AC 1.1
Interpretations of the concepts of leadership and management
Definition leadership
The leadership concept is explained as the extent to which individuals in the leadership position make efforts to influence their followers in order for them, to achieve certain goals.
The concept of leadership is also identified in significance to which individuals inspire other people, motivate them, and help them pursue their goals. The leaders are the vision creators and they direct their followers towards following the visions.
Leaders act as agents of change, to which they make efforts to influence the behaviours and attitudes of their followers. They help the followers make choices depending on the affect that they have on the actions.
The transformational theory of leadership according to Bertocci (2009) is significant to determining how the leaders influence and motivate their followers. They encourage the followers to work towards attaining the common good. Apart from transactional theory, other leadership theories include situational theory, process leadership theory, behavioural theory, trait theory, transactional theory among others.
Management definition
Management is defined as the administration and control of the people and the general organisation towards meeting the organisational goals and objectives. The managers are objective to planning, organising, control, and directing people to do things as they are expected.
Management also refers to the organisation of the business activities, to ensure that effective coordination of tasks is enhanced with the aim of ensuring that organisational goals and objectives are achieved.
The management concept identifies with the power of the managers in decision making towards ensuring that the organisational responsibilities are achieved. Managers use power to ensure that things happen.
The authoritarian theory is a theory in management that identifies with concentration of power among the managers (Mahmood, Basharat, and Bashir, 2012). The manager is autocratic, to which he/she dictates what has to be done, and they also make the decision making process to be central. The autocratic managers take full control of their subordinates. Other management theories include democratic theory, laissez faire theory among others.
AC 1.2
Explain and justify distinctions drawn between the concepts of leadership and management
The distinction between leadership and management is evidenced on the basis to which the leaders get to believe in their followers and help them achieve their vision. According to Bratton and Gold (2017), the leaders take charge in ensuring that they change the perspectives and ways of doing things among the people who follow them and look upon them. Management on the other hand associates more with the administration of the business daily activities in order to ensure that things are done accordingly. The managers use power to ensure that tasks are completed and also direct the subordinates to follow exactly what has been planned towards meeting organisational objectives (Solomon, Costea, and Nita, 2016). The following table provides specific differences between the leadership and management concepts;
Leadership | Management |
Leaders guide followers | Managers have subordinates |
Leaders are influence their followers | Managers manage their subordinates |
Leaders inspire and show their followers the directions that they are supposed to follow | Managers tell and command their subordinates to do things |
Leaders facilitate decision making and involve their followers in the decision making process | Managers take the decisions by themselves and are the final decision makers. They do not involve their subordinates |
Leaders set directions for the followers to follow in order to meet objectives | Managers make detailed plans of how to meet certain objectives |
Leaders align followers | Managers organise the subordinates |
Leaders focus on creating change | Managers maintain status quo and work within the systems |
Leaders focus on taking risks | Managers work on minimising risks and enhancing control |
Despite the differences seen between the leaders and the managers, both have similarities especially because they strive to ensure that they do the right thing. Leaders and managers strive to ensure that the organisational objectives are met and achieved.
AC 2.1
Approaches for developing leaders and managers
The development of leaders and managers involves developing skills, creating awareness, promoting responsibility, and ensuring that transformation is effectively enhanced towards creating change and preparing for the future. According to Donaldson-Feilder, Lewis, and Yarker (2019), development creates interventions that help the managers and the leaders thrive in the present and also prepare them for the possible future changes.
Coaching and mentoring
This is a development approach used involves developing programs in coaching and mentoring. The programs are meant to enhance development of the professionals beyond their current job functions, and enhance development in their capabilities (Milner, McCarthy, and Milner, 2018). The coaching and mentoring creates a platform to which the managers and the leaders can effectively relate with the employees in the organization. This enhances employee relations and promotes means through which the performances of the employees are enhanced towards bringing in improved results in businesses. For instance in the healthcare organisations where I have worked before, the leaders and managers implement the coaching and mentoring programs in order to create platforms to which the employees can be able to work together. This according to Le Comte and McClelland (2017) enhances creation of a working environment that supports organizational culture and enhances improved form of communication within the organization.
Education based programs
This is an approach that revolves around taking advantage of the educational programs that are meant to enhance employee competence as well as develop the leadership skills and knowledge within the organization. In the current learning platforms, the educators can tailor the learning needs of the leaders and managers to the organizational goals. This makes it possible for the leaders and the managers to obtain skills necessary in enhancing effective running of the organisation. Bush, Bell, and Middlewood (2019) argue that the education opportunities given to the managers have significance in determining the knowledge gained.
