Human resources strategy and change: Intervention on leadership development at the department of energy in South Africa

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the importance of leadership development as the cornerstone of success in the Department of Energy in South Africa. The first part focuses more on the diagnostic process which was followed to establish the root cause of misalignment between the leadership of the department and the rest of employees with special focus to the clean and renewable energy branch.After this diagnostic process, the focus of the intervention was extended to the whole department with the basis of using the culture survey results and recommendation. The understanding was that if the leadership of the department understands their role and the impact, it will have an impact on the whole organization. After the training of two groups of leadership (executive leaders and senior managers), all participants were requested to come up with the change architecture which focused on their specific areas of operation. At the end of the program for the two groups, a joint workshop was arranged where both groups drafted a departmental change architecture which was to be implemented by the whole department.Due to the success of this program, it was also decided that the program will be rolled out to all senior managers in the Department of Energy in South Africa. The program was a very good combination between practical and theoretical input, using intense role-playing and individual’s actual work experiences in order to propose or come up with the possible solutions to address the identified gaps.