Thoughts on Psychology and use in the workplace

Learning Log 2 Week 1

Last week I talked about the complexity of leadership studies and how there are many, many perspectives around leadership.

This week I learned how important it is to consider the influence of power and politics behind designing and implementing leadership development programs/interventions.

A lot of the outcomes from leadership development programs are (naturally) decided on before the leadership development program/intervention has even taken place. Rather than building leadership in individuals as an emergent and self-directed process, it is arguable that organisations build leadership in a restricted process leading individuals to be modded according to the desired leadership outcomes pre-determined by the organisation. Jackie Ford, a leading critical leadership researcher, has pointed out the counter-intuitive nature of leadership development as, leadership development qualities in individuals may well work against the organisation rather than for them.

So what should organisations do? I’m not so clear what the answer is, however, I think in this sense, the organisation as a whole should already have a collection of leaders who have established a standard of leadership to work towards and be firm on what they accept and decline as leadership, based on the company values and standards. This is a real ‘chicken or egg’ situation though because where does one initially find/cultivate that sort of leadership at the top of the organisation?

If this dilemma interests you, then keep tuning in! I will likely return to this when I have explored it more. Otherwise, that was the big thinking question I had for this week.