Job rotations
Job rotation is a strategy used to interchange the leaders and mangers within different positions in the organisation. The leaders lead and manage their followers for some period of time, and then they are given a different group to work with. This then allows the leaders to gain new skills and relate with different approaches to doing things within the organisation, which then results to their personal development and the development of the whole organisation as well (Becker and Bish, 2017). The advantages of job rotation is that performance of the leaders together with the team members is improved, encourage development of the leaders and managers, and help the employees deliver the best to the employees. The disadvantages of job rotations are that it is costly, may lead to low performance as the leaders learn to take on new skills and knowledge, and many are not feasible within all organisations as different departments require different skills.
Development assessment centres
This is a centre designed to help individuals develop their skills. It is a technique used in the development of the leadership and management personnel, towards ensuring that they become suitable in their work. In most cases, the leasers and managers are expected to attend some form of training in a venue. The attendance is meant to promote certain kinds of skills, which enhance attainment of skills needed within an organisation (Cimatti, 2016). The advantage is that the employees get to gain some form of knowledge and skills significant in ensuring that they carry out their roles and responsibilities effectively within the organisation. the disadvantages is that the technique is expensive, time consuming, and requires trainers or facilitators who have extensive knowledge and experience needed in guiding the other leaders and managers.
AC 2.2
Examples of how L&D function support leadership and management development
Significant use of social media
The social media is considered to be among the latest trends used in enhancing the learning and development process of the leaders and managers. The social media provides learning environment where the managers and the leaders identify the solutions to some of the existing problems that they deal with in the organisations. Seufert and Meier (2016) argue that the social media is considered to be a form of digital transformation that impacts the learning process, and which many people are considering to implement to enhance their knowledge and skills. The demand for the social media in enhancing learning of the leaders has increased over the past few decades, with different social media tools being used to create an impact in the process of learning for the trainees. Through L&D support, the management gets to identify the most significant aspects of social learning, to which the line managers get to relate with the right learning conditions. In addition, the L&D function gets to identify the most important platforms that are considered effective in supporting the learning process for the managers.
Promotes informal learning
L&D does not only encourage formal learning, but also promotes the development of the managers to relate with the informal learning platforms. The L&D has to support informal learning to allow the managers and the leaders gain more competence and become more prevalent in what they do within the organisation. Informal learning is recognised through the interactions among the managers, who get to analyse situations and come up with conclusive solutions to the existing issues facing the business (Schürmann and Beausaert, 2016). Through informal learning, the managers and leaders get to relate with situations of trial and error, whereby they are allowed to make mistakes and learn from them. With informal learning, it is impossible for the managers to be penalised for any kinds of mistakes that they do. However, informal learning becomes a platform and a channel for the managers to team up with other managers and employees to developing ideas and working on them for purposes of promoting their expertise.
Discover devices to help look for content
As a result of technology, the L&D functions get to determine how well the content is enhanced to help support the development of the leaders and the managers. The future of learning and development within the organisations is dependent on the ability of the L&D practitioners to be involved in the process of leaning to impact leadership and management performance. The future of learning can be enhanced through the online platforms where leaders access courses online and pursue them towards enhancing their skills, knowledge, and competence. The L&D practitioners within the organisations should ensure that they monitor the devices used to ensure that they promote the L&D practices, as well as ensure that the practices of development are enhanced. Malara and Mathur (2019) argue that the L&D practitioners have to be innovative towards ensuring that they support the leaders in getting the content needed to create an effective learning platform for their professional development.
L&D provides guidance to creating organisational efficiency
The L&D practitioners are expected to provide guidance through which organisational efficiency is enhanced. This means that the L&D practitioners have to take responsibility in making sure that the managers and the leaders get committed to the learning process, to also ensure that they participate effectively through the leaning process. This would make it possible for the managers and leaders to be able to make a difference in relation to the skills they gain through their development process. The guidance that we receive from our seniors in organisation is as a result of the learning and development platforms provided to the managers to all the other employees as well. The fact that we are provided with a platform to learn on how to improve patient care as well as enhance proper running of the hospital explains how well the management has been able to promote the employees well-being. According to Noe et al. (2017), the development of the leaders and the managers creates an organisation with the right personnel to make the right decisions in the most critical situations. This creates competitive advantage for the organisation and promotes the relationships between the organisational managers and the employees.
