Discussion

Institute of Leadership and Management (ILM) conducted a research on the workplaces of the UK organizations. This research has explored that most of the employees at the workplaces are more likely to imitate the behaviors and skills of others. In this way, such professionals often apply wrong skills in wrong working situation leading to lower organizational performance (Seibertet al. 2017). This study will discuss the importance of formal leadership training for acquiring new skills and capabilities among the employees. Formal leadership training can develop required and new skills and capabilities among the employees based on the changing situation of the businesses.

As per the research conducted by the Institute of Leadership and Management (ILM), it has become evident that most of the professionals at the UK workplaces are more likely to emulate the behaviors of others. The traits of the employees in such workplaces are being contiguous among them. Workers are more likely to imitate the behaviors of their colleagues for several reasons depending on their infecting behavior. However, it is quite worrying that the employees are imitating the behaviors of others blindly and even sometimes imitating the risky behaviors of others. Moreover, most of the professional in UK workplaces do not even assess the criticality and nature of the situation, while imitating the behavior of others. In such situation, such imitating behavior leads to contradicting result and situation at the workplaces. Hence, it is evident that formal leadership training is extremely essential for truly acquiring the new skills and capabilities towards managing the workplace situation effectively.

Formal and sophisticated leadership training has the power of revolutionize the performance level of the organization and develop a pool of effective leaders, who can lead to high level of organizational success. According to Breevaartet al. (2016), formal training is highly essential for the organizations to ensure that the employees have adequate and relevant skills and talents for performing at their highest level. The employees of the organizations can have an important opportunity for developing new skills, accessing new resources and experiencing new situations they might not have come across previously. On the other hand, Frichet al. (2015) opined that formal training provides an in-depth understanding to the leaders regarding the complex tasks and practices. Such training also motivates the employees to keep on learning and improve their skills and capabilities. Unlike, imitating the behavior of colleagues, in formal training, the employees become capable of identifying their level of competence necessary for their performance to reach at peak point. Furthermore, Børgesen, Nielsen and Henriksen(2016) pointed out that through formal training program, the employees can get the scope of mastering their areas of expertise for giving their best to the organizational success. In this way, such training programs are highly important for acquiring new skills and capabilities for resulting in best organizational performance. Moreover, the leaders at UK workplaces must go through such training program for developing their skills and capabilities instead of imitating other’s behaviors.

The Advantages of Formal Leadership Training in UK Workplaces

Boylan(2016) opined that contemporary UK organizations must be strategic enough regarding nurturing and developing the leaders. In this dynamic business world, the situations and requirements of the businesses are changing frequently. In such situation, the traditional skills and capabilities may be obsolete for the employees to deal with the changing business situation. Moreover, Carmeli and Paulus(2015) stated that imitating any behavior and skills of colleagues may also be ineffective to deal with any uncertain situation. Moreover, the known and existing skills and capabilities of the employees can never be adequate enough to deal with any uncertain and changing business scenario. In such situation, formal leadership training can help the leaders to acquire new skills and capabilities as per the changing business situation and business requirements. According to Baron and Parent(2015), formal training can facilitate the employees to adapt their skills and capabilities as per the requirement of the business scenario. Hence, the trained leaders can better manage any complex business situation with their advanced skills and capabilities. In this context, it is clear that formal training session is highly required for the advancement of the skills and capabilities of the leaders as per changing business requirements.

Formal leadership training program can allow the leaders of UK organizations to study on the ways in which leadership ideas are emerging and changing over time. The employees often get an opportunity to observe network of leaders and draw on their experiences for managing their jobs properly. According to Santos, Caetano and Tavares(2015), formal training session surrounds the people with other capable leaders having effective leadership skills. Hence, formal leadership training can be the only way of acquiring new skills and capabilities from the other leaders providing training session. On the other hand, Gurdjian,Halbeisen and Lane(2014) opined that formal leadership training is highly valuable for polishing the existing competencies of the employees. Moreover, such training session is always helpful in sharpen the existing skills and capabilities of the employees. Hence, the employees can develop themselves and their capabilities to make any complex situations smoothly. Furthermore, Irving(2015) opined that formal training session may also explore the hidden talents and capabilities among the employees. The employee can just reflect the behavior and skills of others through imitating or copying the skills and behaviors of other colleagues. However, in formal training, the employees can explore new edge associated with their skills and capabilities. In this way, such training can be the only way of exploring the hidden skills and capabilities among the employees.

