The challenging nature of business today requires exceptional leadership skills. However these leadership skills are a scarce commodity and companies need to develop leadership to ensure a pipeline of leadership talent that can cope with the challenges facing business. This task however is quite daunting as there are many methods but few certainties about what works and what does not. Thus many organizations struggle to find the right strategy to bridge the leadership gap. This research report examines the best practices that exist in developing a leadership development strategy, recommends a model for leadership development and investigates the leadership development strategy of a manufacturing organization in South Africa. The findings indicate that the strategy implemented by the case organization is effective and thus can be used as an example to other organizations also trying to implement a leadership development strategy. Challenges include fostering a learning organization climate and implementing metrics to measure the success of the strategy.

The challenging nature of business today requires exceptional leadership skills. However these leadership skills are a scarce commodity and companies need to develop leadership to ensure a pipeline of leadership talent that can cope with the challenges facing business. This task however is quite daunting as there are many methods but few certainties about what works and what does not. Thus many organizations struggle to find the right strategy to bridge the leadership gap. This research report examines the best practices that exist in developing a leadership development strategy, recommends a model for leadership development and investigates the leadership development strategy of a manufacturing organization in South Africa. The findings indicate that the strategy implemented by the case organization is effective and thus can be used as an example to other organizations also trying to implement a leadership development strategy. Challenges include fostering a learning organization climate and implementing metrics to measure the success of the strategy.

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Thesis (MTech (Business Administration))--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2019 / This study assessed the impact of a customised management development programme on the senior staff in the Cape Town branch of a logistics organisation. The study analysed the staff’s development and determined the challenges that the senior staff and middle managers were facing after the organisation had gone through a number of management changes. The organisation was committed to creating a learning culture. Thus, the organisation had embarked on a clear strategic direction to enhance the leadership skills of the mid-level managers in the business. From an impact and cost-effectiveness point of view, the focus was on the middle management to start creating a learning culture in the organisation. To gather data, this qualitative study used a questionnaire with open-ended questions sent to the middle managers of the logistics organisation. This gave the researcher the opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of the phenomenon and to ask for clarification. The sample size used was 30 middle managers. The study found that the customisation of the management development programme aimed at the middle managers played a pivotal role in retaining staff and in increasing the performance of both the employees and the organisation. The findings showed the employees felt they could relate to operational goals and efficiencies much better after the focused intervention. The employees realised that they are an esteemed resource of the organisation, and that the success or failure of the organisation relies on the performance of the management staff of the organisation. Furthermore, in order to get employees to perform optimally and to improve their performance, they required the right tools, equipment and working environment.

Volunteer leaders are an underutilized resource in nonprofit organizations. However, as volunteer directors are stretched to their capacity, others in the organization must provide leadership to volunteers. One way for nonprofit organizations to increase their capacity is to develop the leadership skills of identified volunteer leaders. Because time and resources are limited in nonprofit organizations, the purpose of this study was to determine if identifying and training volunteer leaders is beneficial to the outreach of organizations they serve. This study was conducted in three parts. A Delphi study, was conducted with volunteer directors in the community to identify leadership competencies for volunteer leaders. At the conclusion of three rounds of iteration, 42 competencies were identified. A volunteer leader training and assessment instrument was developed based on those 42 competencies. Next, social network analysis was used to identify volunteer leaders in three groups at a nonprofit organization. ForceAtlas2 analysis was used to generate networks of nodes (volunteers) and edges (connections) to determine leaders within each group. The identified leaders were compared to leaders identified by the volunteer director of the organization. Overall, the volunteer leaders selected by the director matched those identified by the social network analysis with the exception of one outlier in one of the volunteer groups. Lastly, the identified volunteer leaders were invited to the volunteer leader training developed from the competencies identified by the Delphi. Participants were assessed prior-to, and following, the training by their peer volunteers based on their ability to demonstrate the identified competencies. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics to determine if a there was a difference between the participants’ demonstration of the competencies after the training compared to before. The results of the analysis indicated there was no statistically significant increase in participant’s ability to demonstrate the leadership competencies and skills as a result of the workshop. However, there was an overall increase for participants’ ability to demonstrate 31 of the competencies covered in the training. The researcher suggests revising the workshop into a comprehensive series of shorter trainings and replicating the study to determine if additional competencies can be improved upon.

