Human resource management practice I also available by michael armstrong

Chapter 

24

  Leadership and Management Development

325

Case studIes

Cargill

Cargill is an international provider of food, agricultural and 

risk management products and services. Those in Cargill’s 

different  talent  pools,  such  as  the  ‘Next  Generation 

Leaders’  and  ‘Emerging  Leaders’  undertake  both  formal 

and  informal  development.  In  Cargill’s  high-performance 

Leadership Academy, entrants learn about the fundamentals 

of leadership and management in the company and work 

through  a  number  of  accelerated  leadership  modules, 

gaining the knowledge to enable them to lead Cargill busi-

nesses.  All  of  these  courses  are  interspersed  with  more 

challenging projects and work assignments. Cargill corpo-

rate  leaders  also  take  part  in  the  Leadership  Academy, 

where  they  learn  transformational  leadership  skills  and  

the  essentials  of  coaching  and  mentoring  in  formal  

programmes and informal learning activities, all of which 

form an important part of their leadership development.

Diageo

At Diageo, the international beverages company, a series 

of development strategies, particularly for leadership, have 

been based on Diageo’s five values, which were created as 

the  common  heartbeat  of  all  the  component  businesses. 

The values – ‘Be the best’, ‘Passionate about consumers’, 

‘Proud of what we do’, ‘Freedom to succeed’ and ‘Valuing 

each other’ – have become central to Diageo’s success, 

alongside  a  comprehensive  performance  management 

framework. Conversations about performance are now on 

a ‘partnership’ basis, where managers, with their employees, 

are  expected  to  discuss  the  latter’s  aspirations  and  how 

their growth needs can be satisfied by the business.

The company’s first leadership development programme, 

1998’s ‘Building Diageo talent’, was designed to help link 

strategy  and  organizational  performance  with  individual 

performance.  This  had  many  components,  including 

coaching  and  benchmarking  for  leadership  development 

for 4,000 managers. Over the past six years the company’s 

leadership training has evolved to focus more on building 

‘a  core  Diageo  mindset’.  The  senior  team  has  prioritized 

developing  a  ‘total  talent  strategy’  and  HR  processes  

have been thoroughly embedded in management thinking 

worldwide.

HML

As  described  by  Spackman  (2010),  at  HML  (a  financial  

services company) the leadership development programme 

for middle and senior managers consisted of the following 

elements:

 

●

individual 360-degree feedback;

 

●

orientation event – introduction and contracting;

 

●

action learning sets (sets of six people, three sets in 

one programme group);

 

●

four modules: profit, client, effectiveness,  

engagement;

 

●

big event – transformational residential learning;

 

●

self-directed modules;

 

●

individual 360-degree feedback – benchmark scores;

 

●

accreditation and celebration event.

---