“The Evaluation of Two Key Leadership Development Program Components” Article Analysis

The development of effective leadership is one of the major concerns of modern organizations. On the other hand, the assessment of leadership and leadership training is often very challenging and many researchers focus on the study of leadership programs and their assessment to determine the effectiveness of leadership training and development. At this point, it is possible to refer to the study The evaluation of two key leadership development program components: Leadership skills assessment and leadership mentoring conducted by S.T. Solansky (2010), where the researcher evaluates two leadership training programs and attempts to identify effective approaches to the leadership assessment and training.

The researcher (Solansky) focuses on two components of the leadership development programs, namely assessment of leadership skills and leadership mentoring. In the course of the study, the author involves school administrators involved in leadership development programs. In the course of the study, Solansky reveals the fact that the leadership development program becomes more effective, when focus on coaching rather than compliance. In such a way, mentees perceive the training program better. The positive feedback of mentees allows mentors to deliver their training program effectively and increases the overall effectiveness of training.

In addition, the researcher reveals the importance of the establishment of the personal contact between mentors and mentees. Solansky believes that the personal contact facilitates consistently the delivery of training programs and helps mentees to learn more effectively compared to training programs, where mentors fail to establish positive personal contacts with their mentees. Instead, personal contacts help mentors to understand mentees better and to assess their actual needs more accurately. As a result, mentors focus on those issues, which are really important for mentee leaders at the moment that makes such training very effective.

Furthermore, the researcher reveals the importance of self-reports and observer-reports in the leadership skills assessment. In fact, self-reporting helps to measure the progress of leaders in the course of training programs. At least, Solansky points out that self-reports help to evaluate the perception of the program on mentees’ progress as they feel it. Observer-reports are effective in terms of the evaluation of leadership skills because they help to assess the progress of mentees as observers notice it. The use of observer-reports can help to enhance self-reports and may be used as the supplementary measurement tool to assess the progress of leaders involved in training programs.

On the other hand, the study conducted by Solansky still leaves some questions to pose and to answer. For example, the study seems to be too generalized in terms of the assessment of leadership development programs. In fact, leadership development programs may be extremely diverse and their assessment may be different. Moreover, different training programs may and often do need the use of different assessment tools. However, Solansky neglects such difference and identifies her findings as, to a certain extent, universal and, therefore, applicable to different leadership development programs. Another question is the adequacy of the sample population selected by the researcher in her study. In fact, the researcher involves school administrators. The question that begs is whether participants, i.e. leaders, working in the private sector or large corporations would manifest the similar results as participants involved by Solansky.

Nevertheless, the article draws several lessons to learn. First, the article reveals the importance of the establishment of the positive personal contact between mentors and mentees that means that leadership training programs should involve effective interpersonal contacts and communication between the key stakeholders. In addition, the article offers some assessment tools which may be used in the course of the assessment of leaders’ progress in the course of their training, such as self-reports or observer-reports.

The terms offer and acceptance. (2016, May 17). Retrieved from

[Accessed: March 28, 2024]

"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016.

[Accessed: March 28, 2024]

freeessays.club (2016) The terms offer and acceptance [Online].
Available at:

[Accessed: March 28, 2024]

"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016

[Accessed: March 28, 2024]

"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016

[Accessed: March 28, 2024]

"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016

[Accessed: March 28, 2024]

"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016

[Accessed: March 28, 2024]
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