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• Module overview
• 1. Introduction to the effective leader and manager
  • 1.1 The effective workplace manager -The roles and traits approach.
    • 1.1.1 Early proponents of the role approach
    • 1.1.2 Roles and functions
    • 1.1.3 Role of the modern industrial manager
    • 1.1.4 Managerial roles and traits
  • 1.2 The Effective Workplace Manager - The Behaviour Approach
    • 1.2.1 Early behavioural approach to management
    • 1.2.2 Theory X and Y managers
    • 1.2.3 The Blake and Mouton management grid
    • 1.2.4 Behaviours and traits
  • 1.3 The effective workplace manager - The competency approach
    • 1.3.1 International approaches to competency development of managers and leaders
    • 1.3.2 Behaviours and competencies
    • 1.3.3 Competence- an Australian perspective

• 2. Leadership styles

  • 2.1 Leadership styles
  • 2.2. Motivation, commitment and collective responsibility
  • 2.3 Leadership approaches and styles: The situational (contingency) approach
    • 2.3.1 Five decision-making styles
    • 2.3.2 Situated leadership styles
    • 2.3.3 Path goal related leadership styles
  • 2.4 Leadership styles and transformational leadership

• 3. Learning styles and learning to learn

  • 3.1 Learning styles
    • 3.1.1 Personal learning style(s)
    • 3.1.2 The Four Learning Styles
    • 3.1.3 What is Your Learning Style?
  • 3.2 Difference between how adults learn and how children learn
  • 3.3 Learning styles and multiple intelligences
    • 3.3.1 Types of intelligence
    • 3.3.2 Instruction and types of intelligence
  • 3.4 Study skills
    • 3.4.1 Concentration
    • 3.4.2 Set S.M.A.R.T. Learning Goals
    • 3.4.3 Skim reading
    • 3.4.4 Taking notes
    • 3.4.5 Writing papers and reports
  • 3.5 Learning online
    • 3.5.1 Definitions
    • 3.5.2 Are you ready to learn online?
    • 3.5.3 Technical requirement

• 4. Personal development planning

  • 4.1 Personal development needs and career planning
    • 4.1.1 Professional development and goal alignment
  • 4.2 What career do you want?
    • 4.2.1 What are we developing in our transport and logistics leaders?
    • 4.2.2 Human functioning
    • 4.2.3 Assessing current competencies gaps and development needs
  • 4.3 Benchmarking or measuring professional development against organisational goals
  • 4.4 Setting and integrating job performance outcomes
    • 4.4.1 Personal development questionnaire anticipating your future skill needs
    • 4.4.2 Personal improvement plan-Personal and work context
    • 4.4.3 Professional Development Plan

• 5. Modelling high standards of ethics and performance

  • 5.1 Modelling high standards of performance
  • 5.2 Being a role model in an organisation that has integrity and credibility
    • 5.2.1 Corporate culture
    • 5.2.2 Organisational policy to enable integrity and credibility
    • 5.2.3 Individual responsibility
  • 5.3 Ethical and inclusive practices
    • 5.3.1 Ethics, morals and values
    • 5.3.2 Business ethics
    • 5.3.3 Ethics and the law
  • 5.4 Building trust and confidence-Treating people with integrity, respect and empathy
    • 5.4.1 Communicating to develop trust and confidence
    • 5.4.2 Building a culture of trust

• 6. Developing professional networks or communities

  • 6.1 What are communities?
    • 6.1.1 Types of communities
  • 6.2 Harnessing divergent networks
  • 6.3 Harnessing convergent networked communities
  • 6.4 Internal convergent (purpose-driven) networks
  • 6.5 Knowledge and communities
  • 6.6 Public and external networks
  • 6.7 Professional development bodies and networks
    • 6.7.1 Professional management bodies and networks
  • 6.8 Stakeholder management

• 7. Enhancing workplace learning

  • 7.1 Types of workplace learning
    • 7.1.1 Training and education
    • 7.1.2 Workplace training
  • 7.2 Coaching and mentoring
    • 7.2.1 Coaching
    • 7.2.2 Mentoring

• 8. Training needs analysis

  • 8.1 Profiling individuals within organisations
    • 8.1.1 Functional job profiling
    • 8.1.2 Profiling skills gaps using human capital approach
    • 8.1.3 Framing capability inventories
  • 8.2 Linking individual and organisational capabilities
    • 8.2.1 Integrating capability reporting and management
  • 8.3 Developing a learning plan using SWOT analysis
  • 8.4 Implementing a learning plan
    • 8.4.1 Step 1 Prepare a learning project brief
    • 8.4.2 Step 2 Discuss your plan with training personnel
    • 8.4.3 Step 3 Break down your learning plan into its basic elements.
    • 8.4.4 Step 4 Provide costings for each element
    • 8.4.5 Step 5 Provide a list of benefits derived from the learning intervention
    • 8.4.6 Step 6 Discuss your findings with training personnel

