The developmental focus of the BankSeta IEDP is on “accelerating the development [of the] historically disadvantaged individuals” (former BankSeta CEO, Groenewald, 2007, p1) and thereby the broader sector “talent pool”
(BankSeta CEO) for “promotion [to] executive positions” (BSeta CEO, Past-M-BSeta and M-Past-M-BSeta) within the banks. At the time of the interviews in 2014 the BankSeta changed the “nomination” and “selection process” (M-BSeta) for delegates to the IEDP. Although “it wasn’t planned that way” (M-BSeta), the nomination and selection process is now aligned to the “talent management
process” and “internal perspective” of the individual banks rather than being
“prescriptive”.
“Previously, we tried to do a very objective selection, and for the IEDP specifically, to say, well this is our picture, obviously with input from the banks, but this is the picture of what we want the candidate to look like and so this is what we will assess and this independent panel will say yes you get to go and you don’t get to go, based on that, [..] What we’ve done this year and it wasn’t planned that way, it was just really a fluke but so far it seems to work is that we said to the banks look you work with this person every day, this person has come through your talent management process. You as the executive manager or the business head that the person reports into, knows the person and if you are then happy with your selection then so be it. [..] and you’ll find that the people that they’ve nominated, even though it’'s through internal channels, have exactly the same kind of academic profile of our previous candidates, without us maybe being so prescriptive.” (M-BSeta)
The BankSeta research participants locate the IEDP within the broader context of their other “skills development programmes”, ranging from the offering of
“bursaries” (BankSeta, 2016) for “management [and] executive education” (ibid) to addressing the education pipeline for the development of Chartered Accountants and other professionals. Together these “skills development programmes” address the current personnel within the banks’ organisational pyramid or levels and the “pipelines” (BSeta CEO) for these different levels.
The banks’ developmental focus is on the individual “leaders” within the respective organisations. This is from their “internal perspective” (M-BSeta) of career and talent development for and of the “levels” (HOLDC-A, HOLDC-B, HOLDC-C1, HOLDC-C2, HOLDC-D1, HOLDC-D2 and HOLDC-Z) of the
“management” hierarchy. It is part of the “talent management” (HOLDC-A, HOLDC-C2, HOLDC-D2 and HOLDC-D1) process, which includes “succession”
(HOLDC-B, HOLDC-D2, Del-3, Del-5, Del-10, Del-12, Past-BSeta and
M-BSeta) “planning” (HOLDC-B) and management and the “accelerated development” (HOLDC-A, HOLDC-B, HOLDC-C2, HOLDC-D2, HOLDC-D1, Del-2, and Del-1) of identified “high potential” (HOLDC-A, HOLDC-C2, HOLDC-D2 and HOLDC-D1) individuals.
The differentiation of the “levels” (HOLDC-A, HOLDC-B, HOLDC-C1, HOLDC-C2, HOLDC-D1, HOLDC-D2 and HOLDC-Z) of the “management”
hierarchy” means differentiated foci and purposes of development for these levels.
As noted before, it means a “layered approach” (HOLDC-D2) to leadership development for the differentiated “levels” of the leadership pipeline and work complexity. Together with the differentiated foci and purposes there also appear to be the differentiated attention, funding, Business School destination, and individual discretion allowed for the different “levels”. For example, it would appear that the international Business Schools are the destination of choice with the “senior” (Del-3 and Del-12) managers and executives at the “top end of the pyramid” (HOLDC-A). It opens up the question of whether “customisation” and delegates’ discretion is differentiated for the different “levels” of “management”
and “leadership development”
“So we spend close to 400 million on development every year which is a big number but again if you had to see who gets the benefit of it, it’s not the full complement. And we want to make it more virtual and more accessible to more people. [..] Ja, it is very much so [focused on the “top end” of the organisational “pyramid”]. We’ve got our junior management programmes in place of course. But the high item tickets sit at the top end of the pyramid.” (HOLDC-A)
“[..] so we used to have lovely programmes where we sent people off to INSEAD [Business School in France for “executive development”].” (Del-2)
“So I’ve seen a number of exceptional senior people go to the Harvard summer school programme.” (Del-3)
“I know a number of colleagues well probably seniors that have gone through a number of the programmes both in local universities, alright Wits Business School, Gordon Institute of Business and then you know the UNISA School of Business Leadership, but I hear a lot of guys saying I’m going for executive development for so many months at Harvard University or they are going into some university in the UK.” (Del-12)
“Shouldn’t we therefore be saying we [the banks and BankSeta] want part of the training for you guys to spend you know a month in the US at Harvard so that when you come out of there Harvard gives you an certificate, and, therefore, when Barclays in London says we want a promotion they can say we’ve got a guy who spent a year and a half at Harvard University or a guy spent a month at MIT, there’s everything in the name unfortunately, even if they’ve maybe giving you the same thing as what [Delta Business School] gives you but because…” (one of the BankSeta IEDP delegates)
