Creating Leaders of the Future


Contents:

Page 1: Introduction

Page 3: Investigation

Page 13: Summary

Appendices

Bibliography


  1. Introduction

AEGON UK Services is an Investor In People employer and as such is committed to the development of its staff to achieve business objectives.  As part of its drive to achieve success at the Lytham Head office the organisation has put in place plans to develop the site over the coming three years.

The parent company, AEGON UK, is determined to utilise the key aspects of the Lytham workforce, cost and quality, and has set aside £6 million to oversee the expansion of the site, a new office block will be built in 2003 and staff numbers are intended to grow from 850 to 1200.  Consequent upon the increase in numbers a similar growth in the number of leaders to carry the organisation forward is required.

AEGON UK has a clear strategy of maximising the potential of the Lytham operation through the effective use of low cost, high quality staff.  According to the University of Wolverhampton, its Introduction to Strategic Management module (BE3000) identifies strategy as ‘…the direction and scope of an organisation over the long term which achieves advantage for the organisation through its configuration of resources within a changing environment to meet the needs of markets and to fulfil stakeholder expectations.’  Nottingham Business School echoes the long-term nature but makes clearer the role that the internal mechanics of the organisation has to play.  It points out ‘…strategy determines the long-term business goals of an organisation. It achieves this through a variety of strategic processes which focus externally on market prospects, and internally on the capacity and capability of the organisation to deliver value to customers.’  

The internal capability of the organisation includes its employees and the direction and leadership of this key component to success is essential and is recognised as such by the Investors In People (IIP) standard.  Although the IIP Standard sets out to be a best practice tool and offers guidance on issues such as Management Development, companies may yet have to report annually on their management and leadership training.  The proposal to do so comes from the government advisory body the Council for Excellence in Management and Leadership whose Chairman, Sir Anthony Cleaver, believes that the UK must develop a national framework to assess the capabilities of its workforce.  He added that the shortage of managers with leadership skills and the shortage of professional staff with managerial abilities contrasted with an increase in the demand for these skills.  (People Management, Vol 8, No 7, p11)

At a presentation attended by Estelle Morris, Secretary of State for Education and Skills and Patricia Hewitt, Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, Sir Anthony Cleaver reported that '... although the past two decades have seen an explosion in management education, this quantitative leap has not resulted in the development of the kind of practical management and leadership skills most conducive to entrepreneurial-led economy.'  The Council for Excellence in Management and Leadership's recent report, 'Managers and Leaders: Raising our Game' warns that the '... need for stronger management and leadership abilities will increase as the pace of change hots up, and as consumers and other stakeholders demand better performance.'

Russian (2001:6) sees an ongoing debate between focusing on the management and leadership issues which are directly related to the IIP Standard such as communication and managing diversity and those broadly related to the whole management and leadership functions.  In addition, IIP intends to discuss with the Council for Excellence in Management and Leadership its ‘Good Practice Guide for Developing Managers and Leaders’ with a view to ‘… adapting this approach to meet the needs of organisations of all types and sizes.’  

It is against this background of the strategy of AEGON UK Services and the emerging interest of the government that I am preparing this report into Leadership Development with a recommendation for the way forward to meet the challenges highlighted by this key skill.


2.        Investigation

Larry Reynolds in the November 2000 issue of Training Journal tells the story of the first flight to New York of Virgin Atlantic on which engine problems appeared as the plane was about to land.  An on-board engineer was able to solve the problem and was personally thanked by Richard Branson who now sends the engineer a birthday card every year for saving the reputation of the new airline.  But why?

Admiral Lord Nelson realised that if, before a battle, he explained his plans to his captains he would have a better chance of success.  He realised, almost 200 years before the launch of the IIP standard, that if people understand the objectives and the plan then they will have a greater chance of achieving what the leader wants.  Nelson’s approach was all the more remarkable as current thinking was that if a leader explained his ideas to his people then this would diminish his authority.  But why did it work?

Contrast the above examples with the case of Robert Maxwell.  Tom Lloyd, former editor of Financial Weekly, writing about Maxwell in the Daily Telegraph (24 November 1991) described Maxwell's style of management as 'crude, brutal and inefficient'. Here was a man who built a great business empire, which after his death, was shown to be founded on sand. His death left his successors battling to save the empire and ward off the bankers who were persuaded by Maxwell to lend him vast sums of money.  Whilst much may be said about the prudence of the bankers it is significant that Maxwell should have been so persuasive whilst adopting management styles which were not, in Lloyd's view, efficient.  But why?

Lao-Tzu, the ancient Chinese philosopher, is accredited with the expression, ‘A leader is best when people are hardly aware of his existence.  Of a good leader, who speaks little, when his task is accomplished, his work done, the people say, "We did it ourselves’’ ’

What are the different definitions of leadership, why is it that people of such varying styles can become leaders and what impact can each of these have on AEGON UK Services.  Weightman (2001:141) suggested that leadership is a difficult concept by pointing out that 'Leadership is one of the holy grails of management writing and talking.  Everyone would like to claim it as a personal attribute but it is very difficult to get any consensus on quite what it means.’ So what are the definitions?

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The Oxford English Dictionary does not provide a definition for the term 'leadership'.  The dictionary does provide a definition of 'leader' but even this is restricted to functions such as leading an orchestra or membership of a government.  Yukl (1998:2) defines leadership as '... a social process whereby intentional influence is exerted by one person over other people to guide, structure and facilitate activities in pursuit of goal achievement.'  Harry S Truman, when President of the Unites States is accredited as saying that leadership is '...the ability to get other people to do what they don't want to do, ...

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