1. CONSTRUCTION OF A LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT FRAMEWORK FOR FRONTLINE
LEADERS
LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT
Mr. Henry Chandler
COURSE: HRMA 875
Bernard van der Walt: 26717786
24 July 2015

2. TABLE OF CONTENTS
PAGE
List of Figures ........................................................................................................i
1. Challenges Objectives and Outcomes ..........................................................1
2. Leadership Development Framework...........................................................4
3. Competency Model.......................................................................................6
4. Outcomes and High Level Content.............................................................12
5. Measurement of ROI...................................................................................13
6. Blended learning Model .............................................................................15
7. Roles and Responsibilities..........................................................................18
8. Conclusion ..................................................................................................19
References...........................................................................................................20

3. LIST OF FIGURES .............................................................................................i
Figure 1: Global Risk Trends Affecting HR.........................................................1
Figure 2: Strategy Alignment of Leadership Framework.....................................3
Figure 3: Leadership Development Framework Model........................................5
Figure 4: Core Leadership Competencies...........................................................10
Figure 5: Emerging Leadership Competencies...................................................11
Graph 1. Leadership Development Outcomes....................................................14
Figure 6: ROI Measurement ...............................................................................15
Figure 7: Types of formal learning.....................................................................17
Figure 8: Types of informal learning..................................................................20

4. 1
1. Challenges objectives and Outcomes
Challenges.
A leadership development framework faces external and internal affecting factors. External
factors affect business strategy and therefore influences the HR management system and the
Leadership Development Framework (LDF).
External factors Influencing Business Strategy
The marketplace where the business operates in may include skills availability, aging
workforce, economic growth and education level. The World Economic Forum presents a
report each year providing more information regarding the risk environment in which the
business will operate in.
These factors have a more direct impact on the business in total and on the business strategy
that has to deal with it.
Figure 1. Global Risk Trends Affecting Business Strategy, HR management and leadership
Interventions (WEF, 2015).
 Aging Population.
Business
Strategy
Aging Population
Growing middle
class in emerging
economies
Increasing national
sentiment
Rise of chronic
disease
Religeos
polarisation in
society
Rising income
disparity
Rising geographic
Mobility
Weakening of
international
governance
Rising
Hyperconnectivity

5. 2
Due to better medical care and better food quality the world’s population is aging and
more people will be on pension and will have to be taken care of by government in
future.
 Growing middle class in emerging economies.
Expansion of the middle class causes economic stability and more predictable
spending patterns.
 Increasing national sentiment.
National sentiment may in countries cause polarisation which in turn may lead to
military conflict.
 Rise in chronic disease.
The recent outbreak of Ebola is an example of life threatening diseases that can affect
workforces all over the world as multinational companies are reluctant to move their
employees to areas affected by these diseases.
 Increasing polarisation in religion.
As can be seen in the Middle East polarisation has taken place and is increasing to
such an extent that many lives have been lost.
 Rising income disparity.
Especially in third world countries the income gap expands and this expansion can
lead to civil unrest.
 Rise in geographic mobility.
Experts find it easy to move from one country to the next as they are transferred by
multinational organisations and becomes ex-pat employees.
 Weakening of international governance.
The recent example of al-Shabir that escaped the international criminal court as the
South African government ignored international governance.
 Rising hyper connectivity.
The effect of technology facilitates the ability of an employee to work from anywhere
in the world.
Internal Factors
The leadership development framework follows the business’ strategy which can be depicted
by the following model. Alignment is essential to achieve any positive output and this is
because the action of HR must assist in achieving the results set down by the business
strategy. Frontline leaders must support this strategy.
Figure 2. Strategy Alignment of Leadership Framework to Business Strategy.

