionally intelligent person has good level of self-control and shows empathy towards others. He would not be distracted and sidetracked, and would not lose his focus. He is able to improve the abilities of others through feedback and guidance. Most importantly, an emotionally intelligent and courageous person can manage conflicts and resolve disagreements efficiently (Parrish, 2015). And these things can’t be learned through the contents in leadership programs.
The study by Parrish (2015) helped in learning some important points of effective leadership, but it also came with some limitations. An important limitation of the study is that it cannot be generalized to a larger population. Furthermore, Parrish considered only eleven cases in the study, which is a small sample size, and it can be considered as a limitation of the study.
Context of leadership
Context is an important component of effective leadership. A leader could be brilliant in one situation but it is quite possible that he would not be able to deal with a completely different situation. Most of the leadership development programs consider some important skills or styles of leaderships in their courses without giving importance to organizational cultures or strategies. Most often a leadership program is unable to handle with a long list of leadership competencies, standards, and strategies, and this could reduce the efficacy of leadership programs (Gurdjian et al., 2014).
Evaluation of leadership development programs
Usually, leadership development programs start and end with participant feedback. However, the problem arises, when trainers and learners cleverly deal with the system and work on those parts of the syllabus that are comparatively easy and more pleasing as compared to more challenging to the learners and participants of the program. This is due to the absence of evaluation strategies in the leadership development programs (Gurdjian et al., 2014). With appropriate evaluation strategies, trainers and learners would not skip the challenging parts of a leadership development program.
Improvements in leadership development programs
Rapid changes are occurring in the field of leadership development, and many researchers and experts are working on the ways to improve the effectiveness of leadership development programs. Most of the leadership development programs work on the basis of the assumptions that improvement in individual leaders could help in improving the overall performance of the organization (Tsyganenko, 2014). Therefore, it is important for such programs to combine individual development with organizational development.
Behavior is the most important part of the personality of a leader. In order to change the behavior of managers and other employees, it is important to work on their mindsets. It could be very uncomfortable and difficult for participants, mentors, program trainers, and bosses to bring a significant degree of change in the mindsets as it also brings a significant discomfort. Sometimes, leadership development programs are developed in such a way that they do not disturb the normal lifestyle. However, it is important to know that without discomfort, the chances of a behavior change are rare; thereby, decreasing the chances of bringing an effective leadership. It is similar to an athlete’s muscle pain, which is considered as an important response to training, so leadership programs have to develop proper “stretching” of participants that could be discomforting but that could bring a change in the behavior, and take the leadership to a new level of performance (Gurdjian et al., 2014).
Gaddis & Foster (2015) performed a meta-analysis, and worked on the characteristics and critical behaviors for leadership performance. Researchers first identified the critical work behaviors for performance of leaders and managers in various organizations in different parts of the world. With the help of meta-analysis, researchers examined the relationship between characteristics of a personality (particularly dark side of a personality such as volatility, arrogance, and distrust) and critical work behaviors of leaders. They also studied the potential moderators and found that country and/or culture have an important influence in personality measures and job performance (Gaddis & Foster, 2015).
Research by Gaddis and Foster (2015) shows that during the coaching efforts and leadership development programs, professionals and experts have to focus on critical leader behaviors. Trainers and coaches must have to consider the development of interpersonal capabilities of leaders such as positive attitude, trustworthiness, adaptability, and dependability. Leadership development programs can train participants to develop such a personality that can be trusted by others and must be viewed as a personality on whom others can rely. Leadership development programs have also to teach the employees about the dark side of their personalities, and teach them how they can use their dark side of personality for positive outcomes (Gaddis & Foster, 2015). Tsyganenko (2014) reported that trained participants can deal more effectively with employees as they are more supportive and have better vision for future.
The meta-analytic review by Gaddis and Foster (2015) has some limitations. For example, the study comes from the research of mostly Western cultures; so, further studies are required for Eastern cultures because cultural differences exist between Western and Eastern cultures.
Discussion
Leadership development has gotten a huge level of attention in the past few decades. Primary purpose of most of the companies behind the leadership development is to increase leadership capabilities; thereby improving the operational effectiveness of the company as a whole.
The present study has shown several efficacies and inefficacies of leadership development programs. An obvious strength of this study is that is has synthesized the information from some papers published in journals and articles about the efficacy and inefficacy of leadership development programs. It has discussed the outcomes both at an organizational level and individual level. Findings in this study could help organizations, scholars, and leadership experts to further work on the leadership programs and improve its efficacy, particularly at an organizational level.
Future research can be done in improving the efficacy of leadership development programs. In this regard, studies can be done in different organizations from different parts of the world. Moreover, researchers can work on the efficacy of evaluation strategies for leadership development programs, thereby improving the results of those programs. Researchers can also work on the improvement of the content of those programs.
References
Gaddis, B. H., & Foster, J. L. (2015). Meta‐Analysis of Dark Side Personality Characteristics and Critical Work Behaviors among Leaders across the Globe: Findings and Implications for Leadership Development and Executive Coaching. Applied Psychology, 64(1), 25-54.
Gurdjian, P., Halbeisen, T., & Lane, K. (2014). Why leadership-development programs fail. McKinsey quarterly, 1, 121-126.
Obisi, C. (2011). Employee Training and Development in Nigerian Organisaitons: Some Observations and Agenda for Research. Australian Journal of Business and Management Research, 1(9), 82.
Parrish, D. R. (2015). The relevance of emotional intelligence for leadership in a higher education context. Studies in Higher Education, 40(5), 821-837.
Theeboom, T., Beersma, B., & van Vianen, A. E. (2014). Does coaching work? A meta-analysis on the effects of coaching on individual level outcomes in an organizational context. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 9(1), 1-18.
Tsyganenko, M. V. (2014). The effect of a leadership development program on behavioral and financial outcomes: Kazakhstani experience. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 124, 486-495.