How Formal Leadership Training Helps to Acquire New Skills and Capabilities

As per the research of ILM, 41% of employees at the workplaces of UK organizations try to imitate even the innovation and creativity of others for increasing productivity. However, Davis(2016) opined that such imitation of innovation and creativity does not actually lead to uniqueness and creativity in the organization. In such extent, formal and sophisticated training session can enhance the unique skills and capabilities of the employees. In this way, the employees can apply their unique skills and innovative thoughts for leading actual unique business ideas and business innovation in UK organization. Furthermore, Reid and Dold(2017) pointed out that through formal leadership program, the leaders of organizations can be introduced with new avenues of businesses. Hence, such leaders become interested automatically to develop their own skills and capabilities to grad those business opportunities and avenues for leading better business performance. On the other hand, Phillips et al. (2017) stated that formal training session is an effective way of constant state of growth of skills and capabilities among the employees. Contagious leadership can lead to stagnation of extreme capabilities and progress stalls. However, formal leadership training is always associated with exploration of new skills and capabilities of the employees based on their new job requirements.

The strategic plan of an organization is always associated with exceptional execution of the plans towards leading high level of organizational success. In this way, the methods of executing the mission get changed with the growth of organization. In such situation, the leaders of the organization must need effective skills and ideas for proper implementation of the strategic plan for business growth. According to Satianiet al. (2014), formal leadership training provides detailed idea to the leaders towards executing the strategic plan and it goes beyond the theoretical explanation. In this way, the leaders can gain practical skills and capabilities towards perfectly executing the strategic plan of their organization. On the other hand, Fairman and Mackenzie(2015) opined that formal training can also help the leaders to know themselves in better way that enhances their confidence about their skills and capabilities. In this way, such training highly develops the skills and capabilities of the employees.

Conclusion

While concluding the study, it can be said that formal leadership training can be the only way to gather required skills and capabilities among the employees. The interpretation of leadership can be wrong through imitating the behavior of others. Moreover, the imitation of others’ behaviors at the workplaces can lead to stagnation of innovative business ideas among the employees. In such extent, formal leadership training can explore the innovative skills and capabilities of the employees. Such training also develops practical skills and capabilities among the employees for executing strategic business plans. In this way, the professionals can apply such skills and capabilities for the development of the businesses in their organizations.

Importance of Formal Leadership Training for Implementing Strategic Plan of Business

Figure 1: Concept Map

(Source: Created by Author)

Considering the above map, it can be said that at the initial phase the research conducted by theInstitute of Leadership and Management (ILM) was read and based on that the importance of ideas that are quite prominent in the outcome was analyzed. The idea that was generated from the research was that the concepts were mainly pertinent to leadership, employee behavior, employee motivation, skill development, training and development. Based on the ideas, some themes that would be extremely relevant to the research essay was figured out. Finally, the research structure was developed that it should be incorporating arguments, critical analysis, facts from various authors and viewpoints of scholars. The concept map also indicated that secondary research was to be done in order to accumulate authentic data. Therefore, using the Google Scholar several articles and case studies were accessed to accomplish the essay.

Intended Activity	Time Allotted	Writing up	Evaluation and synthesis
Read ILM research	1st June 9, 2018–2nd June 9, 2018	Identifying facts: ü Research theme ü Leadership traits ü Analyzing statistics	The impact of contagious leadership was identified along with the statistics that represents various behavior of employees.
Identifying core themes	3rd June 9, 2018 – 3rd June 9, 2018	Core Themes: ü Formal Leadership Training ü Employee unique skills and capability ü Employee motivation	It was quite prominent that employee behavior can be changed through training and development initiatives taken by an organization. Three core themes were selected.
Structuring Essay	4th June 9, 2018 – 4th June 9, 2018	Structure: ü Introduction ü Critical Analysis ü Conclusion	Being an essay, a formal structure was designed. Essay to be consisted of critical analysis based on facts presented by different authors and scholars.
Secondary Research	5th June 9, 2018 – 6th June 9, 2018	Google Scholar: ü Empirical Article ü Case Study ü Journals	Using google scholar search engine, secondary research was done consisting of articles, case studies.
Creating relationship between Formal leadership training and employee skills and capabilities	7th June 9, 2018 – 8th June 9, 2018	Identifying Variable: ü Formal leadership training ü Employee skills and capabilities	The main motive of the essay was to analyze the relationship between the two variables, therefore extensive research was done to create the relationship.
Conclusion	9th June 9, 2018 – 9th June 9, 2018	Summing up: ü Discussion outcome	Finally, the outcome of the essay was presented based on the critical analysis done earlier.