6. 3
 Business strategies are determined by the external environment. HR decisions and
therefore leadership development decisions are based on these (discussed previously).
 Business decisions following business strategies determine the functioning of all the
departments of the organisation e.g. finance, marketing, production and HR.
 Supporting HR decisions will naturally follow business decisions, for example the
business wishes to scale down its operations, HR should not be hiring new people at
that stage.
 Leadership competencies at supervisor level should support HR decisions, for
example where HR has been instructed to expand, frontline leadership competencies
must be developed.
 Performance requirements determine the output required by frontline leaders which in
turn provides the requirements for leadership development.
 The existing culture of front line leaders facilitates or hamper the development of
leadership skills e.g. resistance to change.
 After the above process is followed the leadership programmes required can be
implemented to develop competencies of front line managers.
Objectives.
The above objectives filter down to the level where frontline leaders have to achieve these
objectives by implementing them, otherwise these massive objectives of the business is
useless.
Outcomes.
Outcomes of implementing a MODP for frontline leader that supports the LDF will
contribute directly to the output of the organisation which in turn will contribute to
profitability of the organisation.
A strong leadership pipeline will be formed that will provide leaders for all levels in the
organisation.
There will be a high performance attitude by employees created by the actions of front line
supervisors.
Business Strategy
Influenced by
external
environment.
Business decisions
Supporting HR
decisions
Existing culture in
the organization
with focus on HR
culture.
Performance
requirement
journey
Leadership
Competencies
Leadership
Programmes

7. 4
Definitions.
Once leadership has been positioned, it is possible to present definitions.
Leadership
A leader is someone that does not only step up in the times of crises or need but also during
normal circumstances. A leader has a clear vision of the objective to be achieved.
Leaders influence people so that they want to follow the leader willingly and want to share
the leaders’ goals. The leader also provides knowledge and information and manages conflict
of stakeholders and members (Businessdictionary, 2015).
There is no specific definition of leadership because it differs from place to place and from
problem to problem as Warren Bennis states: “Leadership is really a matter of character. The
process of becoming a leader is no different than the process of becoming a fully integrated
human being” (Gini & Green, 2014).
The above definitions of leadership applies not only to political, social and religious leaders,
but also to business leaders and all management levels including frontline managers.
Leadership Competencies
Competencies have main aspects which are defined by the relevant job and required roles.
The behavioural aspect is the actions that results in good or bad performance. The motivation
that the person has to perform these actions and the technical skills to perform the required
actions are the other two main aspects of competencies (Harvard University Press, 2015).
Competencies are the things that a person must demonstrate or master or execute to be able to
complete a task successfully. A frontline manager must make sure that his team members have
competency e.g. to drive a forklift. ArcelorMittal gives their managers international experience
to develop their leadership competencies (Jansen van Vuuren, 2015).
2. Leadership Development Framework
The leadership development framework (LDF) suggested in this work combines
strategies and actions to have a focus on the development of front line leaders instead of
focussing on the total strategy of the company.
Figure 2. Leadership Development Framework Model (Bersin & Associates, 2011).

8. 5
Leadership Strategy.
Strategy alignment of Leadership Framework to HR Strategy which is aligned to business
decisions see Figure 2.
Leadership Development Strategy.
- Curriculum design is done by analysing the type of environment in which the
company operates. The industry for example, can be technical mining equipment, or,
an international service delivery corporation.
- Curriculum delivery, formal or informal training will be discussed in detail later in
this document.
- Organisational capability is determined by the current and projected financial
situation that the business faces. If the company is retrenching employees and
supervisors, the LDF will be different as from the business strategy where frontline
managers are hired.
- Portfolio strategy developed in terms of where leadership in the business is required.
In certain departments of the business there might be a shortage of frontline managers
and in other departments a oversupply. This can happen when technology changes
and certain departments in the organisation become obsolete e.g. Kodak retrenched
thousands of employees and frontline managers when they decided to finally close
their film processing shops as digital photography took over.
Leadership
development
framework for
frontline
leaders
Leadership Strategy. -
Organisation vision
Mission- strategy
Leadership
development strategy
- Organisational
capability - corporate
LD intiative
Supporting
structures and
individual capability

