57. The Problem with Your Leadership Development Program with Dr Darja Kragt and Prina Shah

Ways to Change the Workplace with Prina Shah

Feb 3 2023 • 44 mins

The Problem with Your Leadership Development Program

How can you develop a better leadership development program within your organisation?
Why do nearly 70% of organisations fail to create a leadership pipeline they can trust and rely on?
What is leadership identity, and how do you create a workplace culture where leadership mindset is encouraged?
Why is hierarchical leadership selection a flawed approach?

About today’s episode:

Today I chat with Dr Darja Kragt. Dr Darja is a lecturer in work psychology at the School of Psychological Science at the University of Western Australia. Her primary area of research is leadership and leadership development.

I speak with Darja about: Why leadership development programs regularly fail to develop an effective and inclusive leadership pipeline.

Darja talks about how selecting future leaders based on the idea of high potential is flawed and why we need to see everyone in the organisation as a potential leader.

We cover:

How leadership is a mindset that needs to be cultivated.
How the assumption that there are a group of people within an organisation that are innately more suited to leadership roles commonly disproves itself.
Why most organisations don’t have a leadership pipeline they can trust.
How organisations benefit from giving everyone the opportunity to show, prove, and develop themselves as leaders.
How the traditional leadership selection is biased.
Is it better to impose, give choice or create opportunity for leadership?
Creative ways to create cost-conscious and effective leadership programs.
Challenges for middle management development.
Key questions to lead the development of your internal leadership development program and how to measure outcomes.
I share perspective on when it’s appropriate to use culture change (or psychometric) tools.
And listen in to Ann’s answer to my question: if you had a magic wand, what is one way you would change the workplace? Hint: it starts with Why.

About today’s guest: Dr Darja Kragt is a lecturer in work psychology at the School of Psychological Science at the University of Western Australia. Her primary area of research is leadership and leadership development. Darja is passionate about developing leaders and leadership through evidence-based research and practice, so that everyone can have a better boss! Her dissertation investigated the role of identity in leadership development

Resources and links: Connect with Darja! Get her Leadership Development Checklist here.

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Learn more about your host Prina Shah and the Ways to Change the Workplace Movement!