Purpose

1. The purpose of this presentation is to provide an update on a pilot study focused on exploring the the current organizational perspectives, expectation, and practice of leadership development in federal agencies and their integration of technology. Purpose

2. Introduction • Study Goals • Research Questions • Approach • Agencies • Participants • Current Status • Initial Findings • What Does It Mean • Way Ahead Content

3. Leadership professional development is a multi-tiered and complex problem involving the individual, the organization and the professional field. Each of these tiers must effectively integrate, inform and promote one another to create an organic leadership development living continuum for the individual’s life-long learning and to support a healthy learning organization. Professional development programs are designed and implemented based on organizational culture and expectations established by senior leaders. Therefore, it is critical to research the perspective of organization, by talking to individuals who by positions have input, oversight or design leadership professional development programs. Introduction

4. To better understand the challenges in individual leadership development it was essential to explore the current organizational perspectives, expectationand practice of leadership development in federal agencies. • Gain knowledge to develop a model of leadership professional development based on organizational and cultural perspectives, expectations and practices of current developmental programs. This includes critical knowledge on the current and potential role of technology in leadership development programs. • Gain insights to leverage the knowledge acquired on professional development variations and cultural context to design the next iteration of exploration. The next iteration of exploration will focus on individual leaders’ perspectives, expectations, learning processes, learning strategies, and use of technology in their own professional development. • Gain useful insights for revision of my design concept of an intervention (Ebook) for leadership development. Study Goals

5. What are the current organizational perspectives, expectationand practice of leadership development in federal agencies? • How is technology currently integrated into the leadership development programs? • What mechanisms are in place for individuals to design and implement individual professional and leadership development? • What is the organizational cultural perspective toward leadership development and technology? Research Questions

6. Research Method: Qualitative • Interview Questions: Open ended • Participants: Leaders responsible for leadership development programs, leadership development program managers, designers, developers or training managers. • Data Collection: • Interviewed 13 individuals in 10 federal agencies: 5 were by phone and 8 were in person. • A Question guide was used. • Each interview lasted 45 to 90 minutes. • The interviews • Formal interviews were based on a question guide (recorded). • Informal open discussion occurred before and after the formal interviews. • Data Analysis (ongoing) • Initial examination of collected data was reviewing (listening to) the interview to collect key concepts and points. • Coding is open coding. Approach

7. Agencies and Organizations

8. Participants Background P – Previously C – Currently

9. Data Collection: Two interviews were postponed indefinitely due to time constraints. • Data Analysis: • Data analysis is ongoing. • The initial findings came from reviewing all interviews, examining field notes and detailed transcriptions of approximately 7 hours of interviews. • Approximately 3 hours of interviews transcription remains. • The open coding just started. Current Situation

10. Challenges: • The shear volume of information is daunting. • Multiple potential themes are emerging. • Topics relationships to each other are complex, contextual and are still emerging. • Several different thematic grouping were tried with the initial findings but did not work well; they were very entangled. Current Situation

11. Initial Findings Impact: • Assisted in updating my dissertation plan. • Verified the importance of getting learners’ perspective and expectations. • Reinforcement that mixed methods will provide a holistic perspective of the phenomena I wish to study. • Reinforced my desire to continue on the path of the DBR and ILDF. • Increased understanding of informed exploration phase of ILDF. • The intervention should be concentrated in one organization. Current Situation

12. Leadership development is a high priority among many government agencies due to attrition, policy changes and laws. • Organizational culture directly impacts on availability and effectiveness of resources, engagement of members, commitment of leaders and members, and members’ willingness to use available technology based resources. • Organizations with science, education, engineering, and emergency response were more proactive about providing members with diverse computers and mobile devices. They also had a higher standard and expectation of members sustaining their technology literacy. • Leadership Development Programs need leadership buy-in to be successful. • Senior leaders attitude toward technology impacts the availability and use of technology. Initial Findings

13. Learning organizations investing in the enculturation of technology set the tone with employee’s upon their arrival. • Leadership theories, models and best practices have to be customized and adapted to the culture, the individual and situation. • Leadership development is not confided to the classroom or formal course; opportunities occur everyday in diverse formats. • Formal leadership development programs are a series of courses, frequently limited to competitive selection, with long intervals between formal training and education opportunities, and are not consistent across agencies. • Leadership development ultimately comes down to the individual desire, commitment, drive, and active engagement. • Strong belief’s that leadership development requires face-to-face interaction. Initial Findings