“[..] what we don’t have sight of is where our managers, leaders in the organisation go to Harvard Business School, locally on a one day [or] five day intervention, and they book that with that business school, they sign it off and they pay it, and [the Leadership Development Centre] doesn’t have sight of it right.” (HOLDC-B)
“[previously during Apartheid] leadership development [then] was still skewed [along “racial” and “gender” lines] around intakes and who were the beneficiaries of those development programmes and some of the bursaries or funding or funded programmes that they would send people to, overseas to the likes of INSEAD [Business School] and the likes of maybe Wharton [Business School], I don’t know if they did Harvard [Business School], [..] pick certain people to send there.” (Past-M-BSeta) (bold and italics added)
It would appear then that there are nuances and variations regarding the differentiated developmental focus on individual “leaders” within the
“management” “levels” of the individual banks. There are times when one finds the HoLDCs shifting developmental focus from that of the individual “leader”
development to “leadership development”. This is in relation to the discussion on locating the Leadership Development Centre within the Human Resource function or more broadly within the organisational structure. HOLDC-D1, for example, discusses how “leadership development” is “palatable” to the bank as “talent development”, “succession” and “sustainability” rather than as “transformative work”. She adds, with some jest, that “transformative work” is undertaken under the guise of “traditional labels”, a “covert” manner of undertaking “transformative work” within leadership development and, more broadly, organisation development:
“I think [positioning leadership development within Organisation Development and “Transformation” function] depends very much on the organisation and the way the organisation thinks. We’ve put it within the broad talent development arena so it’s about succession and about sustainability and about creating a pipeline of leadership, etcetera. So that’s the way that it’s palatable to the organisation. It could be part of OD and Transformation but at [the bank] an organisation of [approximately 30,00052] people, our entire OD function is two people. [..]
So OD is not understood at [the bank] at all and there’s no space to use that as an umbrella for anything, so we do transformative work within a number of different practises, but we give them fairly traditional labels so it’s almost like covert types.” [laughs]
HOLDC-A draws attention to the “point of view” from which “leadership development” and its “mandate” is framed within the bank. She finds it limiting if leadership development is seen as “an HR thing”, as individual “development”, which then limits responsibility for it and ownership of it, to “HR”. She also speaks of the “huge debates between OD and ourselves [as the Leadership
52 The actual number is masked to maintain anonymity.
Development Centre]” on the ownership of the “leadership philosophy” of the bank and it being an “OD intervention”. For HOLDC-A the leadership development function and centre “should be run from our CEO’s office” to resolve these ownership and structural issues.
HOLDC-A points out that “everything draws from the leadership point of view”
and therefore suggests that leadership development should be located in the CEO’s office. The reality though means one needs to “navigate through those complexities” of “own[ership]”, “mandate” and how “leadership development” is realised or implemented through the functions and structures of the organisation that leads to the splitting of and delegating the “piece[s]” to “training” and “OD”, for example. It means “from the leadership point of view” there is a lack of integration and the delimiting of leadership development as individual
“development” and as an “HR thing”.
“[..] The culture, the values, everything draws from the leadership point of view. So where does it sit? Very interesting and we try and navigate through those complexities all the time. [..] No there’s not an easy answer.
Who owns it? And that’s why I said if you’ve got a mandated office with the CEO maybe it -- simpler. But again then it will be given to training and development to handle. It will be given to OD to handle that piece so it all just sits all over the place.” (italics added)
HOLDC-B also seems to raise the question of leadership development being seen as and being “part of [the] HR function”. She suggests that the “leadership and learning” “function” “should report directly to the leaders of the bank” to be
“close enough and agile enough” to be “able to influence” and “inform [..]
change”:
“I don’t know that it is the ultimate model, and the jury is out on this, to have leadership and learning as part of your HR function, I think that kind of expertise should report directly into the leaders of the bank to be able to influence. [..] centres of excellence within HR versus actually being close enough and agile enough to the business to inform that change.”
