A well-led organisation is a good place for employees to
work, and also a place good leaders can get more from their staff.
At the Metropolitan Police, a winner in the Computer Weekly Best
Places to Work in IT 2005 awards, this emphasis on leadership
development extends across the whole of the force.
"The Metropolitan Police places leadership very high on its
agenda, and has a corporate-wide leadership programme," says Tom
Conway, group director business services at the Met's directorate
of information (DoI), its IT function.
"While a high proportion of DoI staff have attended the
corporate programme, at a local level we have decided to provide
additional training to meet the specific local management needs and
devised a complementary programme ourselves," says Conway.
"We're setting the bar higher for good IT leadership, and people
are responding."
The programme is targeted at upper middle and senior IT managers
initially, and over the next few years similar initiatives are
planned for junior/middle managers, says Conway.
"We began by undertaking a detailed analysis to identify the
development needs of our staff. We focused particularly on good
decision-making and problem-solving abilities, linked with
influencing skills. We were also looking for team development
skills such as listening, delegation and fairness," he says.
"The DoI programme formally kicked off in early summer with a
reception with the director and group directors. Around 50 staff
are going through the programme now," says Conway. "There are one-
to two-day workshops which are highly interactive and dynamic.
"One thing we are very keen on is that participants don't just
go away for a few days on the course, then come back and nothing
has changed. So, we've initiated project learning sets where pieces
of real work the DoI is undertaking are passed out to participants
- they use the skills they are learning to tackle the real
problems."
"For example," says Conway, "we'd done some preliminary work on
a DoI graduate scheme, which I've now handed over to a group of ten
or so people on the programme for them to develop into a working
proposal. What they produce will be presented to the directorate's
senior management team in November and will hopefully get the
go-ahead."
Although it's early days for the leadership programme,
experience so far highlights a number of key points, says
Conway.
"You need to ensure you are moving forward in a purposeful way,"
he says. "You can design a programme that is relevant for, say, a
year or two, but then those needs will have largely been met. You
need to reassess the programme, identify new needs, and move on -
it's all too easy to get locked into running the same programme
without catering for changing requirements. Things are too dynamic
in this business for that to be allowed to happen"
Identifying those leadership needs accurately, both from an
organisational point of view and for the individuals concerned, is
crucial, believes Conway.
"You really need to understand the needs of the staff for this
to work, and I'd like to think we could make improvements upon our
existing processes. Our staff appraisal system has evolved but
there needs to be more emphasis on qualitative aspects," he
says.
One of the more sensitive issues that any leadership development
programme will need to address, he points out, is that not all
those who the programme targets will be equally receptive. In any
organisation there will be those who do not feel a personal
enthusiasm for the programme.
"In the end, leadership development takes time - you've got to
be prepared for the long haul," says Conway.