14. There are concerns that the reduction in face-to-face delivery and gatherings will adversely impact on leaders developing and honing their interpersonal and communication skills, valued informal learning opportunities, developing group cohesion, and their networking. • Strong agreement that leadership development is most effective when there is multiple source of feedback for the developing leaders. • Deep learning and critical reflection are essential to leadership development. • IDPs are different between organizations and in some cases different among organization sub-components. • All organizations are geographically dispersed across the United States and in some cases internationally. Initial Findings

15. Initial Findings • Individual Development Plan programs are designed to establish short-range goals focused on skills and competencies. • There is divergence on the implementation of the IDPs and the interaction between the supervisor and employee. • All agencies recommend IDPs for their members. • Introductions to IDPs are part of the in processing for all personnel. • Organizations that strongly encourage the use of IDPs will require individuals who do not want to use them to acknowledge so in writing. • Young technology savvy leaders are teaching senior leaders, designers and managers new technology affordance and are willing to actively engage in creating their versions of Community of Practices.

16. Initial Findings • In the majority of the organizations interviewed young professionals do actively seek to own their development. • LMS are managed at the Agency level (i.e. Department of the Interior, NASA, Smithsonian Institute, Department of Agriculture, etc.) • All agencies have a customized learning management system (LMS). • Current electronic portfolios and other knowledge management tools are mainly tracking mechanisms of training. Many of these are embedded in LMSs. • Technology, at times, is considered a barrier or a distraction in the leader’s development. • Technology is a valuable learning multiplier to enable reach out to geographically disperse organizational elements.

17. Initial Findings • Mobile learning is in its infancy in most of the agencies interviewed. • Technology in the form of distance learning, web-based learning, collaboration, virtual conferencing is diverse across organizations. • Laptop computers, desktop computers and mobile devices state of the art is not consistent across agencies or even within agencies. • Two agencies provided employees with both laptops and mobile devices. One agency allow the employee to pick what type of computer and mobile device they preferred. • Resource constraints on training, challenge both developers and participants. Innovation is possible.

18. Social media is rarely used inside the agencies for professional or leadership development. This is usually due to security issues, however, at the Agency level they do use Twitter and Facebook for public information and relations. • Technology savvy junior leaders are not patience with outdated technology. • Program managers are looking outside the traditional office software to meet the demands for more interaction and collaboration access. This includes SharePoint as an LMS, Chatter, and Microsoft meeting. • Several organizations practice effective change management with proactively providing members information on pending technology changes and following up with multiple training on the new technology. Initial Findings

19. Junior leaders are willing to go outside of the federal government systems when they feel the systems are antiquated or restrictive. • Older LMSs are frustrating to users, creating real and perceived barriers for learners. Frustrating or adverse experiences quickly damaged the creditability of the organization’s developmental programs. • Information and Knowledge Management (KM) was diverse across agencies. There was minimal consideration of KM in the professional development programs. Members had the ability to save downloaded course work within their LMS account. • The larger agencies have accounts with Books 24/7 and incorporate this resource into curriculum and individual development programs. Initial Findings

20. Aggressive efforts are underway to reduce quantities of printed material for the learners. Materials are post in a web-based environment for retrieval by learners. Sometimes Learners are provided materials on thumb drives, and in some cases, learners are issued iPads for the duration of the class. • Archiving of professional development material is an individual responsibility. • Not all organization had collaborative software, instead they rely on emails and share drives for information sharing. • Virtual meetings and virtual large-scale conferences are still in their infancy. Webex is the predominant mode for creating a learning environment to encourage learner interaction. Initial Findings

21. My perceptions at this stage of the analysis are: • There is tremendous diversity across the agencies and organizations I interviewed. They use the OPM leadership competencies for the foundation of their leadership development programs, however, each program is customize it to their mission, knowledge and skills demands, culture, available resources, and senior leaders’ visions. • Culture is a driver and an obstacle in both leadership development programs implementation and the integration of technology. • The young professional entering the workforce have higher expectations of technology integration than what is often available. • Individual development is not seen as a living continuum. • Leadership development programs have severe capacity limitations due to resources. • Leadership development is tiered in all organizations. • LMS are not working for most of the agencies due to age, accessibility or users difficulty in using the system. What Does This Tell Me

22. Finish data analysis • Go back to the literature - especially technology literacy • Write up the results of the study • Consider this study as a benchmark to inform a leadership development survey for emerging leaders. • Continue to revise my concepts of the leadership development Ebook. • Craft the intervention • Leverage the information and insights from this study to gain leader buy-in to allow me to do the intervention inside the National Park Service. What’s Next…The Way Ahead