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4.8. Leadership and management development and education |
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Written by Hugh Morrow
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Friday, 07 December 2007 |
Much has been said explicitly and between the lines about leadership and management throughout this report. We don’t intend to trawl over the finding about leaders and managers yet again. But there are six statements that can be made and they are:
- Executives in the Australian Social Economy would benefit from greater general management and leadership capability through education and training.
- At present there is an apparent short-sightedness on the part of funders, boards, and sector members themselves in relation to professional development, investment in long-term capacity building.
- The sector is very diverse and geographically distributed. A range of pedagogical approaches and educational programs appear to be needed to match this diversity – a one-size-fit-all a capital-city centric approach and/or a class-room-based solution will not be appropriate or effective for the entire market.
- As a consequence of point 2 above, the demand for general management and executive development from within the sector itself appears weak. When combined with point 3 we see that it is difficult to achieve economically viable educational provision at present.
- Substantial effort seems desirable to boost demand (from current executives and the sector’s future leaders) and to enable providers to develop viable solutions to satisfy the demand.
- Every individual leader and manager might aspire to the role of changemaker and proactively shape the conditions and operating environments of the Social Economy in Australia . This aspiration is unlikely without ongoing professional development as lifelong learning.
We conclude this section with the reflection that in the broader context of change in the sector, the challenge is not just about improvement of individuals or groups but it is also about changing the material conditions under which they all work in the creation of social wealth and a more civil society.
If demand for general management professional development can be stimulated, we shall see the creation of education solutions through natural market forces. These solutions may be accredited or non-accredited and possibly constructed on the platform offered by Australian Higher Education institutions. For many however, enterprise qualifications within a resources and experiential based learning framework, and recognised and administered by an appropriate authority maybe more relevant for the majority of members in Social Economy organisations . Discuss this article on the forums. (0 posts)
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