Follow-Up: A Valuable Tool in Leadership Development

Overview: In many respects, leadership development is like an exercise regimen. To have the best chance of success, each should be approached as a process rather than an event. It is seen that although distinct leadership-building events do occur, leadership development takes place over time. In both leadership development and fitness training, periodic measurement helps people to know where they are, to see whether they are heading where they want to go—from their own perspective and from that of others. Leadership development is best achieved through a skillful combination of experiences (such as attending programs and participating in developmental exercises) and constructive follow-up evaluations (such as periodic assessments, tracking the continuous setting and completion of goals, and ongoing feedback). Periodic follow-up is a crucial but often neglected element of leadership development. It brings dual benefits. First, by reinforcing the idea of development as a process and not an event, it promotes continuous, lifelong learning. Second, by identifying what levels of change and how much growth has occurred, it measures the impact of a leadership development intervention on individuals, groups, and organizations and the value of the intervention itself. People in today’s society are often so focused on moving on to solving the next problem that they are unable to acknowledge what has already been accomplished. Sometimes looking back, however, is the best way to move forward.

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Format: PDF | Size: 114KB | Date: Mar 2001 | Pages: 6