The purpose of this study is to investigate what active leaders think is important in a good leadership, with a focus on work with groups of children and youth. A qualitative interview study with four interviewees was used to answer these questions: What do active leaders think characterize a good leadership? Which different leadership styles do active leaders prefer? How consistent are the interviewees’ responses with previous literature? All the interviewees had 20 years of experience or more in leadership, among these 2 worked as recreation instructors, while the other 2 had worked with leadership in a number of different and varied areas. In the results responses were compiled from the interviews. In the discussion there is a comparison with literature and the results of the study are discussed. The results show that the preferred leadership style of all who were interviewed was the democratic, whereas a situational leadership style was also something that all interviewees appear to exhibit examples of in different degrees. One conclusion seems to be that the interviewees are not purely using any one particular style, but that different stylistic features from a number of leadership styles can be identified from the responses. The leadership skills that those who were interviewed bring up are many, but a few that were mentioned by several interviewees were to be positive, clear, fair, open to criticism, and to be relationship-oriented. A comparison of interview responses in the study's results with previous literature suggests that large parts of the interview responses are also consistent with previous literature and research. / Syftet med den här studien är att undersöka vad verksamma ledare anser är viktigt i ett bra ledarskap, med fokus på arbete med grupper av barn och ungdomar. En kvalitativ intervjustudie med fyra intervjupersoner användes för att besvara dessa frågeställningar: Vad anser verksamma ledare kännetecknar ett bra ledarskap? Vad föredrar verksamma ledare för olika ledarstilar? Hur stämmer de intervjuades svar överens med tidigare litteratur? Samtliga intervjupersoner hade 20 års eller mer erfarenhet av ledarskap, bland dessa arbetade 2 st som fritidspedagoger, medan de övriga 2 hade arbetat med ledarskap inom ett antal olika och varierande områden. I resultatet sammanställdes svaren från intervjuerna. I diskussionen görs en jämförelse med litteraturen och studiens resultat diskuteras. Resultatet visade att den ledarstil som samtliga intervjuade föredrog var den demokratiska, medan även en situationsanpassad ledarstil var något som samtliga intervjuade tycks uppvisa exempel på i olika hög grad. En slutsats tycks vara att de intervjuade inte renodlat använder sig utav någon viss stil, utan olika stildrag från ett flertal ledarstilar kunde identifieras utifrån svaren. De ledaregenskaper som de intervjuade tar upp är många, men några som nämndes utav flera intervjuade var bland annat att vara positiv, tydlig, rättvis, öppen för kritik, samt att vara relationsinriktad. En jämförelse av intervjusvaren i studiens resultat med tidigare litteratur pekar på att stora delar av intervjusvaren även överensstämmer med tidigare litteratur och forskning.

The Look East Policy (LEP), which was officially launched in February 1982, came about as a result of the Prime Minister of Malaysia, Mahathir Mohamed's determination to encourage Malaysians to "learn from Japan". Despite the difficulties in transferring management ideas between countries, Mahathir was convinced that with the Look East Policy he could persuade management in Malaysia, and particularly in the manufacturing firms, to implement wholesale the Japanese model of management or Japanese management techniques. This is not only because he believed that Japanese management techniques were the prerequisites for Malaysia's drive for industrialisation, but also he believed that they were the solutions to the problems cojifronting the Malaysian workforce. However, the findings from this study seem to suggest that only certain elements of the Japanese management techniques have been implemented in or transferred to the manufacturing firms in Malaysia. Even then, our findings show that there are a number of problems being encountered, especially if these elements are not compatible with Malaysian cultural and religious beliefs. This could imply that certain elements of the Japanese management practices are culture-bound and therefore difficult to transfer to a different cultural environment. Our findings also seem to suggest that despite the strength of the state in Malaysia, it has not been very successful in promoting, through the Look East Policy, the Japanese style of management to manufacturing firms. Instead, it is suggested that the majority of the Malaysian workforce prefers the present management system that is pro-West, which suggests its profound influence in Malaysia. Hence, it can be argued that because of the multi-ethnic and multi-religious beliefs in Malaysia, and also because of the strong influence of the West, there is a limit to what the state can do or achieve. Based on our findings, it might be possible to suggest the following conclusions: (i) that the Look East Policy was never properly thought through in terms of the difficulty of transferring management techniques from one culture to another; (ii) a more limited objective with regard to learning from the Japanese might have been more successful. However, this would have demanded not only a long-term commitment but also greater involvement from Chinese community; and (iii) that the Look East Policy was always a political as well as an economic one. Perhaps its success should be judged not on a basis of whether it was adopted but on whether it achieved its political objectives.

