Leadership development within the South African construction and mining industries .
Date
2014-09-09
Authors
Murugan, Sheena
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Abstract
ABSTRACT
Organizations today are faced with many challenges resulting from the constantly changing and complex business environment in which they operate. This requires our leaders to be flexible and adaptable to any situation. This qualitative study discovers how leadership is developed within the mining and construction industries in South Africa. In-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with learning and development managers and human resource professionals implementing leadership development within their organizations. The study highlighted the need for leaders to change and manage this change. The recognition of skills shortages and how these skills can be developed to establish a talent pipeline that leads to organizational success was another important theme that emerged.
The study identified that isolated classroom-based leadership interventions do not address the day-to-day challenges that leaders are required to cope with, hence the need for the incorporation of leadership development methods like action learning, networking, coaching and mentoring, reflection, job assignments and 360-degree assessments. For successful leadership development, the involvement, support and commitment from senior leadership is vital. The importance of integrating leadership development into other human resource processes and establishing a sustainable leadership pipeline were acknowledged as elements that are essential for success.
Description
MBA 2013
Keywords
Employees -- Coaching, Leadership, Mentoring in business .