State of Leadership Development in the Ethiopian Management Institute

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Date

2010-06

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Addis Ababa University

Abstract

The notion of leadership development is an important aspect of organizational development for building existing potentials of lea ders and improving performance. Leadership development is a process which begins with improving th e person's understanding, skills, attitudes and competencies required in modern leadership practices and competitive business world so that teams, organizations as an entity as well as the society at large will benefit out of it. In Ethiopia, various approaches of leadership deve lopm ent have been made by education and training institutes, organizations by th eir own mechanisms as well as leaders themselves. Hence tremendous experiences are available and the purpose of this study is contributingfor leadership development by giving emphasis for the integration of transformational leadership training and coaching methods designed and implemented by Ethiopian Management Institute. The study used descriptive method of research and a combination of four data collecting techniques was applied. 48 respondents from top, middle and line management (Addis Ababa Transport Authority, Radio Fana, General Audit Office, and Oromia Water Works Construction Enterprise were representing government organizations whereas; DH Geda SC from the private organizations), who had taken Leadership Development Program of EMI and 30 management consultants participated in ques tionnaire administration. In addition, 2 EMI directors and 3 LDP participants were also interviewed; the student researcher also attended transformational leadership training to observe the process and also consulted relevant documents pertaining to this study. The data has been entered into a computer and analyzed by the help of SPSS and then findings were presented in the form of text, tables and charts. The study investigated leadership capacity development activities of EMI and the selected government and private organizations. Thus the study addressed three interdependent components. These are the exp eriences of leadership development practices in the selected organizations, relevance of transformational leadership and couching and its process as well as outcome level results so that relevant experiences have been drawn. The study depicted the integration of more than one leadership development methods brought effectiveness both for the individual leaders' development as well as organizations. Specifically, theory based leadership education has replaced by transformational skills and behaviors and also supported by coaching to cement the change obtained from the training activity. If properly design ed and implem ented and with commitment, organizational developm ents can be realized through LDP in a wider scale. In LDP, the process has more value than any other thing in transforming thoughts, practices and experiences for leading self and others. The combination of reviewed literature and the findings of leadership development revealed that leadership is not only achieving the completion of a given task but also utilizing untapped potentials for achieving th e desired goals in a sustainable manner through committed leaders, coaches and facilitators of change. The implications of this study have outlined and are believed to contribute for leadership development.

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IER

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