Leadership and Management Development Program (Research Paper Sample)

LEADERSHIP AND MANAGEMENT DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM
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Introduction
Leadership and management development is an approach aimed at expanding the ability of people in leadership positions to perform in an organization (Keast & Mandell 2013). The development process takes some stages to equip leaders with skills that will catapult their organizations to greater heights. There are various programs that may serve to help leaders and managers such as systematic approach that has been successful for many companies. The systematic approach considers the differing expectations of leaders and managers and organizational practices that will allow them to work at peak efficiency.
Leaders and managers work together with upper management on a plan that will help their development. Leaders and managers must work together to document goals and any projected problems that would hinder success (Latham & Seijts 2013). Companies can also organize workshops to inform their employees on the basics of leadership and management by focusing on companies' values and principles. GlaxoSmithKline Company can use induction, reflective experience process, mentoring programs, and consolidation of skills to develop managers and leaders.
Background of GlaxoSmithKline
GlaxoSmithKline is a British international pharmaceutical company that has headquarters in London. The company was established early in this century by an amalgamation of Glaxo Wellcome and SmithKline. GlaxoSmithKline is a science-led global healthcare organization that researches and develops various innovative products in the areas of Vaccines, Pharmaceuticals, and Consumer Healthcare. The company has a considerable global presence since it operates in more than 150 countries and boasts of 86 manufacturing sites in more than 35 countries. It has Research and Development centers in the United Kingdom, United States, China and Belgium (GlaxoSmithKline 2015).
The company’s Pharmaceuticals business develops and manufactures medicines to treat different diseases. The Pharmaceutical business is made up of patent-protected and off-patent medicines that have impacted the whole world. The company develops and promotes various health products that are based on scientific innovation. The company’s brands include Oral health, Total Wellness, Skin health, and Nutrition; they include TUMS, Aquafresh, and Sensodyne (GlaxoSmithKline 2015).
GlaxoSmithKline invests in people to ensure a lasting sustainability of its business. The company’s employment practices assist in creating the right place of work culture where every person feels valued, esteemed, and inspired. The company has about 100,000 employees around the world in 150 different nations. In the United States alone, GlaxoSmithKline has more than 16, 000 employees in every state, including almost 3,600 in Research Triangle Park and 5,000 in the Philadelphia area (GlaxoSmithKline 2015).
Indeed, the company experiences some moral challenges and certain issues to deal with. Due to a large number of employees, the company finds it hard dealing with industrial unrests and the demand to increase remunerations for close to 100,000 employees. Since the company operates in 150 different nations, it faces cultural barriers hence hindering its operation process. In this case, Sanyal (2015) encourages company managers to accept some cultural and individual differences in the workplace.
Moreover, the company experiences some external competition from other established companies. Additionally, the company has to consider some technological innovations so as to cope up with emerging trends in the industry. For the sake of security in its businesses, the company needs to take caution of countries that experience political hostilities. Other internal issues include employee’s skills to meet operation demands, efficient communication between different departments, a better working environment, and competent leadership strategies (Boyatzis 1982).
The overall learning strategy of the program
The learning strategy of Glwould axoSmithKline articulates the employee’s skills, strategies, and competencies needed to enhance a productive and sustainable organization. The learning and development strategy would set out processes that would envision and implement the capabilities so as to enhance the effectiveness of Glwould axoSmithKline’s operations. One of the formal learning strategies involves the provision of an outstanding opportunity to succeed in business today. The company values employees who can apply innovation and imagination to make the company successful in all ways. The company requires incredible leaders and managers who can produce high-performance and promote engagement among employees (Collins et al. 2011).
Furthermore, the company engages its leaders in other informal learning programs. At the core of the business, it is the ability to make future leaders who can take the company a step further. Participants in the leadership and management informal programs will be in a position to demonstrate leadership competencies. Leaning consultants can design clear and strategic teams plan so as to enhance a team with common objectives. Leaders can also put emphasis on responsibilities and team accomplishments rather than focusing on social networking. Also, action learning plays a significant role in enhancing informal learning and strategic planning. Action learning replicating the formal learning activities helps to transfer the lessons gained in the classroom to the workplace (Collins et al. 2011).
Besides, leaders can gain some leadership skills and knowledge from various experiences outside the setting of classroom or informal academic setting. Experiential learning may comprise different activities such as undergraduate research exercises, organizational internships, service learning, and other professional undertakings. Supervised, organized and well-planned experiential learning may result to an enhanced interdisciplinary leaning, personality development, and other professional qualities. Through such learning strategies, leadership and management programs accrue a variety of benefits to organization leaders (Collins et al. 2011):
* Inspire and develop managers and leaders
* Manage their businesses and understand the key drivers for their businesses
* Create strategies and cause change
* Adapt to doing business in the world market
* Ensures that the priorities of functions agree with business goals
The implementation strategy for the program
Process evaluation focuses on the best way to achieve the objectives of an organization. The implementation provides practitioners with an opportunity to implement policies in the best way. Besides, the implementation and evaluation strategy helps to estimate the extent to which a given policy reached the targeted participants. Indeed, implementation plays a critical role in enhancing the expected benefits and promoting strategy effectiveness. The organization can make use of process evaluations so as to determine the effectiveness of its major operations. Also, evaluation helps managers and leaders to identify areas that need further improvements within the organization. Leaders can utilize process evaluation to provide details for process improvements, reach the target audience, and enhance effective communication within the organization (Benard 2012).
Before the implementation of the leadership and management development program, the company needs to consider what employees will find valuable and what the company wants to accomplish. A needs assessment done by GlaxoSmithKline will assist the company first to identify the program objectives of the program. Besides, the company will know the skills employees want to gain. Designing a curriculum that will address the needs of participants will help managers and leaders to be passionate about the program.
Furthermore, the organizational framework and strategic implementation relies on three principle aspect: cultural norms, effective infrastructure, and organizational capacity. The following steps can be taken before implementing a development program (Keast & Mandell 2013):
Developing Framework: Before GlaxoSmithKline can implement its leadership development program, it is imperative to describe what skills, knowledge, and abilities are necessary for leaders and managers to be taught. If the company fails to understand these needs, it will be hard to measure the effectiveness of its development program. 
Establish Need: It may be very hard for managers and leaders to see their challenges; it is critical to help them understand their challenges. For instance, leaders and managers can instinctively settle into one management style that allows them to be contented. The challenge with this is that not every management style is suitable for all occasions. 
Provide Training: Leaders and managers must be taught the necessary competencies to help them perform their duties. 
Encouraging Experiential Learning: Leaders and managers need to get that opportunity to exercise their skills. They need to be motivated to embrace new challenges that will expose them to opportunities they can use their skills. If a manager or a leader is learning financial management skills, then he or she needs to be put in charge of a team that experiences financial challenges.  
Feedback: Leaders and managers need to get feedback on their performance to know their progress. They must be informed if their performance has improved and what they can do to make their performance better. They need to be continuously provided with feedback until they achieve the target they are set out to realize.
Appraise Success: The success of t...