AC 3.1
Indicators of success for leadership and management development programmes
Employee performance
The performance of the employees is dependent on the extent to which the managers and the leaders take responsibility in evaluating the most significant aspects of organisational success. Through learning, the managers and leaders gain skills, which when used effectively help in the management of the organisation. As a result, the leaders influence, inspire, and guide the employees, who use the gained skills to enhance productivity in the workplace (Seidman, Pascal, and McDonough, 2020). My immediate supervisor is a leader, who has been directing us to deliver the best results to enhancing improved patient care. He is a motivator and with the skills that he has, he makes sure that he considers greatly our interests, and this makes it possible for us to identify with the right strategies needed in enhancing patient care. This in turn promotes organisational performance and success within the business.
Problem solving
Successful development of the leaders and managers enhances improvement in their capability to solve problems. The leaders realise that training and development has been successful only in instances when they are able to come up with ideas to solve problems and deal with the damages that might affect the success of the organisation. Organisations that are run by the managers and leaders who have the skills to analyse situations and develop strategies to make the situations right are often considered successful. For instance, the management in my place of work has been able to identify with the problems that prevent the workers from proving effective patient care. Through learning, they come up with ideas that would create employee support, improve their morale, and make it possible for them to address the problems that they face (Thorpe, 2016). This means that the knowledge gained by the management is transferred to the employees, thus creating a successful working environment where problems are easily solved.
Participant satisfaction
The leaders and managers who are well-developed tend to relate with the aspects of satisfaction within the place of work. With well-developed skills, the managers experience a sense of satisfaction, to which the right attributes of employee engagement are enhanced. Managers who feel satisfied tend to be critical thinkers, to which they get to engage in the right decision making process. The level of satisfaction among the managers and the leaders is significant in determining how the managers make decisions to impact the followers and the subordinates. Thorpe (2016) argues that the satisfaction of the management after training and development results to the creation of opportunities that allow the managers to make decisions that impact changes within the business. Good decision makers are able to effectively plan for the work within the businesses, and this impacts organisational growth and development as well. The fact that decisions are made based on an individual’s critical thinking means that the management has to being part of self-management to ensure that throughout the crisis, they identify with the right measures of satisfaction in what they do and what they engage in.
Employee retention
The development of the managers and the leaders is deemed to be successful especially in situations when they continue to willingly work within an organisation. The health care sector with the support of the government provides opportunities for the managers and leaders to engage in the training process, which significantly impacts the extent to which new skills are attained (Johennesse and Chou, 2017). The senior manager in the hospital I work with for example has been in the organisation for a period of 11 years. In a conference, he told us that he had worked in the organisation for that long because the organisation provided opportunities for him to learn, and develop his skills. His story is an example of how the organisation makes sure that it satisfies the learning needs of the senior leadership, in order to ensure that they effectively maintain the right people within the job.
AC 3.2
Rationale for methods to ensure success of leadership and management development programmes
The rationale to ensure success in development of leaders and managers is dependent on the extent to which the leaders work towards promoting the organisation that they work for. Transformation means creating a good work environment to which the employees support the leaders towards meeting the organisational goals. Thus, the following are considered the three main rationales to ensuring the development programs are successful.
First, the mentorship method is considered to be a program that impacts what is taught to the leaders and the managers. This is important as it prepares the leaders for the future. Mentorship programs in my place of work are very significant and are often provided to ensure that the leaders get prepared for what to expect in the changing health care sector. The demands of the employees and the patients keep on changing, and the management has to be mentored in order for them to understand exactly what is expected in the future. Leaders who have gone through mentorship tend to have a positive impact to the teams that they work with. This then enhances development of all the employees.
Communication is very significant in determining the extent to which the business stakeholders get engaged in the implementation of development programs for the employees. The most significant aspects relating to communication is that the programs tend to address the most significant issues affecting the business in order to address them. This therefore means that the development programs should be geared towards the most important attributes identified from the natures of communication between the relevant stakeholders. In addition, the development programs should provide opportunities for the learners to provide feedback on the success indicators and the significance of this to enhancing organisational development. Through feedback, the managers get to learn whether the programs were effective, as well as determine their impacts to the organisation.
Finally, the methods to enhance success are determined from the perspectives to which the development programs impacts achievement of the learning objectives. The bottom line objectives set within the business are the issues that should be considered in developing the programs. This specifically translates to the fact that the learning platforms have to relate with the purpose of learning, as well as make significant contributions to ensuring that the right people get the right skills to enhance employee development. Although there are complexities related to the development of the programs for the managers and the leaders, the relevant stakeholders have to ensure that they identify with the right development objectives in order to make sure that changes are enhanced within the places of work.
References:
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