• 9. Assess and review workplace learning

  • 9.1 Assessment of workplace learning
  • 9.2 How to assess?
  • 9.3 Applying the principles of assessment in the workplace
  • 9.4 Conducting Competency-Based Assessment
    • 9.4.1 Setting Evidence Requirements
    • 9.4.2 Develop instructions for assessment tool use
    • 9.4.3 Satisfying the assessee needs
    • 9.4.4 Conducting Assessment
    • 9.4.5 Instructions to remove ambiguity
    • 9.4.6 Collecting and judging evidence
    • 9.4.7 Review the assessment processes
  • 9.5 Keeping training records

5.2.3 Individual responsibility

Individual leaders have responsibility to ensure ethical practices. This involves communicating with discretion:

At its best, discretion is the intuitive ability to discern what is and is not intrusive and injurious, and to use this discernment in responding to the conflicts everyone experiences as insider and outsider. It is an acquired capacity to navigate in and between the worlds of personal and shared experiences, coping with the moral questions about what is fair and unfair, truthful or deceptive, helpful or harmful. Inconceivable without an awareness of the boundaries surrounding people, discretion requires a sense for when to hold back in order not to bruise, and for when to reach out (Bronowski, 1978:41).

With discretion, leaders need to communicate relevantly to the purpose at hand; to apply information relevantly and dispose of it relevantly. Further, accuracy of communication, including acknowledgment of a range of interpretations, should be addressed. Finally, leaders need to consider the timing of communication and its fairness. Ethical communication, then, involves leaders' consideration of these five attributes. Power is frequently adopted by leaders to communicate decisions and directives. This power abuses the concept of partnership and returns to a leader-subordinate relationship. This has profound ethical considerations.

It is the responsibility of the leader to uphold ethics in communication. Perhaps this is most succinctly stated as follows:

Communication is ethical when it values the essential dignity of human beings and supports the ability of individuals to realise their full potential. Whether ethical communication is described as supporting informed choice making, contributing to growth and development, or valuing the innate worth of human beings, it depends on individuals taking responsibility for personal behaviours. This personal responsibility underscores the importance of developing criteria or guidelines for ethical communication behaviours (Shockley-Zalabak, 1988:327).

Reading 1

Seglin, JL (April 01, 1998) 'Brother, Can You Spare 30 Cents on the Dollar?', Inc. magazine . Sourced at http://www.inc.com/incmagazine/article/0,,ART905,00.html

WARNING : This article includes language some may find offensive.

Activity 8

Were the actions by George Naddaff (in Seglin's article) unethical or were his standards and values different to Daniel J. Driscoll's?

1. Would all companies want to see such requirements implemented by law?
2. Reflect on the scenario in the reading; what are some of the ethical concerns leaders should consider with regards to the following stakeholders?
   • Shareholders
   • Banks
   • Staff
   • Customers
3. Based on your view of ethical behaviour, should the workplace leader communicate information or not in each of the following scenarios?
   1. A leader meets with a key staff member who has failed to secure team commitment to a goal. The staff member gives valid, personal reasons for the failure to align with team effort. However, personal information is exchanged and the leader promises not to disclose information given in confidence by the employee. A circumstance arises where the leader has to make an exception and reveal the confidences to the company general manager. Should the information be revealed?
   2. An engineering team leader has worked ten years in a design team to develop the most advanced piece of motor vehicle technology in its area. After release it become apparent the technology is fine, but how it has been installed is a safety hazard. Despite formal requests, the engineering team has neither the power nor the capacity to influence the company to initiate a recall. The engineer makes a personal decision and becomes a whistleblower. He informs the press and relevant government agencies. Was this a correct action?
   3. A government program supervisor is in charge of implementing innovation and technology development. The agency is responsible for allocating funds to assist R&D in high technology areas. The public funds in the areas are significant and many prospective companies seek the supervisor's good will and assistance to ensure that available funds are allocated to support their project. The supervisor is offered a job with a significant multinational corporation. The job is to head up its team for an R&D project that is being proposed and considered by the aforementioned government agency for funding support. The job is very attractive and they need an immediate response. The supervisor's agency has not completed a preliminary assessment as to whether the proposed project is valid and eligible to receive the necessary public funding support to get it off the ground. Should the supervisor take the job?

Revisit your views on each. Are these judgments your own, or are these judgments likely to be held universally by all in the relevant workplace?

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