Table 1: Research Plan

(Source: Created by Author)

The preparation of the academic essay was the best experience of my academic life. It took long time for me to understand the in-depth meaning of the topic based on which I prepared the essay. However, I used my intellectual and proper academic skills to understand the case study associated with the topic of the essay. I had to prepare my task 1 based on the factors of the research conducted by Institute of Leadership and Management (ILM). It was quite difficult for me to recognize the issues associated with the research study. However, my academic professors helped me a lot in identifying the relevant issues of the research study. I realized the UK workplaces are facing extremely issue of contagious leadership. Moreover, most of the employees at the workplaces of UK organizations are more likely to imitate the behaviors and professional skills and capabilities of others (Chun, Cho and Sosik 2016). Hence, it is leading to lack of innovation at the organization. Furthermore, imitation of behaviors is resulting in utilization of wrong skills and capabilities in wrong working situation (Cumberlandet al. 2016). In this way, the support from the academic professors facilitated me to overcome the challenges, which I face during understanding the research study. Through this essay, I made attempt to examine the workplace issues associated with the organizations. Such exploration enhanced my confidence level to write the academic essay based on the true issues.

After understanding the issues in the research study, I was about to write the importance of formal training in acquiring new skills and capabilities among the employees. I used to my analytical skills and critical thinking skills for realizing the actual value of formal training as the only way of acquiring new skills and capabilities among the employees. Critical thinking is highly valuable for identifying the critical penetration associated with any essay topic (Abramiet al. 2015). Such skills were quite useful for me to identify the critical points and advantages of formal leadership training over the imitation of behaviors towards acquiring the new skills and capabilities. However, I faced extremely difficulties in accessing the secondary sources for gathering the secondary data. Hence, at the initial phase, I was not confident enough on writing the essay on the particular essay. In such situation, my supervisor provided me direction on the way of accessing authentic secondary sources for gathering the authentic secondary data to write the essay in an effective manner. In this way, the assistance and direction from my supervisor help me to overcome the issue of collecting accurate secondary data about the essay topic.

Conclusion

My next step in preparing essay was about structuring and writing the essay in effective manner. Writing skills is extremely important for presenting the essay to the reader with well structured and well collaborated words and information about the essay topic (Weldy, Maes and Harris 2014). Through the preparation of this essay, I faced an overwhelming experience of writing skills. I learned several new ways of writing an effective academic essay. However, I faced some difficulties in structuring the essay in proper manner. In such situation, I took guidance from my seniors at my college for having a clear idea about structuring the essay. It enhanced my communication skills with other people, which ultimately contributed in my interpersonal skills and smooth the process of the essay writing. I applied my writing and presentation skills for effective structuring and presenting the essay so that it becomes attractive to the reader of the essay. I learned about the significance of logical flow in the preparation of the essays for their effective completion. The facts and matters of the essay have also enhanced my professional skills and managerial skills to manage the workplace practice and develop the skills and capabilities of the employees.

• Reading Skills
• Time Management
• Analytical Study
• Practice Testing

While preparing the essay, I understood that I need to develop my reading skills further for better understanding of the essay topic in further cases. Development of reading skills is extremely important for understanding the important written text within the reading content(Floris and Divina 2015). I can enhance my reading skills through reading the written content more than once. I should be highly attentive to the prime concept of the written text for gaining the main facts associated with the written content. I would use verbal learning style for preparing the speech and writing the important concepts of the writing contents. It would also be helpful for me to highlight and take notes of the significant contents of written text for having better understanding.

During the preparation of my essay, I realized that I have lack of time management skills. I faced extremely difficulties in preparing my essay within the allocated deadline. Hence, I need to develop my time management skills further for better preparing the essay in next time. Time management skills are extremely important for completing any kind of task within pre-specified time frame and in effective manner (Wibrowski, Matthews and Kitsantas 2017). I can achieve the development of this skill through making weekly to-do-list for completing my tasks in weekly pattern. Moreover, I should be realistic enough on prioritizing and scheduling my tasks. In this way, I would be able to better manage my task within stipulated time frame. I can use solitary learning style for self studying in my capability of managing time frame in completing tasks.

During preparation of my essay, I understood that I need to develop my analytical skills for exploring the critical points of any written text. Analytical skill is extremely significant for in-depth understanding and critical penetration of written text for better those facts in writing any other written text(Weldy, Maes and Harris 2014). I should practice numerous problem solving skills for developing my analytical skills. I can use visual learning style for playing different brain games using different kinds of images, pictures and spatial understanding for developing critical understanding. It will definitely develop my analytical skills in further.

I would like to develop my practice testing for better evaluation of any situation and then interpreting that situation in writing any piece of writing. Active practice testing improves the learning quite better than passively renewing material (Wibrowski, Matthews and Kitsantas 2017). I can achieve the development of this skill through searching the long term memory.

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