9. 6
- Corporate leadership development follows the expected demand in leaders. This is
done by setting up a leadership pipeline and managing leaders through this pipeline,
which will insure that a lack of leadership skills does not develop.
- Objectives and metrics. In the last few years technologically advanced metrics and
analytics have been developed to measure leadership performance. As objectives for
the development of frontline managers is set, there must be ways to measure the
achievement of these objectives. Software developers have developed packages like
Workforce Analytics from SAP and PeopleSoft from Oracle to measure the successful
achievement of objectives.
- Assessments must be performed accurately to base future decisions on. This is done
through using metrics and analytics based on accurate data.
- Sharing information on leadership development and assessment with functional
departments builds a stronger framework. Input and feedback from functional
departments is then used to determine future strategy.
Supporting Structures and Individual Capability.
- Ethics and corporate governance must support leadership development to such an
extent that morality issues does not develop. Major issues developed in SA like poor
service delivery, corruption as nepotism.
- The individual capability of the frontline leader must be at such a level that it is
beneficial to supporting the development of a leadership framework. If the leadership
development framework is not supported by the ability of the individual frontline
leaders it will not be able to function at full potential.
- The support of performance management is important in the sense that it determine
the success through measurability of the framework.
- Some organisations develop a leadership brand which attracts HiPo’s such as Google
or Microsoft. In the same way a leadership culture can be established that attracts
future leaders. Some organisations give bursaries to HiPo students at tertiary
institutions to make sure that they will join the organisation. This alone is a status
symbol for the future leader (Bersin & Associates, 2011).

10. 7
3. Competency Model
CORE LEADERSHIP COMPETENCIES.
These competencies remain reasonably constant over time, from place to place and from
situation to situation. It is important to note that these competencies must be aligned to the
business strategy and the required skills. Anticipation by the leader of approaching threats
and opportunities is important. Challenge, strategic leaders must challenge the status quo.
Different interpretations should be made to re-invent management. Leaders must have the
ability to align with stakeholder’s tolerance and expectations of change (Harvard Business
Review, 2013).
Ethics
 Ethical behaviour is extremely important for a business leader to foster trust in the
organisation and to cause shareholder value. This is however not necessarily the case
in the South African business environment where employees are sometimes left to
starve as the directors steal the money. South Africa has an Ethics Institute trying to
rectify the situation.
 The frontline leader must incorporate ethical leadership into his department in the the
culture of the organisation as new employees will become leaders in the organisation
through leadership development in the future.
 The frontline leader must develop this leadership competency to strictly act ethically.
If the frontline leader doesn’t act ethically the credibility of his department will be lost
as well the total credibility of the organisation. The frontline leader must make sure
that the ethics of the company is transferred to new employees in the process of
induction training. SAB has a one week induction training programme whereby the
ethics of the organisation is transferred and whereby new employees are trained to
speak the language of the organisation.
Vision
 Only visionaries can lead people, otherwise they would be followers, examples are
Richard Branson, Nelson Mandela, Steve Jobs etc.
 The frontline leader must be a visionary that connects the corporate and HR vision to
his unit.
 Connect the HR vision to the strategic vision of the company and this in turn will
determine how the workforce planning will be done in the HR management process.
Goal Achievement
 Entrepreneurial and commercial awareness.
 Focussing on goals which are linked to the strategic objectives of the organisation will
give leadership direction and goal achievement.
 A leader in business can be compared to the ability of an athlete to perform at top
level. The athlete earns millions of dollars when they win, the winner of Wimbledon
Tennis tournament is paid R 18 million in prize money. The same goes for business
leaders who gets million of Rands when their organisations perform well. A frontline
leader in turn can earn substantial bonusses.