Faculty members at a rural elementary school in a southeastern U.S. state have implemented a student leadership program called Leader in Me (LIM) in order to address increased behavioral disruptions and declining academic achievement scores and also better prepare students for the workforce. To determine the efficacy of the intervention, a mixed methods bounded case study of LIM was conducted. Watson's and Hull's theories of behaviorism support the objectives of the program. The focus of the research questions was on determining whether students' behavior, academic achievement, and leadership skills had changed based on their participation in the program. Quantitative data consisted of standardized test scores in the areas of reading and mathematics, administrative records, and a faculty survey. Qualitative data consisted of 10 interviews, which were conducted with a stratified purposeful sample of 3rd through 5th grade teachers participating in the program at the school. Quantitative data were analyzed using analysis of variance while qualitative data were coded and analyzed for common themes. Using these methods, a significant decrease in the instances of negative classroom behaviors was noted in relation to an increase in leadership behaviors of students in the LIM program. Interview data revealed the presence of a positive culture of leadership and learning in the classroom. Based on study findings, a policy recommendation paper advocating adoption of the leadership program was created. Adoption of the LIM program may help educators in better preparing students to be responsible individuals who use their leadership skills to positively impact their own learning and school and community cultures.

The purpose of this study was to assess the self-perceptions of leadership skill development and attitudes of experienced collegiate sophomore student leaders who elected to take an undergraduate collegiate leadership course. Leadership attitude, for the purpose of this study, consisted of one's group or leader orientation. The five leadership skills studied were working in groups, positional leadership, communication, decision-making, and understanding self. A post-then methodology was utilized with self-reporting as the process by which data was collected following completion of an academic leadership course. The major findings of this study were as follows: After the semester course, there were no significant differences among sophomore student leaders regarding their attitude toward the construct leadership orientation and their attitude toward the construct group orientation. In addition, the sophomore student leaders who completed the academic leadership course displayed a self-perceived increase in their ability to work in groups, work in positions of leadership, communicate, make decisions, and in their awareness of self. No relationship was found between the self-reported attitudes on leader or group orientation of sophomore student leaders with the amount of high school leadership courses that were completed. No statistically significant relationship was found between the self-reported attitudes on group orientation of sophomore student leaders and the amount of leadership activities in which the subjects participated in high school. A statistically significant positive relationship was found between the self-reported attitudes on leader orientation of sophomore student leaders and the amount of leadership activity participation in high school. No statistically significant relationship was found between the post-class self-perceptions of the leadership skills of sophomore student leaders and their high school leadership education. A statistically significant relationship was found between the self-perceived communication skills of sophomore student leaders and the amount of leadership activities completed in high school. The more high school leadership activities in which students participated, the less confidence the students perceived in their communication skills. Statistical analysis failed to reveal a relationship between an attitude of group orientation and any one type of leadership skill.

In this postindustrial era, organizations have realized a dire need to have work force with leadership skills in order to maintain their competitive edge in the market place. This has stretched the scope of leadership education to diverse field of studies and has raised the number of leadership education programs offered in colleges and universities all over the world. This thesis is an exploratory study to identify key features of leadership education that distinguish it from conventional educational programs. In view of key early career challenges faced by graduates, research hypotheses were generated regarding the role played by different type of leadership educators and various means employed for leadership education. In order to test the research hypotheses web based questionnaire was distributed among 72 students of three Master Programs at Linnaeus University, Sweden, of whom 32 responded, giving an overall response rate of 44.4%. Among the three Master Programs, two offer leadership education while one offers courses in business strategy and marketing. Furthermore, interviews were conducted with the program directors of three Master Programs. The commercial statistical software GraphPad Prism version 5.04 was employed for statistical analysis of the data. The results have showed a clear distinction of perceptions among the students of two types of programs, one that offer leadership education and other that do not, in terms of role of different type of leadership educators and various means employed for leadership education. It has been concluded that leadership programs have helped in developing the leadership mindset and vital leadership skills.