Abstract
This chapter draws attention to the pressing need for all organisations to build leadership capability at a time in history when leadership is a recurring and significant theme in popular discourse. According to international experts, leadership is the most pressing issue facing organisations today because of the turbulent and complex environments where endless change and unexpected events have become the norm. In Australia, the pool of leadership talent has decreased at a faster rate than many other parts of the world, while at the same time investments in leadership development activities are higher than many other developed countries. In this chapter we aim to demystify the challenge of building leadership capability and move beyond the rhetoric to explore what can be done as part of a workforce development strategy. This chapter reports on findings taken from a leadership study undertaken between 2009 and 2011 which contributed to the development of a leadership capability framework in the Australian rail industry. The study concluded that many industries such as rail should utilise top-level frameworks of good practice while also making leadership development fit the local context of each unique environment.
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Short, T., Stehlik, T., Piip, J. (2014). Building Leadership Capability: What It Means for Rail Organisations. In: Short, T., Harris, R. (eds) Workforce Development. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-287-068-1_12
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