11. 8
 The frontline leader must focus on goals from the functional department and must
have the competency to achieve and to manage the process in his department.
Judgement
 Judgement is based on the ability of the leader to evaluate a situation and to make a
decision based on the situation and information provided.
 In certain circumstances it is necessary for the leader to make a judgement call based on
incomplete information. Good analysis skills are essential to make the best possible
decision.
 As bad judgement calls will have a detrimental effects on the organisation. The frontline
leader should undergo leadership training that includes judgement training to equip the
leader with judgement abilities.
Passion
 Success in business leadership and in many other walks of life is dependent on having
passion for the subject. This can be seen in the work of many artists, sports people and
business people.
 To be able to be a leader the person must have passion to be able to achieve his
objective and those of the organisation as the competition in the market eliminates
people and businesses without passion.
 Any person must be passionate in what they do to achieve success and so the frontline
leader needs passion to work with people and to inspire them.
Team Builder
 To build a team that performs is difficult in any circumstance and requires a high
level of leadership ability.
 Effective networking, relationship building and communication skills.
 Frontline leaders needs to have the aptitude and attitude to achieve the tasks at hand.
Accountability
 Leaders should take responsibility for their actions. This is not always the case in SA
as leaders avoid taking accountability for outcomes e.g. Eskom leadership. It has
become regulated in certain countries that leaders remain accountable for their
decisions e.g. King III report (which is rarely implemented).
 Frontline management is regulated to a certain extent by laws like the Labour
Relations Act but the frontline leader must feel personally responsible for their action
and behave that way.
Development of people
 A leader has the ability to influence people and they are willing followers. This gives
the opportunity that the followers can be influenced to achieve personal growth or to
learn from the examples that the leader set. People development is one of the main
tasks of frontline leader.

12. 9
 Frontline leaders must develop people in order to do succession planning or to make
sure the talent pool in the company is sufficient to support the requirements of their
unit.
EMERGING LEADERSHIP COMPETENCIES.
Global Leadership skills
 This is the most important new leadership skill as multinational corporations require
leaders that can exhibit this skill as the leaders can not only operate in one country but
must develop and lead globally. Effective communication, presenting and persuading
skills. Global corporations have specific programmes to develop the skills of their
leaders so that they can communicate clearly with their employees internationally and
get their commitment to the tasks at hand.
 The frontline leader must also be sensitized to the global requirements of leadership
and must be able to develop these skills in his department.
Figure 4. Core Leadership Competencies (Bersin & Associates, 2012).

13. 10
Agility
 Adapting and responding to change. The leader of today must have the ability to adapt
to different situations and move between roles and circumstances. Today the leader
will be in one situation in one part of the corporation and tomorrow the leader might
be in another situation in another location or in another part of the business.
 The frontline leader must be able to adapt to change quickly and develop the ability to
manage change in his business unit, as required by circumstances.
Cultural Diversity
 Sensitivity to culture has become more important as companies are operating globally.
Cultural differences vary to such an extent that it can make the opening of a new
facility in a foreign operation impossible. For example, in Kenia tribal leaders had to
Core
leadership
competencies
Ethics
Vision
Goal Focussed
Good judgement
Passionate
Team Builder
Action
Accountable
People
Development

14. 11
give permission for a road to be build by a Chinese company before the government
gave permission.
 Frontline leaders must develop cultural sensitivity skills and be able to train
employees to use these skills.
Figure 5. Emerging Leadership Competencies (Bersin & Associates, 2012).
Innovation
 The frontline leader must not only be aware of the latest technological innovations but
also be able to innovate leadership techniques to make sure new challenges are
managed. Innovation happens more often with new technology. Various governments
sponsor innovators with immigration benefits if their innovations get accepted.
 The frontline leader should use innovations to increase the effectiveness of his
department and to develop leadership competencies.
 The frontline leader must be aware of innovation in all fields of the organisation and
be able to sensitize employees to these innovations. Metrics and Analytics is some of
the tools that the frontline leader can use to incorporate innovation into the leadership
competency development process.
Emerging
Leadership
Competencies
Global
Skills
Agility
Cultural
Diversity
Innovation
Emotional
Inteligence

