BUS603: Managing People

A study conducted in the United States with some of the largest US companies numbering 264 shows that most CEOs (62%) believe that building and maintaining a skilled workforce is the most important challenge of the decade. Although this research was done at the beginning of this century, this challenge of developing and maintaining a properly qualified workforce is still present not only for American organizations but also as a global challenge. In Europe, the countries with the highest investment per employee are Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands, France, Finland, and Ireland.

In Brazil, a survey of 1150 organizations (public, private, and third sector) identified that 42% of organizations invest in training actions within or outside the workplace. Large organizations with more than 100 employees, more than 20 years in the market, and located in the most developed regions of the country, correspond to the profile that offers more qualification opportunities to their workers. These results allow an association between the growth of the organization and the level of investment in the professional development of the employees.

In the same vein, the study identifies a pattern in European countries where there is a greater percentage of people trained in organizations with more than 250 employees than in organizations between 10 and 50 employees. And in Poland, research has confirmed that smaller firms are particularly reluctant to train their workers. In a survey conducted in 1992 of small- and medium-sized companies, researchers found that only one-sixth of the organizations surveyed conducted training planning. In addition, a small proportion of such organizations have a specific budget for training actions. These results suggest, therefore, that investing in more visionary leadership and leadership focused on organizational growth can be useful in shifting the value attributed to the professional development of the workforce of companies.

In this chapter, we discuss the influence of leadership in the professional development of subordinates, pointing out the importance of leadership performance. The prioritization of context variables (the role of leadership) finds support in literature reviews that point to such need, indicating the importance of expanding research for environmental variables. The relevance of contextual variables is also evident in studies on work design, recognized as a mediator of variables such as leadership, production, time reduction, task elaboration, and work contracts.

In addition, there is a growing concern that people management policies are aligned with the organizational strategy and value their employees. The leaders need to invest also in the development of collective competencies, which are anchored in the context. Therefore, the performance of the leader can be of great relevance for the professional development of the subordinates, since the leadership can establish strategies of qualification, as well as create a favorable environment for learning. But this is a two-way street, since analyzing lists of the characteristics of effective professional development is an important strategy to promote visionary leadership or transformational leadership too.

Thus, this chapter discusses the role of leadership in the professional development of subordinates, signaling different ways for leadership to contribute to the qualification of work teams. To this end, the chapter was organized into four sections. The first section presents the main concepts and processes related to professional development. The second section turns to leadership, with a brief presentation of the concept and theories in this field. The following section lists these two variables - leadership and professional development - discussing how leaders can contribute to the growth of subordinates. Finally, the conclusions are presented with a summary of their content and the proposal of future research on the subject.