Leadership Development in the Polish Economy During the Transformation Process: Selected Issues

Abstract

This chapter discusses leadership development (LD) of Polish managers during the process of economic transformation since 1989. The first part of the chapter discusses the Polish managers’ leadership capabilities and their characteristic features and behaviours as contrasted with managers from other Central and Eastern European countries (CEE) and from Western European countries. In the second part changes in the approaches to leadership training and development in Poland are analysed. In addition to discussing company-based LD, the second part of the chapter describes the typical features of management and LD programmes at Polish universities. It can be concluded that there was some progress in leadership competence development over the years. LD is based mostly on Western training models; in addition, Polish managers are learning from their Western counterparts while working on global markets and interacting with MNCs operating in Poland.