You are an HR professional who needs to be a strategic thinker. You must consider the enterprise-wide effects of the decisions you make. Your plan for the leadership development program must ensure that leaders learn and practice the skills to lead others and prepare for the next stage of the leadership pipeline.

CapraTek is not yet in a position where the company can effectively manage a broad leadership development program through all the stages of the leadership pipeline.

At this time there are many leadership roles in the organization, but there is no uniformity of qualifications for selection. Also, there are no current policies that provide guidance or pathways that would help aspiring employees and current supervisors or managers know how to prepare for and compete for advancement.

The learning and development staff will create the first level of a leadership development program (leading others) that will focus on the second stage in the leadership pipeline (Charan, Drotter, and Noel, 2011). The reasoning behind the emphasis on the first stage is there is a need to prepare prospective first-line supervisors because they have the greatest impact on the largest number of employees in all areas of the organization. It is expected that two cohorts of supervisory candidates will participate in the program each year, with approximately 20 participants from a broad range of occupational fields.

In the future, the program can be expanded, but for now, the scope of the program should serve as a pilot for a more comprehensive program that will include all levels of the leadership pipeline: leading others, leading leaders, functional leaders, business leaders, group leaders, and enterprise leaders (Charan, Drotter, and Noel, 2011). As the program is developed, learners should recognize that the creation of these types of programs often coincides with obstacles. Some of these barriers include what part of the organization should have responsibility and what part of the organization will be responsible for costs and participation approval. Lastly, it is essential in most organizations that new programs of this scope be challenged during the review process, long before implementation. As such, seeking the active support of one or more senior executives as program champions should be considered in this assessment.

4-5 page plan with an outline of a first-level manager leadership program based on the leading others stage from the leadership pipeline:

Read chapters 2 and 3 from The Leadership Pipeline. Charan, R., Drotter, S., and Noel, J. (2011). The leadership pipeline: How to build the leadership powered company, Second Edition. Jossey-Bass. Skillsoft Books BusinessPro Collection. Write an introduction to the leadership development program including: Explain the theory for developing frontline leaders from scholarly sources, including The Leadership Pipeline. Provide an example of how you would go about program development and implementation, given the information provided above and in the text. Select 2-3 activities from above for your abbreviated leader development program activities and support their contribution to the program with references. Analyze selected parts of the leadership development program to integrate concepts into how they would support the program deployment or employee development. Explain the rationale for your selection of program activities. Analyze how the plan could be expanded to include other stages of the leadership development program within the company, according to the text and other references. Write a conclusion summarizing the rationale for the leadership development program, the highlights of the program you designed, and how the program could be adapted.