8607-531 Improving Own Leadership Performance through Action Learning

Unit Overview

8607-531 Improving own Leadership performance through action learning is a unit within the ILM Level 5 qualification in leadership and management that focuses on improving the capabilities of leaders. Leaders should ensure that they achieve gradual and continuous improvement in their areas of operation. This helps them to improve their input and influence over the activities of the people under them in areas where they are leading or managing. Improving leadership capabilities and performance requires the leaders to understand different phenomena and principles, which include the responsibilities that they should play and their roles in improving the group dynamics in action learning.

Action earning is one of the most effective approaches that can be implemented within the organisation setting to ensure that leaders can use evidence-based practice in improving their impact on the teams and the organisation in general. This is therefore important to identify effective action learning activities that are relevant in supporting the process of improving and developing own leadership capacity. 8607-531 Improving own Leadership performance through action learning is a unit that focuses on improving this understanding and capability.

This unit provides the leaders with the necessary training to ensure they can effectively identify their learning needs and implement activities and strategies revolving around action learning that focus on promoting the acquisition of the skills and knowledge that they lack. This unit has the purpose and aim of enabling the learners, potentially leaders, to effectively participate in an action learning set and use action learning to develop their leadership performance and capability. The unit is taught in 36 hours of guided learning and contributes 15 credit values towards the completion of the module, making it one of the major units within this module.

Suitability of the Unit

Development and implementation of leadership performance are critical in facilitating the accomplishment of various tasks and duties within t eh workplace. The organisational context and roles of each stakeholder are evolving rapidly due to the changes in the business environment. This makes it important for leaders within the organisation to effectively manage the changing environment by ensuring that they build their capabilities and abilities to effectively contribute and impact organisational activities. Each stakeholder, in their areas of operation, has to focus on continuous improvement in performance, capabilities and skills to ensure that they are aligned to achieving organisational needs that contribute towards meeting organisational goals and objectives.

Due to this necessity, 8607-531 Improving own Leadership performance through action learning has become a critical unit that covers all stakeholders who are responsible for units teams or specific project areas within the organisation. The unit provides them with the rationale and approaches that they can use to optimise their performance in these areas. The unit is designed specifically with the learning needs of the middle managers of the organisation in mind.

It focuses on improving the ability of these leaders within the second level of leadership within the organisation with the skills to pursue action learning that promotes development in leadership capabilities. The unit, however, is also suitable for other leaders and stakeholders in positions of influence within the workplace as well as the external consultants involved in making strategic and action plans within the workplace. The unit can also be pursued by general employees to prepare them for leadership responsibilities as well as drive them towards building leadership competencies as form of professional behaviours.

Learning Outcomes

Upon completion of the unit, the learners should e babel to:

• Explain the responsibilities of individuals within an action learning set

• Understand the impact of group dynamics in action learning as a tool for enhancing leadership development

• Actively engage in action learning sets to develop personal leadership performance and the leadership performance of others within the set

• Evaluate the impact of action learning as a leadership development technique and its role in personal leadership development

• Identify and choose relevant activities and sources of support to develop personal leadership capacity

• Create and implement a plan involving activities designed to develop personal leadership capacity

• Evaluate the efficiency of the implemented plans in achieving the desired levels of development in leadership performance and capabilities.

Key Learning Areas

8607-531 Improving own Leadership performance through action learning is a unit that focuses on ensuring that leaders are able to effectively develop their skills and knowledge hence improving their influence over other organisational activities. This unit covers critical areas of learning that include:

Action Planning for Leadership Development

This area of learning provides the learner with basic principles of action learning as a tool of leadership development. The learners are guided to understand the differences between cognitive and affective skills as well as the effect of personality development and application of these skills. They are introduced to group dynamics as a component of action learning as well as learning styles that they can use to improve their personal roles and behaviour in the action learning set. In this area of learning.

The learners are guided o understand the nature of action learning and sources of programmed learning that can be used to develop leadership skills and knowledge. Lastly, it is important for the learner to understand the emotional and political aspects of group processes, and this information is provided within this area of learning.

Implementation of Activities for Developing Leadership Performance

This area of learning helps the learner to build the ability to implement a systematic approach to developing leadership skills. It involves being able to set effective objectives and identifying techniques that can be put in place to achieve the set goals and objectives of development. In this area of learning, the learners are guided to understand the sources of support to the leadership development practices.

They are introduced to different theories that can be implemented to overcome barriers and obstacles to leadership development. In this area, the leaner is also guided to understand the techniques that they can use to monitor, analyse and evaluate the performance of the implemented activities. Learners are also guided to understand the significance of 360-degree feedback on personal leadership performance as a tool for evaluating performance and needs of development.

Evaluation

On completing the unit, the learners are required to complete a written assessment. other forms of evaluation used include supervised practice and simulated exercises.