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The importance of balance in leadership development: Lessons from a study of railways in Australia

Tom Short (CRC for Rail Innovation Research Fellow and Deputy Program Leader of the Workforce Development Program at the University of South Australia, Mawson Lakes, Australia)

Human Resource Management International Digest

ISSN: 0967-0734

Article publication date: 1 June 2012

1528

Abstract

Purpose

Describes research on the development of leaders in Australian rail organizations.

Design/methodology/approach

Details five areas where the “complementarity” contained in the Chinese yin and yang philosophy could help to restore balance in modern leadership.

Findings

Highlights the importance of balancing: principles and practices; technical and people skills; hard and soft skills; formal and informal learning; and self and others.

Practical implications

Advances the view that these five balances are relevant the world over; one aspect of leadership and management cannot live without the other, yet each aspect lives within the other.

Social implications

Demonstrates a way forward for management development at a time when the need for leadership development, capability building and talent management have reached dangerously low levels across the world and the position will deteriorate as baby‐boomers retire and leave behind a leadership “black hole”.

Originality/value

Postulates that one aspect of leadership and management cannot live without the other, yet each aspect lives within the other.

Keywords

Citation

Short, T. (2012), "The importance of balance in leadership development: Lessons from a study of railways in Australia", Human Resource Management International Digest, Vol. 20 No. 4, pp. 36-39. https://doi.org/10.1108/09670731211233357

Publisher

:

Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2012, Emerald Group Publishing Limited

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