15. 12
Emotional Intelligence
 China has an oversupply of thousands of engineers and scientists who can work all
over the world but only 10% of them are employable because 90% of them have a
very low emotional intelligence. The Chinese education system focusses on academic
and technical ability by letting students study 14 hours per day but neglects emotional
development which develops during periods of play and sports activities. The
emotional intelligence components used by ArcelorMittal to determine emotional
intelligence is: Interpersonal (social awareness), Intrapersonal (self-awareness),
Stress Management (emotional management and regulation), Adaptability (change
management), General Mood (self-motivation), (Jansen van Vuuren, 2015).
 A lack of emotional intelligence causes feelings of inadequacy, stress and irrational
decision-making by the leader. A lack of developing this competency causes real
damage to the organisation.
 Emotional intelligence is probably the most important leadership competency because
if someone is not emotionally mature they will never be a business leader. They may
however be a charismatic or political leader. The frontline leader must have emotional
intelligence as he or she must be able to deal with emotionally strenuous
circumstances like retrenchments.
Leadership competencies consist mainly of core and developing competencies. There are still
a lot of other competencies identified not discussed in this paper but the most important aspect
of leadership competencies is that the frontline leader incorporate leadership competencies into
his management process. It is further important to realise that the frontline leader develops
these leadership competencies to increase the effective functioning of the organisation. The
changing global demographics also demands more from the frontline leader she will now not
only develop leadership competencies locally but will also have to develop them on a global
scale taking factors such as cultural diversity into account. Measurement of the development
of leadership competencies has also become possible by using software developed for these
purposes like Oracle PeopleSoft and Workforce Analytics from SAP.
Leadership Competencies for Frontline managers used in this assignment:
 Emotional Inteligence,
The emotional intelligence components used by ArcelorMittal to determine emotional
intelligence competency is: Interpersonal (social awareness), Intrapersonal (self-
awareness), Stress Management (emotional management and regulation), Adaptability
(change management), General Mood (self-motivation), (Jansen van Vuuren, 2015).
A lack of emotional intelligence cause feelings of inadequacy, stress and irrational
decision-making by the leader. A lack of developing this competency cause real
damage to the organisation.
Emotional intelligence is probably the most important leadership competency because
if someone is not emotionally mature they will never be a business leader. They may
however be a charismatic or political leader. The FLM must have emotional
intelligence as he or she must be able to deal with emotionally strenuous
circumstances like retrenchments.

16. 13
 Ethics,
Ethics is the moral fibre of each population or country it represents. The deduction
can then be made that if a business’ ethics is a discipline of ethics it will vary from
country to country and from first world countries to third world countries and from
business to business.
To be able to live their lives ethically a leader must be transparent in their values and
actions and to communicate their beliefs and feelings to others which will show their
integrity. Ethical leaders will admit mistakes and will confront unethical behaviour
(Goleman, Boyatzis & McGee, 2012).
 Goal focused,
Leaders who are goal focussed set high standards for themselves and drive themselves
and their team members to achieve these standards, they calculate risk so that to make
sure that their goals are attainable (Goleman, Boyatzis & McGee, 2012).
Individuals and groups perform at a certain level when they are committed to
achieving certain goals. Goals give energy to groups as it focusses their attention and
action towards the goal and away from non-goal achievement activities. People or
groups which are goal oriented are more persistent and overcomes objectives easier.
 Action accountable,
Leader should take responsibility for their actions. This is not always the case in SA
as leaders avoid taking accountability for outcomes e.g. Eskom leadership. It has
become regulated in certain countries that leaders remain accountable for their
decisions e.g. King III report.
How? The HR manager is regulated to a certain extent by laws like the Labour
Relations act but the HRM must feel personally responsible for their action and
behave that way
 Team builder,
“Leaders are team players…….are themselves models of respect, helpfulness and
cooperation” (Goleman, Boyatzis & McGee, 2012).
To build a team that performs is difficult in any circumstance and requires a high
level of leadership ability. To be able to draw team members into willing, active and
positive collaboration is essential if the frontline leader wants to develop a strong
team. Effective networking, relationship building and communication skills are
required.
The HR manager needs to select FL leaders that has the aptitude and attitude to
achieve the tasks at hand.
 People Development,
To be able to develop others the frontline manager must understand the strengths and
weaknesses of all team members, they must also have a keen interest in those they are
helping.
The development of team members managed by the frontline leader is important as it
contributes to the success of the team, the work quality, motivation and morale of the
individual.
The development of employees may include personal development and any of the
learning interventions presented in the leadership development framework.

