PS496 Unit 2 Leadership Development Paper Example

Is the Line Lead Academy Worth Its Budget?: A PS496 Unit 2 Leadership Development Paper

[Student Name]

Purdue University Global

PS496: Bachelor's Capstone in Industrial Organizational Psychology

Unit 2 Leadership Development Paper

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

The writer, the cannery, the program and every figure are composite and illustrative; the sources cited are real.

The Program Under Review

Each June, before the pack season starts, the cannery brings its line leads together for two days in a rented hall. The program has run for six years. Day one is a mix of lectures from the plant manager and safety coordinator and a session from an outside trainer on "leadership styles." Day two covers the season's production targets and a walk through new equipment. Leads complete a satisfaction survey at the end, which usually averages above four out of five. The academy costs about $31,000 a year, including wages for 28 leads, the hall and the trainer.

This year the plant manager proposed dropping it. "Everyone likes it," he said, "and I've never seen a number that says it changes anything." He was right that nobody had measured more than satisfaction.

Does Leadership Training Work?

Lacerenza et al. (2017) brought together data from 335 independent samples of leadership training. They found it more effective than earlier reviews had suggested, with improvements in trainee reactions, in what trainees learned, in how they behaved back at work and in organizational results. Effects varied a great deal with design. Gains were larger when a program started from a study of what its leaders lacked, when they combined information with demonstration and hands-on practice, when they were spread over multiple sessions rather than packed into one, and when they took place on site rather than away from the workplace. Programs that participants were required to attend also did better than voluntary ones.

Measured against those features, our academy had problems. There was no needs analysis. Most of day one was lecture. Both days ran back to back in a hall across town, and nobody followed up during the season. The one feature it had in its favor was that every lead attended.

Why the Program Survived Six Years

The more interesting question was why a program with so little evidence had lasted. Vongswasdi et al. (2024) interviewed stakeholders in eight organizations about why they supported leadership development, and found four distinct narratives. Some people justified programs with evidence of results, an empiricist view. Some believed in them as worthwhile in their own right. Some were cynical, seeing programs as rituals or perks. Others were pragmatic, valuing side benefits such as networking, signaling that the company cares or building relationships across units.

When I interviewed the plant manager, two shift supervisors, six line leads and the safety coordinator, all four narratives appeared. The plant manager spoke as an empiricist who had no evidence. The safety coordinator was a believer. Two senior leads were cynics who called it "the free lunch." Most leads were pragmatists: what they valued most was meeting the leads from the other shift, whom they otherwise only saw at shift change, and hearing about new equipment before the first night.

The academy had survived on pragmatic benefits it never claimed and was being judged on results it never measured.

What the Job Analysis Adds

The line lead job analysis from Unit 1 gave the program something it had never had: a needs analysis. The tasks leads rated as most frequent and most consequential were staffing a line when workers do not show, coaching first-week seasonal workers at the belt, lockout, catching seal failures and handling line holds with quality assurance. None of these was taught at the academy. The "leadership styles" session covered none of them.

A Redesigned Program

I proposed keeping the academy but rebuilding it around the job analysis and the design features Lacerenza and colleagues found effective.

The first day moves to the plant floor. Leads rotate through four practice stations built around the critical tasks: restaffing a line with three no-shows and two first-day hires, a short on-the-spot training practice with a volunteer, a lockout walkthrough on the new filler and a role play of a line hold with a quality assurance technician. Senior leads run the stations.

The second day is cut to a half day of equipment briefings and the season's targets, and the cross-shift lunch stays, since the pragmatists valued it most and it costs little.

Then come two one-hour follow-ups during the season, in the second and sixth weeks, where leads bring a real problem from their lines and work through it with a supervisor.

Measuring Value Next Season

To satisfy the empiricist, the program needs measures at more than one level. Reactions will still be surveyed, but with questions about usefulness, not only enjoyment, since reactions about usefulness track later job behavior more closely than reactions about whether people liked a session (Alliger et al., 1997). Learning will be checked at each station with a short scored observation. Behavior will be measured by supervisor ratings on the four new competencies at weeks four and ten. Results will be tracked through three plant figures linked to the critical tasks: lines started late because of staffing gaps, lockout violations and cases held for seal failures.

The Cost Argument

The redesigned program costs slightly less, about $28,000, because the hall rental is gone and the trainer is replaced by senior leads, who are paid their usual wage. Last season, seal failures that reached the warehouse cost the plant about $90,000 in rework and lost product. If the program reduces those losses by even a third, it pays for itself.

What the Leads Asked For

When I showed the redesign to the six leads I had interviewed, they made two requests. They wanted the senior leads running the stations to be chosen from both shifts, so that night shift practices were not treated as second best, and they wanted the in-season follow-ups held at shift change rather than on a day off. Both requests were adopted, and both cost nothing.

Limits

I cannot isolate the academy's effect from other changes, such as the new job description and the hiring changes in later units. The season-to-season comparison is also affected by crop quality and weather. The plan uses several measures to make the case stronger, but it will not produce proof.

Conclusion

The line lead academy was popular but unevaluated, and its design lacked most features that make leadership training work. Lacerenza and colleagues show that well-designed leadership training is effective, and Vongswasdi and colleagues explain why programs survive on narratives other than evidence. Rebuilding the academy around the job analysis, practice on the floor and follow-up during the season, and measuring it at several levels, gives the empiricists the evidence they want while keeping what the pragmatists value.

References

Alliger, G. M., Tannenbaum, S. I., Bennett, W., Jr., Traver, H., & Shotland, A. (1997). A meta-analysis of the relations among training criteria. Personnel Psychology, 50(2), 341-358. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1744-6570.1997.tb00911.x

Lacerenza, C. N., Reyes, D. L., Marlow, S. L., Joseph, D. L., & Salas, E. (2017). Leadership training design, delivery, and implementation: A meta-analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 102(12), 1686-1718. https://doi.org/10.1037/apl0000241

Vongswasdi, P., Leroy, H., Claeys, J., Anisman-Razin, M., & van Dierendonck, D. (2024). Beyond developing leaders: Toward a multinarrative understanding of the value of leadership development programs. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 23(1), 8-40. https://doi.org/10.5465/amle.2021.0231