Coach2, who speaks from her previous employment experience at the local power utility, raises similar questions to the HoLDCs and also points to the dynamic and need for “integration” between “HR” and “OD” (Organisation Development). As with HOLDC-A and HOLDC-B, she also appears to suggest that one speaks of a
“leadership” function, rather than delimit it as a “leadership development”
function. Coach2 suggests that the “leadership” function should be based in the Organisation Development (OD) function, as it was in the power utility, given that the “change management” role resides within the OD function. She adds that the OD function was separate from the Human Resource function and reported directly to the EXCO. In this way it had an “integrative” role within the organisation and minimises the possibility of “people [not] know[ing] where to focus”:
“[..] so if you have an Organisation Development department like that they would also be the department at high level who screen all the organisational projects, but who also have control over them, that you would have a manager who who approves..who takes um all these proposals to the EXCO and has them approved and then tracks them, and um and and sees that they are all integrated with each other, so that they not vying against each other, because that creates such disruption in an organisation because people don't know where to focus, so that would be a key component that I would have in the uh..in an organisation development.” (italics added)
The “integrator” role is meant to avoid the situation where different functions, initiatives, interventions and projects are competing or “vying against each other.”
This seems similar to the earlier discussion on the different “point[s] of view”
(HOLDC-A) of the internal and external stakeholders. For Coach2 it appears that the differentiated functions within an organisation could have varying and “vying”
vested interests of organisational politics and the stakeholders “not [being] well integrated politically”. Coach2 points to the need for the “leadership”, OD and HR functions to be “integrated”:
“[The “leadership” and OD function] wouldn’t even need to be a very..a very big department, and it would obviously have to be integrated with Human Resources, and that’s where the rub often comes that the..the..that they don't..they don't..they not well integrated politically and that’s what happens at the department at [power utility], is that that department was regarded as having too much power, um and dictating to other operational departments, and when there was a change in leadership it was canned, and we all thrown to the wind.” (italics added)
The discussion of the “leadership” function, rather than “leadership development”
function, and situating this function within the OD function seems to attend more to the organisation level rather than the individual level; on “organisational [level] projects” and “change management” (Coach2). HOLDC-DBS, for example, attends to the team level for the purpose of development. He opens with the “ethical” dilemma of how one frames the developmental focus within organisations. He states that “it is a really difficult space to be in” as one negotiates what “authentic[ity]” means for an individual, what it implies for others and the organisation, and “whilst on this side [what] constraints” the
“organisation” sets. He cautions that developing an individual to be “authentic”
does not necessarily mean they will become “more” ethical towards others and the organisation. HOLDC-DBS suggests that the best “space where you learn is in the team”. His developmental focus is on “teams”; on “team learning” and “team leadership”. One finds a similar focus with Past-PM-DBS and PM-DBS who speak of Delta Business School’s “relational” “philosophy of learning”; of learning with and through others. HOLDC-DBS suggests the best one can do, developmentally and ethically, is to provide a “space” for a “good enough experience” for “growth” and “reflect[ion]”. However, he argues that one needs to appreciate the “dynamics” of teams and the “role of the unconscious”. This means, again, not being naive about leadership and leadership development.
The conversations of the IEDP delegates suggest there are dynamics at the team and individual levels regarding leadership within the banks, as will be explored in
detail in chapter six. There is emergence of the theme of the dynamics of agency within organisations; of the dynamics of leading and enacting, embodying and being a leader. The delegates seem to frame leadership as always being implicated in the relations between an individual’s self, others and the organisation. This means attending to how individuals, dyads, teams and the organisation navigate and negotiate the boundaries of self, other and the organisation. For the HoLDCs (HOLDC-A, HOLDC-C1, HOLDC-C2 and HOLDC-D1) the delegates are the
‘levers’ and ‘pivots’ of their leadership development as they have a “ripple effect on the rest of the business” (HOLDC-A). There is the theme of the opening up and democratising of leadership development as part of the broader development of the organisation and organisational transformation. For example, in the case of HOLDC-C1, as she “creates a context” and “space” for the different paths of the delegates’ leadership journey and development, so these same delegates are presumed to be “creating a context” and “spaces” for their respective teams’
different paths of development. The hope for HOLDC-C1 and the other HoLDC is for a cascading and compounding effect within the organisation; of the continuity, replication, embedding and institutionalising of the specifically designed leadership development as it is cascaded through the organisation. It is then a means of realising leadership development, as designed, for the broader organisation, of leadership development cascading at the team and organisational levels.