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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

6.5 Knowledge and communities

Communities are often formed to accelerate knowledge transfer. For managers and leaders this can be a very useful way to avoid information overload and discover from their peers what is important and what is emerging in importance.

Knowledge often surfaces when people with different perspectives work on the same project or collaborate to exchange information. Their very difference may be the catalyst for generating new knowledge or insights. In some cases the purpose is simply to place individuals who hold tacit knowledge or highly specialised knowledge together in an environment where they can exchange ideas. Conflicts are not uncommon in such situations. The most common sources of this kind of knowledge are interdisciplinary work teams or project management teams.

Communities of practice are emerging as communities or informal networks that link individuals anywhere and at any level of an organisation or society based on shared professional interests.

Communities of practice are, in effect, professional knowledge networks. These arise out of interactions and understandings created when people share information, formally or informally. It is one of the most important forms of knowledge within the business world, and one of the least understood. Networking, where professionals or communities of practice gather together or share a discipline, is most often viewed as the basis for networked knowledge. This is a limited view. The value of networked knowledge resides in its potential to utilise information from multiple sources to generate new and relevant perspectives. Networks are crucial in a world where it is impossible to allocate time and space to acquiring all the knowledge that may be important to an organisation.

A strong set of networks should include interactions with formal and informal groups outside the workplace. Networked knowledge also resides in the social fabric of the location, including characteristics such as political and social stability and the workforce's sense of well-being. Knowledge arising from these settings is often referred to as 'social capital' (see the Knowledge Management topic area).

Reading 1

McDermott, R (2001), Knowing in Community: 10 Critical Success Factors in Building Communities of Practice ,. Published online at http://www.co-i-l.com/coil/knowledge-garden/cop/knowing.shtml .

Activity 2

1. Are communities of practice (as discussed in Reading 1, McDermott) and networked communities the same? Why or why not?
2. Why is knowledge driving the formation of communities that extend beyond the organisation into professional and other fields?
3. Analyse how a manager could use communities of practice for personal development and to create a more responsive business operation.

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