17. 14
4. Outcomes and High Level Content
With all the scandals in recent years there has been a loss of faith in business leaders
from Enron to AIG, Ponzi schemes and Tesco.
The graph below presents the outcomes required to achieve successful leadership
development and the capability development areas that focus on the LDP for frontline
leaders.
1. Measuring the effectiveness of learning and development areas.
This measurement will directly contribute to ROI.
2. Developing basic leadership skills across the employee base.
Front line managers should have the basic leadership skills.
3. Rapidly getting new employees up to speed.
4. Forecasting skills needed in the near future by front line managers.
5. Building leadership talent.
6. Passing on knowledge from older to younger employees.
7. Fostering a culture that supports learning and development.
Graph 1. Leadership Development Outcomes (Oracle 2012).
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Outcomes in %

18. 15
5. Measurement of the ROI from Leadership Development.
Busy employees are not necessarily productive employees, it is therefore essential to measure
the performance of employees and their first line managers when they operate in a business
unit. Analytics is used to measure the ROI of leadership development.
Activities that the frontline manager have to be involved in shown in Figure 5.
Figure 6. ROI Measurement (Oracle, 2012).
Goal setting, planning and tracking.
On boarding of new employees.
Setting up development centres
Ongoing coaching by line managers
Learning facilitation
Performance
management
decisions
Competence
decleration

19. 16
To measure all of the above the results can be quantitatively or qualitatively analysed. The
quantitative process is called Quantitative Human Capital Analysis. Quantitative results, from
each business unit, which were set on production, financial, or quality goals can be measured
by using metrics or analytics.
Software programmes have more than 2000 HR reports to measure ROI of leadership
development. Examples may include: reduced supervisor turnover by %. Increase in the
number of HiPo’s over the past year by what %. Improvement of engagement by what %.
The above metrics can be incorporated in further analytics, for example: What is the
correlation between employee engagement and supervisor turnover.
Another option is using qualitative research where questionnaires or interviews can be held
with more senior managers reporting on goal achievement like production output.
6. Blended Learning Model
Blended learning is a combination of formal and informal learning. The blended
learning model is based on curriculum delivery which in turn is based on curriculum
design.
Employees, frontline leader or external candidates get selected to be part of a leadership
development programme using various techniques such as:
Psychometric Testing
Registered Tests, these test can only be provided by a registered psychometrist. An
example of these teste is the Mayers Briggs Type Indicator or Rorschach (which is
rarely used).
Publicly Available Tests
Selection by most companies is done by using these types of tests. Examples include
Personality Indicator (PI) and Jarvis Tests.
Using learning methods blindly is not advisable as each might have a different effect on
the learning outcome in terms of learning quality and absorption.
When selecting learning types to use when you will be doing leadership development
for frontline managers, it is important to determine what will define the successful
outcomes of learning.
After learning programmes have been implemented it is important to determine the
success of the learning otherwise money would have been wasted and the success of the
organisation will be negatively influenced. Measuring learning success is done by using
learning analytics (LA) (Educase, 2011).
LA uses data from computer systems which provided learning to students. To be able
not to lose good students and to be able to assist weak students the data that were
collected in the big data network or in the cloud is compared to the results of the
individual system.

20. 17
LA is confined to electronic learning that provides data to be analysed. To apply this to
frontline managers would be to let them follow formal and informal learning modules
as long as the data can be analysed.
The goal of LA is to determine at-risk students which have the potential for achieving
success but they are uncertain about the requirements or actions they should take or
how they should approach their trainers (Educase, 2011).
Technology facilitates training in various ways formally and informally examples of
this can be from webcasts, for learning frontline managers to demonstrate the operation
of new machinery to exams which the frontline manager have to pass to be able to fulfil
certain tasks. In the following figure it can be seen what the possible impact if
technology is on learning.
Figure 7. Types of formal learning (Kruger, 2015).
Formal learning
Accredited Institution
Virtual Classroom and
Assesments
Course presentation
Critical Reader
Moderation
Teaching
Communicationg Course
Material e.g printed books
Reserch
Evaluation
Moderation and Feedback
Technology
Non technology based
learning
Assesments
Coaching
Simulations

