Summary
Evaluation of training can be defined as an organized procedure of assembling facts and using those facts to develop your training. Evaluation makes feedback available to help people ascertain if the training accomplished their anticipated results while helping them make decisions about future training. According to Winger et al. (2020), this evaluation is critical when weighing whether a particular training will help one to achieve the desired results (Winger et al., 2020). Having an awareness of various training evaluation models and approaches and making use of the best and appropriate ones allows an organization to advance on the usefulness of the training and, eventually, the organizational enactment. The most common types of evaluations for training programs include formative, summative, process, outcomes, and finally, impact.
The five steps of evaluation of training include ascertaining the purpose. After these, a leader is required to select an evaluation method. Arena et al. (2018) support that the third step includes designing an evaluation tool (Arena et al., 2018). After this, data is collected, and finally, the results are analyzed and reported. Training evaluation is important because it enhances accountability. This is because it helps employees to identify the deliverables and capability holes hence increasing accountability. Another advantage is that it improves employee engagement and satisfaction as it helps to know whether the participants were fully or partially engaged in the initiative. It also measures the effectiveness of training as it takes the impact of surveys to learn about the application of newly acquired information and the changes that have occurred in an organization. However, the evaluation has limitations such as being time-consuming, incurring high costs, and making it difficult to analyze subjective perspectives. The main disadvantages of training evaluation include high costs incurred in the process, no feedback given to the instructor, and finally, the process does not have the capability of measuring ROI.
Leadership Learning and Development Models
Leadership learning is a lifelong journey that aims at developing a leader’s organizational inspiration. Though for leaders to fully understand their skills and abilities, they need to bond, antipodal, and above all, share willingly from their hearts. There are various models for leadership development that are used in promoting leadership skills. These models are commonly used in multiple areas, and they include; the intellectual construct-based model involves target setting, system thinking, and management change. The other models are Learning-Lab-Based, Business Issue-Based, Strategy-Based, Career Stage-Based, Leaders-Developing-Leaders, as well as the Pantheon of Leaders (Rozman, Treven & Cancer, 2017). These models promote relationships to the organizational needs that are majorly used by the management to practice good leadership to the employees. Models of leadership development can be used to help an organization and its individual members succeed. Their diversity represents the organization’s various stages; as a result, her demands are in line with some changes in leadership patterns. Furthermore, diverse models can help companies in various cultures and communities achieve their objectives.
They also need to provide treasured feedback openly while at the same time receiving crystal clear responses. Medellin et al. (2021) affirm that for leaders to effectively learn their leadership experiences, they first need to understand the challenges and key areas to focus on to achieve personal and organizational growth (Medelin et al., 2021). Again, the need to identify and broadcast the immediate and lasting goals and objectives of the organization. The objective should be convincing and attainable, where the target is to unravel the mind and influence creativity and inquisitiveness.
The third thing that leaders need to do to learn about these experiences is to cautiously gather and convey cooperative working environments. They should ensure that these environments are supported by all the employees. Making use of interactive learning events brings about truly positive results (Medellin et al., 2021). Lastly, leaders should evaluate program-learning effects and successes that have influenced and brought positive changes to the organization with time. Taherdoost (2018) articulates that development models are detailed plans that clearly define how resources in an organization will be utilized to generate sales and revenue (Taherdoost, 2018). The development model is important to leaders as it helps them understand the strategy and growth of the organization. New market trends and demands, however, result in changes in the model. Defining a plan that can produce revenue and progress is very important when coming up with a business development model.
Issues Influencing Leadership Learning
Good leadership is considered to be more important for any organization seeking improvement in its management control. However, there are some issues influencing good leadership in an organization or an institution. The first issue influencing leadership, as viewed by Case & Sliwa (2020), is the leader’s personality (Case & Sliwa, 2020). Successful leaders are expected to become pacesetters by trying to show their employees that high levels of output are possible to achieve. Some leaders have the personality of believing that they can get the best products just by paying their employees and end up leaning more toward a coercive leadership style (Hur, 2017). The best way to determine when to change the style is by assessing dominant leadership styles. Leaders need to survey themselves in their interactions with their organization for the sake of defining the features that will impact the choice of leadership styles of behaviors in the organization.
The influence of the leaders’ mentoring is another issue influencing the leaders’ learning and development. Phuc et al. (2020) implore that the leadership style of leaders could be affected by the process in which they were mentored (Phuc et al., 2020). This can be defined in that if a leader comes up through the levels of an organization through a coaching environment, with the mentor taking him to meetings in order to improve, then the same leader may take the same approach when dealing with employees (Han, 2018). The same case may apply if, for instance, the same leader was nurtured in a more independent location where the administration opted for the sentiments of the team, then the leader might think of this as the best way to achieve success, the main argument being that it was the formula used to give rise to his leadership. Hence, leaders should learn not to rely much on the process through which they were mentored and instead develop new ways of leadership.
Employees’ personalities and feedback also affect the leaders’ development. This is because employees give different feedback about leadership styles. Some of the employees might be nervous and end up being speechless by a tough or pacesetting leader. This will lead to the employee feeling that they will never be in a position to gauge the immensity shown by the pacesetting leader. Many leaders in organizations have, however, started programs where they employ personality tests for both the leaders and employees as this is the best way to apprehend how the two interact.
