Despite government polices and organisational practices intended to redress this imbalance, women in business continue to face what they have faced for many years already: under-representation. More specifically, under-representation in the upper echelons of higher management, under-representation on company boards, under-representation in senior positions within firms. Despite more years in the workforce, more woman systematically entering previously labelled “male” fields, despite more years receiving higher education, women still don’t often find the road to senior positions a road easily travelled.This research seeks to explore one very specific approach to advancing women’s careers—women’s leadership development programmes designed for women identified as potential senior managers, leaders and board members. As a number of these programmes exist, this research sought to explore the programmes’ strengths and weaknesses, to explore ways to improve such programmes to the increased benefit of women in business, and finally, to investigate ways that businesses themselves can support such programmes to the benefit of their female employees: more representation in higher positions.Findings showed that women’s leadership development programmes do in fact provide a safe and supportive environment for nurturing confidence, acquiring new business skills, and learning from the experiences of successful women role models. They are a useful addition to other strategies designed to increase the number of women in senior positions, as factors such as organisational culture and commitment from CEOs also impact on a woman’s career progression. This research proposes a model to organisations that can be used to design and position future women’s development programmes. For maximum benefit, programmes should be strategically positioned, taking into account the environmental context and should help women identify and tap into existing networks and access suitable mentors. Further, elements unique to women must be inherent in the design of these programmes in order to facilitate career advancement, with the goal at hand: equal representation in senior positions / Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / unrestricted

No / There is widespread debate within critical management studies (CMS) as to the possibility of introducing CMS principles and ideas into organizational life. There is similarly a critique of its potential to replace the hegemony of `mainstream' business school thinking with an alternative hegemonic practice. In this article we use a reflexive analysis of our involvement as critical thinkers within the delivery of leadership-development programmes to consider these debates and explore CMS perspectives with participants. Our initial attempts were naive, but a more nuanced understanding given by theorizing our own practices offers some ways of avoiding the substitution of one hegemony with another. Although working as critical thinkers within mainstream programmes will always be problematic, we suggest that using a dialogical approach in leadership training programmes is one way of struggling with the inherent difficulties, while introducing participants to different ways of theorizing their worlds.

Thesis (MBA)--University of Stellenbosch, 2011. / Research shows that identifying and developing new leaders should be a leader’s primary focus due to the impact it has on the productivity, performance and sustainability of the organisation. The Young Lions Programme was a leadership development programme for high-potential supervisory staff implemented by a major South African financial institution’s retail banking division in the Western Cape region in 2006. The programme ran for three years until it was discontinued in 2008 due to the organisation implementing a national leadership development programme for all team leaders. Many of the organisation’s other regions still run development programmes for high-potential staff. However, the Western Cape region has not implemented another programme aimed specifically at high-potential staff since 2009. The effectiveness of the programme was never measured, nor was any research conducted to determine best practices for leadership development programmes. The aim of this research report is therefore to analyse the success of the programme through qualitative analysis by measuring the data gathered against the objectives originally set for the programme. Furthermore, this report aims to identify best practices in leadership development through the completion of a literature review and to make recommendations to the organisation for future leadership development programmes. The findings of this report are that the programme was successful in many aspects as demonstrated by the positive responses from the respondents to the questionnaire, and by the data analysed from the organisation’s database. Notwithstanding the success of the programme, responses from the questionnaire as well as the relevant research suggest that improvements can be made to the programme to increase its effectiveness in identifying, developing and retaining leaders in the organisation. These recommendations are summarised in the final chapter of this report.