Advantages and Disadvantages to Leadership Development Plans By Andrea Easterday

With any plan, advantages as well as disadvantages will arise. Though, there are many positives built within a leadership development plan. Foremost, the plan typically includes job assignments that will build an individual's leadership skills. Nearly all plans allow for a hands-on experience for individuals within an organization. Through this, the individuals work in various departments which demonstrate how the organization operates at all levels. Jacowski states that "It is observed that these programs give a better understanding of the overall working of the organization and the operations involved inside the organization" ("The Advantages," 2008). In addition, the plans allow for progress of individuals to be tracked. Majority of leadership development plans include personal reflections, feedback, objectives, and action plans which allow an individual to reach full potential.

A disadvantage of a leadership development program is that an individual could begin to gossip confidential information as well as could take advantage of having power. Since the individual feels more powerful, this may lead to leaking of confidential information in order for to still feel acceptance with lower level co-workers. Moreover, the individual may begin to make demands to co-workers. D'Amico believes that the leaders can be uncaring or unkind as a response would be to ignore and discount needs and wants of employees (2005, p. 59). Imposing authority among other employees can lead to resistance among employees. Finally, learning leadership skills may leave an individual to overlook the management skills as well. Case in point, activities such as planning, organizing, coordinating activities may be ignored as leading others now becomes a priority. While influencing people is important, at times an individual needs to be able to manage other skills in order to complete work.

References:

D'Amico, V. (2005, June). Bad leadership: What it is, how it happens, why it matters. Consulting to Management, 16(2), 59-61.

Jacowski, T. (2008, June 5). The advantages of leadership development programs. In Articlesbase. Retrieved March 9, 2009, from http://www.articlesbase.com/self-improvement-articles/the-advantages-of-leadership-development-programs-439913.html