Leadership Development Program: Executive Summary

Due to our company’s recent results; the lower employee engagement and productivity also poor financial it is clear that our current leadership strategy is irrelevant. I, as a result of this, propose the implementation of a new leadership development strategy. This proposal entails the divisional leaders understanding their impact on leadership better and having a unified leading approach. The strategy has divided into three main sections;

The goal of increasing our company’s financial productivity; Milestone 1 of unifying staff and management to ensure they are aligned to the same purpose and goal. Milestone 2 is to equip leaders with better leadership skills and knowledge to deliver better results. To achieve the above milestones, the leaders must employ different leadership traits based on different situations and conditions (Glatthorn et al., 2005).

The democratic leadership style is a leadership model that allows the leader to make decisions based on each team member’s inputs. Despite them making the final decision, they have to gather and analyze the members’ inputs. It builds trust and teamwork among the staff. It is also an essential style since it promotes the growth and development of employees to future opportunities. This style gets people to do the task in their way. The style is proper when the leader wants to gain trust and build teams among its staff. In the coaching leadership style, the leader views the employees as the reservoirs of talents. They seek to find ways to unlock potential talents. Leader opens their hearts to people and believes that everyone can do different tasks. A leader employing this style gives people little direction to help them achieve their capabilities (Megheirkouni, 2016).

Affinitive style is a phrase used to refer to the type of leadership that puts people first. The leader gets personal and close to the people; they pay close attention to their subjects’ emotional needs. They often find something to connect them to their staff.  This style is about encouraging harmony and building relationships. This style is helpful in situations of conflicts in the organization and soothing members in stressful times. Laissez-faire style is the inverse of the autocratic style; it involves the least amount of oversight. The leader generally lets the people swim with the current; they trust people know what they are doing and are uninvolved. The style is beneficial to give people opportunities, but people may move in the wrong direction with a total lack of direction. It is effective when leading highly skilled and experienced employees who are self-driven (Megheirkouni, 2016).

Pacesetting style, do as I do, is the phrase that implies this mode. It describes a leader who is very driven and sets the pace to be followed.  They set the bar and push the people to work hard and fast to the finishing point. The leaders are highly motivated to get positive results and may end up hurting the team members. The authoritative leadership style also referred to as the visionary style, implies following someone’s steps and are confident leaders who map the way and set expectations alongside energizing and engaging their subjects. In the event of uncertainty, they help their subjects figure out the way out. The leader takes time to explain the subjects they need for the course of action to consider their emotions and choices. Autocratic style, as the phrase do as I say the leader believes to be the most competent person at the table and knows more than the others. They make all the decisions with little to no input from their subjects. Despite it being outdated, it is still relevant in some situations, which require a crucial decision when the leader has more knowledge of the situation and when dealing with inexperienced staff (Aarons et al., 2014).

Mentorship inculcates in a person the first-hand experience of what leadership entails. Mentors in their role show exemplary leadership through responsibility, effective communication, and guiding others in the right direction. In leadership development, a mentor has the role of preparing and designing activities for the mentees and provide ways to accomplish those activities. Mentoring program can be applied as a critical and strategic tool to shape the people to be accommodated in the organization’s culture. This strategy is crucial since good leaders should be able to understand the organization’s culture. With participants of potential talent, a mentor can facilitate their readiness for leadership development. Leadership development coaching can make mentors give direction to the employees to be in tandem with the organization’s goals. Mentors offering leadership coaching are, in most cases, people with expertise and knowledge in a specific field; thus, learning skills from them become more beneficial. Mentorship has a great benefit of helping in networking as well as help participants gain confidence and improve skills. The program is a holistic technique essential in leadership development (Wilder & Guthmiller, 2014).

The knowledge gained from this program will connect the organization to the business results in the following ways. Model the way the leaders are well equipped with which style to employ and under which circumstance. This model acts as an example to the subjects and provides an assurance and a sense of belonging. Which will translate to a common stand hance achieving a common vision. It creates a shared vision by show people the possible outcomes for future events. This practice will motivate finding ways to mitigate to the desired future. It also challenges the process by leaders being sure and knowledgeable of the decisions they have to make to experiment and take risks leading to meaningful changes. Allow others to act, actively directing and inspiring the whole team to nurture abilities and talents to help organizations grow.

An online instructional modality was used for this program, where members manage their time to complete projects assigned in a virtual environment. This modality is suitable since the program did not involve much technical work, which requires much explanation—and living in the looming covid 19 hence the need to keep each other safe by ovoid unnecessarily gathering.