Design a Comprehensive Learning and Development Leadership Program

1 Design a Comprehensive Learning and Development Leadership Program International Oil is a multinational midsized petroleum company whose headquarter is located in Ontario, Canada. It deals in the refinery, manufacture, marketing and distribution of petroleum and petroleum products. The company’s objective is to ensure that petroleum is explored and manufactured sustainably to reduce greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere.

The company has been in existence for seven years. It has subsidiaries in the United States and Mexico and seeks to expand into more countries in the next five years. To achieve its growth goals, it is essential to develop effective learning and leadership programs for the management and executives in leadership.

Definition of Leadership Strategy The modern day business environment is fast-paced and intensely competitive and as a result, organizations have to develop methods to maintain a competitive advantage in the face of constant changes. Creating a leadership strategy enables the organizations to develop competent leaders who can seek out opportunities, solve problems promptly and provide adequate direction to their teams (Fernandez-Araoz, Roscoe, & Aramaki, 2017). Effective leadership is key to organizational success.

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2 Leadership development involves designing programs where managers and executivelevel employees are trained in order to enhance their skills, knowledge and competencies. As the executive learning and development director, I will use four main strategies to develop leadership in the organization. Firstly, leaders will be exposed to a variety of challenging assignments to teach them to think on their feet and develop innovative solutions to problems (Society for Human Research Management, 2017). Secondly, I will assign a coach or mentor to each leader to offer support and guide them on the leadership skills to apply to different scenarios. Thirdly, to I will provide opportunities for the leaders to test their competencies such as problem solving, negotioation and crisis management in a controlled environment. Fourthly, formal training and educational programs also play a major role in sharpening their skills and competencies and learning new leadership skills. The leadership development program will enable the organization to become more innovative, adaptive to change and more competitive.

To assess leadership capabilities, it is essential to determine each leader's strengths and weaknesses and where their leadership gaps lie. After performing this assessment, I will establish goals and milestones for each leader based on their skills and competencies, and track their performance (Scisco, Biech, & Hallenbeck, 2017). It is crucial to create department-specific assessments. For instance, sales and marketing leaders can be assessed on their ability to create successful sales and marketing campaigns. Engineering leaders are evaluated on their ability to design effective production systems.

The assessment tools I will use are performance appraisals, and practical competency tests. Performance appraisals involve evaluating whether a leader has been able to achieve the targets assigned to them over the course of a certain period. Practical competency tests involve assigning challenging tasks to managers and leaders that will assess their leadership skills and

3 abilities. For instance, the finance leader might be assigned a goal to increase profits by 20% in one year.

Being a company that is present in three countries, it is important to consider people's cultures when developing a leadership development strategy. Mexico, is a collectivist society where inter-personal relationships are considered very important (Giles, 2016). It is important to create a leadership development strategy that is based primarily on communication such as faceto-face training, and mentorship. The United States has a masculine and individualistic culture, where people thrive on competition. As a result, leaders can be developed by assigning them challenging situations.

Conclusion Competent management and leadership helps to channel the efforts and competency of employees effectively, therefore increasing an organization’s overall productivity. Managers who have poor leadership skills demotivate the workforce, however, organizations, where leaders are continually trained and developed, have a lower rate of staff turnover. Thus, effective leadership is a crucial asset to an organization.

4 References Fernandez-Araoz, C., Roscoe, A., & Aramaki, K. (2017). Turning potential into success: The missing link in leadership development. Harvard Business Review, 95(6), 86. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com.libraryresources.columbiasouthern.edu/login.aspx? direct=true&db=edsg ao&AN=edsgcl.513826863&site=eds-live&scope=site Giles, S. (2016). Developing organizational leaders. Retrieved from Society for Human Research Management. (2017). https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/ tools-and-samples/toolkits/pages/developingorganizationalleaders.aspx Scisco, P., Biech, E., & Hallenbeck, G. (2017). Compass: Your guide for leadership development and coaching. Greensboro, NC: Center for Creative Leadership.

SHRM research overview: Leadership development. Retrieved from

https://www.shrm.org/hr-

today/trends-and-forecasting/special-reports-and-expert- views/Documents/170396%20Research%20Overview%20Leadership%20Development%20FNL.pdf