Evaluating the Impact of Leadership Development - Essay Example

Knowledge is the means of obtaining success and wealth and, with a constantly altering marketplace and an ever-expanding and competitive milieu, the requirement for new knowledge is imperative, as is the process of sharing and communicating what is now known.

I was able to focus on what I saw as the major problem, i.e. the motivation levels of employees together with the relationships between management and employees. Within
In the second week's write-up, the discussion was about how KFIC lacks good levels of employee motivation and communication and how this situation could be helped by the setting up and use of internal blogs. It was felt We felt first of all that there was a need to create a cost-effective environment that would enable employees to share their observations and experiences with others in a simple way and regularly. 

My case is that if employees are well motivated, they will achieve more. Because of poor motivation levels, employee/management relationships were getting worse. Employees do not feel able to approach the leaders easily and so they are not able to discuss problems when they arise. This means that leaders are rendered unable to know what is going on and so assign employees to deal with matters. Employees are not being given the power to have discussions which will enable them to work more efficiently.
“How have the ideas covered so far in this module influenced how you would go about understanding your workplace-based problem?”

I found the week four write-up particularly difficult. I found however that by reading around the various topics, using both articles and books, I was gradually able to understand the various ideas and how different research methods are used.

Reading Johnson and Duberley (2000)on the subject of postmodernism we come to understand that postmodernist methods help, by using scientific methods, to expose previously hidden or overlooked facets of a topic. Postmodernism uses a narrative to explain its standpoint. As far as knowledge creation is concerned linguistics, the language used, has been shown to play an important role. The authors discuss the myth that knowledge is created by using language. (Vattimo, 1992). Postmodernism challenged the approaches of modernists or positivists. Instead, it concentrates on relationships, both technical ones and social interactions.

Also discussed was the positivist approach and how this system tests a hypothesis and verifies it using scientific means. Measurements are checked very carefully to prove validity and reliability. Positivism helps to get at facts and to quantify relationships between the various variables. Theories that have been put forward and the practices that accompany them are investigated, and then current situations would be investigated. According to Thorpe and Hold (2008), it is a case of “positivism versus the rest”. The authors go on to explain that data from existing research can be collected and then tested against more established theories. The findings arrived at will then assist businesses in coming up with the most appropriate recommendations and methods that would improve matters problematic matters. Positivism is the approach that can be observed as being often used frequently in the social sciences.

Also in this discussion Thorpe and Halt in 2008 focused on action learning. They describe how

Raelin (1999) stated that action learning is a method widely used by modern-day organizations. It can be stressed within an organization that is also a learning environment. Martineau and Hannum (2004) describe how action learning is a “collaborative inquiry process in which participants work and reflect on real problems with learning partners, producing a tangible outcome while at the same time learning from the experience”. Using this process on a day-by-day basis, job handling and the sorting out of any problems can be sorted can be practiced.

Records are kept within an employee-accessible knowledge base within organizations so that when related problems come up they can more easily and quickly be dealt with. Businesses, where this is done, are enabled to empower their employees, giving them suitable responsibilities, and the employees, in turn, are trained on how to handle situations for themselves. These employees can use the knowledge that has been created and collected from various sources to be better able to handle situations in the most effective ways.  “How have the ideas covered so far in this module influenced how you would go about resolving your workplace-based problem?” I feel the paramount approach to be used is the positivist approach to research methods. Read More