Designing the leadership development system in the organization: Case of Russia

Abstract

One of the major challenges facing companies today is to have teams of leaders capable of moving in turbulent, ambiguous and volatile environments, and at the same time contribute effectively to the achievement of business objectives and strategies, thus ensuring continuity of them. The objective of this study was to know if the system of strategic leadership development exists in the company of French origin located in a Russian region (Yekaterinburg, Ural Federal District, Russian Federation); and if such system allows the company to form the team of leaders who need to face the great challenges. To achieve this goal, qualitative instruments (2 semi-structured interviews) and a quantitative instrument (survey) were designed by authors. The sample selected for the interviews included three groups of stakeholders who are interested in strategic leadership development and can influence on it: human resources managers (4 persons), sales category managers - heads of Departments (8 persons) and employees on the job position “seller-consultant” (150 persons). The main directions of research were such aspects as availability of a strategy for leadership development in the organization, assessment of managers' leadership qualities and evaluation of the level of leadership development in the company by employees. The results of these instruments made it possible to observe that generally organization pays attention on development of human resources, but this development does not focus on the leadership development. Meanwhile, leadership is demanded in this company, but the conception how to realize the need in leadership is absent. As the result, employees demonstrate an average satisfaction (34% - frequency answers "always") by the management of this company. Ignoring such situation can be strategic mistake of top-management of the company and lead to failure of market competitiveness in the long-term perspective. Consequently, results of the study confirm the necessity to design a strong strategic leadership system that the company requires. The final result of this study was connected with the integration of a proposal that includes a Model for the design of the strategic leadership development system detailing the overall planning and programming of the leadership development ways for its implementation in the long-term perspective. © 15th European Conference on Management, Leadership and Governance, ECMLG 2019. All rights reserved.