Effective communication ability in leaders is another factor affecting their development. Case & Sliwa (2020) defines this as the ability to convey information to another person effectively and efficiently (Case & Sliwa, 2020). Usually, this is one of the overlooked aspects of any organization. This is because most leaders tend to pay more attention to other factors that determine the success of the organization. However, effective communication should not be underestimated because it enables a leader to prevent misunderstandings between employees in an organization. The other factor is a vision for the future (Segal, 2019). For leaders to be successful, they must have a clear vision for the future. This provides a sense of determination and direction for the organization. The leaders should be aware that progress in an organization can only be achieved if only the organization is evolving and changing in one way or the other. Having a goal on what you want to achieve in a year usually gives employees an aim on what they want to pursue and also acts as a motivation.
Technology is one example of external factors that have an influence on leadership learning and development. Technology can change overnight and hence change the business environment. As a result, leaders should amend their management styles to ensure that the organization copes with the new technology. Leaders are able to create new performances that ensure easy procedures through research and development. Technology enables leaders to view the number of tasks achieved by team members within a given time.
Competitive advantage is a characteristic that enables a firm to outperform its competitors, and it is directly linked to leadership development and performance. One of the essential aims of every organization is to achieve such an edge. Corporate strategy must employ an appropriate leadership learning model in order to obtain a competitive edge. Leadership talents should be followed by management and entrepreneurial abilities as part of this. Leaders are ultimately accountable for the company’s effective development and competitive advantages, which is a key feature of contemporary business. In these circumstances, corporate strategy prioritizes a leadership training model focused on management and entrepreneurial competencies backed by human capital. Securing a competitive advantage, thus, becomes one of the key tasks within the adopted leadership learning model.
Theoretical Approaches to Evaluation
The first theoretical approach to evaluation is the Outcome-based approach which is defined as the measurement of results. It is important as it helps in identifying how efficiently the goals of an initiative were achieved. For instance, outcome questions for an alcohol drinking cessation program can include a question such as; did the program succeed in helping individuals to stop drinking alcohol? It is an impact of leadership that comprises whether the leader promotes awareness of the dangers caused by consuming alcohol. This approach is used to identify observations that can credibly demonstrate change. Hankla et al. (2018) stated that, Various steps of performing an outcome evaluation include the following. Step 1: Form a working group: Step 2: Determine the evaluation audience: Step 3: Choose outcomes that will be measured by developing or revisiting the program logic model: Step 4: Choose the outcome evaluation design: Step 5: Choose the method of data collection: Step 6: Conduct a pilot test of data collection methods. (Hankla, Kohn & Normand, 2018, p. 142)
The approach is essential in leadership learning because it helps leaders familiarize the influences of the initiative and how essential the prospect of the initiative imitation is. In addition to that, the accurate expenses of the initiative and outcomes clearly impact the development of forthcoming activities. Outcome evaluation has gained both professional and public recognition as one of the quality programs in an organization. This is an approach that should be taken by leaders to efficiently enhance their learning period.
The second theoretical approach is process and impact evaluation. According to Cummings et al. (2018), process evaluation defines whether actions in an initiative have been applied as planned and occasioned in various productions (Cummings et al., 2018). Leaders may practice this approach occasionally all through the life of their initiative and begin by going through the undertakings and production constituents of the lucidity model (Fritz & Arthur, 2017). This method focuses on the types and amounts of services provided, as well as the recipients of those services, the resources utilized to provide those services, and the practical issues that were encountered and how they were handled(Fritz & Arthur, 2017). The process evaluation is important in leadership learning because it helps leaders to identify what works and what does not work. Again, it showcases the effectiveness of a program to the community and the sponsors of the program, and lastly, it improves the employees’ frontline practice with participants.
On the other hand, impact evaluation is the valuation of how the intervention being evaluated affects outcomes without taking into consideration whether these effects are intended or unintended. The proper analysis of impact requires a counterfactual of what those outcomes would have been in the absence of the intervention. In other words, a program or initiative may meet its objectives yet have a poor overall impact (Economy, 2019). A program’s effect might be utilized to enhance, reinterpret, or for the sake of informing decisions about whether to continue, discontinue, replicate, or scale up a program or policy. This approach relies on rigorous methods to determine the changes in outcomes that can be attributed to a specific intervention based on cause-and-effect analysis. By conducting this approach, leaders learn ways of acquiring a preview of the hindrances they need to overcome to achieve optimistic consequences and ascend up.
The last theoretical approach is the participatory approach. Participants of an initiative are involved in the evaluation process. This engagement can occur at any point during the assessment process, from the evaluation design to data collecting and analysis to study reporting. This process is essential as it enables beneficiaries to better analyze their own position and offer suggestions about how to improve the issue (Jarrett & Liu, 2018). When performed for this purpose, a participatory evaluation is intended to enable beneficiaries. This approach focuses on partaker possession. This means that the valuation is slanted towards the requirements of the initiative participants rather than the funding agency. Participants hold meetings where they converse and negotiate to come to an agreement on assessment results, solve problems, and formulate plans on ways of improving the initiative. The approach is very important in leadership development as it provides a chance for leaders, who are mostly not consulted, to become full partners in determining the directions and effectiveness of an initiative. Leaders who are often heard are also given a chance to express their ideas.
References
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