Good intentions gone awry: investigating a strategically oriented MLD program

Leadership development evaluation (LDE): reflections on a collaboratory approach

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to report on the experience of attempting a “collaboratory” approach in sharing knowledge about leadership development evaluation (LDE). A collaboratory intertwines “collaboration” and “laboratory” to create innovation networks for all sorts of social and technological problems.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors, alongside a variety of public and private sector organisations, created the collaboratory. Within the process, the authors collected various forms of qualitative data (including interviews, observations, letter writing and postcards).

Findings

The findings show key areas of resonance, namely, the ability for participants to network, a creation of a dynamic shift in thinking and practice and the effective blending of theory and practice. Importantly, there are some critiques of the collaboratory approach discussed, including complications around: a lack of “laboratory” (hence bringing into question the idea of collaboratory itself), and the need to further develop the facilitation of such events.

Originality/value

The originality is to ultimately question whether the network actually achieved the collaboratory in reality. This study concludes, however, that there were some distinct benefits within our collaborations, especially around issues associated with LDE, and this study provides recommendations for academics and practitioners in terms of trying similar initiatives.

Reflections from the field (mountain, cityscape and park): walking for management development and links to being-in-the world, belonging and “Ba”

Purpose

The purpose of this paper, based on reflections from practice, is to shed light on the realities of using walking as a tool for learning and development. This is done through an initial analysis of longitudinal reflective data spanning seven years and connecting these reflections to the concepts: being-in-the-world, belonging and Ba.

Design/methodology/approach

This research takes a practice based phenomenological and reflective approach. The value of this approach is to seek a new understanding, through three distinct conceptual frames, of the effective use of walking within management development.

Findings

The findings connect three conceptual approaches of being-in-the-world, belonging and “Ba” to the practicalities of delivery, thus encouraging practitioners and designers to deeply reflect on the role of walking in management development.

Research limitations/implications

A limitation is that this is largely a personal story exploring the impact of an intuitively developed set of interventions. Despite this, the paper represents a unique and deep interpretation of walking as a mechanism for management development.

Practical implications

The paper concludes with three recommendations to practitioners wanting to use walking in management development programmes. These are: facilitators need to be familiar with their surroundings; they should look for spaces and places where participants can connect and build relationships; and organisers and sponsors need to recognise how walking not only consolidates knowledge but can help create knowledge too.

Originality/value

This is a unique, seven-year longitudinal study that broadens the theoretical focus of walking as a mechanism for management and leadership development that combines the theoretical lenses of being-in-the-world, belonging and “Ba”, the authors believe, for the first time in research on management development.

Conditions for reflexive practices in leadership learning: The regulating role of a socio-moral order of peer interactions

Peer interaction is a standard aspect of most leadership development programmes and is seen to be conducive to learning. Realising deeper and critical reflexivity in peer interaction is, however, challenging. This study employs conversation analysis to empirically explore peer interactions in a leadership development programme for first-line managers in the public sector in Denmark. The analysis shows that a socio-moral order, that is normative expectations inherent in interactions, guide peer discussions and shape the conditions for reflection and deeper reflexivity. The socio-moral order was based on a central principle of treating each other as experts on one’s own practice. This principle allowed for reflection but turned attention away from critical reflexive practices. As a result, peer discussions took a more conservative rather than a transformational orientation. The study extends the theoretical understanding of the conditions for critical reflexivity as it demonstrates how the socio-moral order of interaction regulates engagement in critically reflexive practices.