21. 18
Formal learning to be used in this assignment:
Virtual classroom:
Classes can be attended and questions answered from all over the world.
Virtual Assessments:
This is done online by students completing questionnaires. Every time the
questionnaire is completed to achieve a certain mark the student loses points.
Virtual Research:
PhD and Master’s degree students can submit their work online for moderation.
Formal classroom teaching:
This is done especially in more junior levels of education of where the students
have no accessibility to technology.
Simulations:
Where there is a need for a mentor providing examples e.g. assembly of a
complicated piece of machinery not all the elements of the process can be done
online. The student is then examined on his ability to achieve successful results.
Informal learning to be used in this assignment:
Social embedded learning:
This type of learning develops when the learner learns as part of his social environment
for example a person growing up in a butchery where his parents work in will learn the
“tricks of the trade”.
Blogs:
Also called watercoolers is used especially at academic institutions where questions and
answers are presented to provide students with more information.
Social media:
Facebook blogs are set up to present information to students regarding a variety of
subjects.
Job rotation:
Leaders learn related skills through this process. It also provides the ability to substitute
frontline leaders when leave is due or supervisors cannot attend.
Ex-pat assignments:
Leader get assigned to learn the skills relevant to managing in different parts of the
world and are therefore more able to travel wherever the organisation has a shortage of
frontline leaders.

22. 19
Figure 8. Types of informal learning.
7. Roles and Responsibilities
There is a number of roles that a frontline leader must fulfil:
 Translate goals set by management to be understandable by employees. Simplify, if
necessary.
 Provide a clear vision of goal alignment between the goals of the business unit to the
business goals.
 Be prepared to create agile goals for the business unit as demanded by management.
 Be involved in coaching staff.
 Facilitate training where necessary.
 Be involved in performance reviews (Oracle, 2012).
Informal learning
Virtual communities
Blogs
Wiki's
Webcasts
Facebook groups
Pinterest
Communicating Course
Material
Technology
Non technology based
learning
Social Embedded Learning
Job rotation
Mentoring
Action Learning
Ex-pat assignments

23. 20
To be able to be a frontline leader the person will need the following attributes:
Ability: The supervisor needs the inherent ability to be able to be developed as a leader.
Willingness: If there is a resistance to leadership development it is a waste of time and
money.
Knowledge: If the supervisor does not have any knowledge of the product he will not be able
to assist anyone in his business unit regarding the products produced.
Decisions: Will have to be able to make decisions based in limited information.
Learning: Must be able to learn quickly and to transfer that learning to employees.
Interpret: Interpret instructions given by management and translate it to his department.
Recent development in responsible leadership brought the following elements to the
foreground. These are also relevant to the frontline leader.
 Inclusive cultural diversity have to be managed as technical skills from all over the
world are allocated to specific teams where the frontline manager is the supervisor.
An example of this is found at ArcelorMittal where people from Poland are employed
because of their technical ability in the steel industry as the industry is the same in
Poland as in South Africa.
 The frontline leader is responsible to realize the consequence of his or her actions on
the team that they supervise and on the organisation. Examples of this can be moral
issues (Voegtlin, 2011).
 An important responsibility of the frontline leader is conflict resolution. This is done
by discussion with the relevant team members or if necessary following disciplinary
procedures.
 A responsible frontline leader will have a positive effect on the job satisfaction and
performance of the team members (Voegtlin, 2011). The performance and job
satisfaction is important for the functioning of the team and therefor in contributing to
the effectiveness of the organisation.
8. Conclusion
Without a leadership development framework, leadership development will have no structure.
This framework puts leadership development in context in relation to the total functioning of
the organisation.
Developing a leadership development framework for frontline leaders involves all the
elements of leadership at any level. There is differences however when evaluating the
challenges and objectives e.g. global leadership of a multinational firm requires a strong
strategic focus and global skills vs a small local engineering works.
Roles and responsibilities and performance measures have to be in place to measure the ROI
of frontline leaders so that future leadership development interventions can be determined.

24. 21
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