Extending Managers` Insights into Leadership: an Online
Challenge
By
Steve Macaulay BA DipIA MCIPD
Learning Development Executive
Toby Thompson BA MA MCIPD
Networked Learning Executive
How do you lead others? Why would anybody want to
follow?
Is it time to question some of the fundamental assumptions
you hold about leadership? You may be surprised by some of
the assumptions that you hold.
In the Centre for Customised Executive Development at Cranfield
we are constantly asked by organisations to work with their
managers to improve their leadership skills. Whilst most of this type
of development takes place face-to-face, we felt that online learning
could play an important role in helping managers to consider their
own leadership experience and practice prior to coming on such a
face-to-face leadership programme. An online approach puts the
user in charge, making their own choices, defining their own
leadership journey and gaining their own insights.
For example, do they want to mull over the strengths and
weaknesses of their own stance on leadership? Do they wish to
explore new ideas? Do they wish to have their ‘leadership
blindspots’ revealed?
The topic of leadership is complex and overlapping, and we needed
to move away from the ’right or wrong’ style common in much elearning. We have developed an online case study with a difference.
The learner takes on the role of change agent tasked with assisting
in a new organisation. The complex business situation evolves over
time. At intervals, the learner takes charge and deals with some
difficult leadership issues by making choices about their priorities.
Regular feedback results are presented to the learner through the
lenses of four approaches to leadership that we use at Cranfield.
The different Cranfield approaches to leadership that are dealt with
in this module can be summed up as:
Political leadership, actively taking account of the prevailing
attitudes and reconciling conflicting interests and opinions.
Holistic leadership, undertaking leadership based on respect for an
employee as a whole person, employees who are not just rational
agents who sacrifice their lives to work.
Distributed leadership, believing in and acting upon a wide range of
people involved in decision-making, and not just a single leader.
Emotional leadership, reading, understanding and acting upon the
emotional undercurrents in an organisation, and taking decisions
based on the integration of rationality and emotion at work.
Importantly, the learner can record their own rationale for the
decisions they take in a ‘free text’ section. For example, they might
choose to spend a lot of time to “Encourage participation in
strategy”, and in describing their rationale they may write down:
“No change will happen without full consultation and agreement”. At
the end of the module learners can look back at where their
preferences lie towards each of the four approaches. Also they are
encouraged to review all their comments for any insights and
patterns that emerge.
To facilitate further learning insights, the module poses some
questions through an on-screen business mentor. As the learner
examines the unfolding business situation, the mentor asks
questions of the learner, for example What is your attitude towards
change? How strategic are you? How strong are your
communications skills? The mentor’s questions help the learner to
assess what they know about such leadership issues and to
evaluate what they need to know. Again, they can note down
comments to pick up later. They then have access to some short
‘pocket’ learning material to give them a start on key businessrelated issues.
How will this online learning programme work in practice? We
anticipate that it will be used before managers attend a programme
at Cranfield, to help stimulate their thinking about their
assumptions on leadership, and prompt questions to bring to a
programme. This online module is really only the start of a journey
into leadership. We want managers to put themselves in the shoes
of a leader tackling realistic business issues. In this role they can
review their current attitudes and beliefs and start to consider
different leadership approaches, their relevance and usefulness in
their own context.
We’ve called the module `Leadership: challenge your assumptions`.
The online medium allows participants to work at their own pace,
putting them in an action-based setting and stretching their
thinking into new areas. Its primary aim is to get managers thinking
about their own assumptions and beliefs. How does that translate
into the decisions they make? Are there perspectives on leadership
which would help them to be more effective? What could they do
differently?
The leadership learning module is available to Cranfield’s corporate
clients.
Steve Macaulay and Toby Thompson are members of Cranfield’s
Centre for Customised Executive Development, Steve as Learning
Development Executive, Toby Networked Learning Executive. They
can be contacted by emailing s.macaulay@cranfield.ac.uk or
toby.thompson@cranfield.ac.uk
© Cranfield School of Management 11 January 2008