This master project deals with evaluation of a one-year leader talent development process with 25 participants in a Danish municipality. The project was carried out with the aim of investigating the effect of the said talent development process and investigating what characterises the learning outcomes of leader talents and the organisation.
Globally, there is a focus on talent development in organisations due to an increased need to retain and attract talented employees. In the municipality that we investigated, the need for talent development originates in challenges in attracting sufficient applicants for management positions and a desire for improved management. Today’s welfare society, organisations and work life are undergoing change. A common denominator is the constant, emerging change that affects our way of working, which has led to a sharper focus on how organisations can be better at developing at the high pace of development of the welfare society. There is also a demand for talented leaders who can head the paradigm shift from the leadership model New Public Management towards New Public Governance. Leaders must initiate improvement and streamlining of the public organisations via cooperation across one’s own organization, co-creation and citizen involvement.
We used effect evaluation to shed light on the effects, and learning theory to reach a deeper understanding of the learning processes. Data collection was in two phases: data collection regarding setting up of a programme theory, and data collection to answer the evaluation question. The first part consisted of two individual interviews and a policy analysis. The other data collection part consisted of a survey investigation and three individual interviews. The leader talent development process works mainly on the basis of practical learning and structured processes supported by good mentor processes and the talents’ leaders. Four activities in the process were identified: 1. Designate the talents, 2. bring the talents together from across the organisation, 3. practice courses, 4. apprenticeship.
Based on the empirical data we gathered, we conclude that as a whole the activities contribute to fulfilling mainly two of the four effect goals: Organisational learning and improved leadership. The effect goal regarding retaining talented leaders was neither confirmed nor denied in the study. As expected, the empirical data could not confirm nor deny the most long-term effect goal, a larger number of competent applicants to management positions in that the leader talent development process has just been completed. The empirical data show that some of the participants are still unsure if they will advance to a manager level. The learning process characteristics are expressed as double loop as well as single loop learning, which results in both individual and organisational learning. There was a hint of deutero-learning, especially when they met at residential courses and boot camps. In total, the empirical data show a budding start of organisational development and a strengthening of the organisation’s learning competence. The empirical data also show that deutero-learning, which in particular animates the individual to learn how to learn, did not take place in all the subjects.