From Academic Leadership

Empirical Research
Development of Future Leaders: A case study on the Bank of Thailand (BOT)
By Dr. Adisak Chandprapalert and Dr. Suda Suwannapirom
Jan 9, 2008 - 10:27:59 AM

Introduction

In the chaotic, volatile and complex business environment at the present time, an organization must be able to learn from and adapt to changes in order to enhance competitive advantage. As a result, leaders who make strategic decisions must adopt a new mind-set as new realities emerge and encourage strategic flexibility across and within their organizations (Hitt, Ireland, & Hoskisson, 2005). There are two significant factors to be strategically flexible on a continuing basis including leaders must develop an organization vision with a corresponding strategic plan and have the ability to manage changes (Zaccaro & Banks, 2004). Vision and leadership are the requisite for organization’s success and survival (Fechter & Horowitz, 1991; Nanus 1992).

Visionary leaders play the important role in projecting an image of products, services, and changing organization needed to achieve organization goals (Fetcher & Horowitz, 1991; Nanus, 1992; Nwankwo & Richardson, 1996). They enhance commitment to customers, employees and stakeholders by sharing a forceful vision in order to promote rapid implementation (Allio, 2005; Bezold, Mayer, & Dighe, 1997; Fetcher & Horowitz, 1991, Nanus, 1992). In addition, to transform the visions into reality, they perform the roles of driving and managing change (Allio, 2005; Fetcher & Horowitz, 1991; Nanus, 1992), such as revitalize strategic, structural, and policy, create innovative culture, and allocate the essential resources. They also inspire and create ownership of the change process to the followers. Therefore, to arrange for the future and confront the challenges, a system of visionary leadership should be adopted towards all managers in an organization as high priority.

For several years, scholars (e.g., Bass, 1995, 1990; Baum, Locke, & Kirkpatrick, 1998; Bennis & Nanus, 1985; Conger & Kanungo, 1987; House, 1997; Larwood, Falbe, Krieger, & Miesing, 1995; Sashkin, 1988) have described that exemplary leaders are inspirational and visionary. Many researches have demonstrated effective approaches to develop skills in visioning and managing change. However, in many organizations, there are gaps between the leadership research and practice. Zaccaro & Banks (2004) identified these gaps as the following: unaware of the value of the organization visions; underestimate the importance of change management competencies for effective management; and attend upon short-term leader training activities rather than adopt systematic programs emphasizing developmental assignments. Moreover, typical programs promote leadership theory, concepts and principles rather than leadership competence (Allio, 2005; Hernez-Broome & Hughes, 2004). Therefore, the purposes of this study are to explore the components of leaders’ visioning, adaptability and managing change, as well to provide practical guidelines by utilizing developmental assignments to promote visionary leadership in organization.

Literature Review

Background of the case study

This case study focused on development a future leader on Bank of Thailand (BOT). It concerned developing the visionary leadership assessment instruments in order to reveal the manifest interaction of significant factors characteristic of phenomenon, and to have clearly implications for the practice of future leader development assignments further. Initiating the case study in the middle of 2005, the authors had been invited to run leadership development course for executives in BOT. Specifically, the course had the main objective to encourage and assist those executives in developing the future leadership components to their roles. As a result, from the authors’ viewpoints, it would be crucial and useful to get participants involved in the whole development process, as well as to determine a set of behavioral benchmark in which individuals could: view about their own leadership behavior; identify their strengths and weaknesses; consider how to change their behavior; and develop needs to be more effective in accordance with their present and potential future leadership roles. In building a self-assessment instrument, the visionary theory of leadership was principally utilized as it focused not only on the traditional task and relationship dimensions, but also on the strategic dimension.

Bank of Thailand

As a central bank, Bank of Thailand (BOT) certainly confronts challenges in the future’s uncertain and risk environment. Core purpose of BOT is “to provide a stable financial environment for sustainable economic growth in order to achieve continuous improvement in the standard of living of the people of Thailand” (Bank of Thailand, 2006). Vision of BOT is presented as “a reputable organization commanding public trust and respect” (Bank of Thailand, 2006), and the strategic objectives are: to conduct monetary policy in accordance with international best practice; to ensure financial system stability, responsiveness to public needs, and adaptability to dynamic environment; to develop a fully efficient payments system; to become an organization committed to excellence; and to be an organization of good public image.

According to the important roles and responsibilities of BOT in periods of accelerating change, such as to formulate monetary policies, to develop monetary instrument markets, and to provide financial assistance to the financial institutions, BOT executives need to have visionary thinking that means the ability to review various future scenarios. Moreover, they are required to focus on emerging opportunities and identify the possibility of strategic positions in order to strengthen the economic and financial conditions in Thailand. In addition, they need to commit resources and have skills in adapting to change, translating vision into workable strategic and tactical plans, communicating visions, and motivating and influencing subordinates. In the present time, BOT should focus its leadership development efforts on several visioning and change management skills to encourage visionary leadership in organization.

The visionary theory of leadership

Visionary leadership is proactive management and dynamic phenomenon. The strategic aspect is fundamental to visionary models of leadership (Manning & Robertson, 2002; Westley & Mintzberg, 1989). Two elementary premises of visionary leadership are leaders attempt to influence the environment and to be the initiators of change (Harper, 1991). Visionary leadership signifies the leader’s capability to envision and articulate a view of desired future organization state, also to empower followers to enact the vision (Berson, Sharmir, Avolio, & Popper, 2001; Brown & Anfara, 2003; Conger & Kanungo, 1987; Nanus, 1992; Westley & Mintzberg, 1989).

Basically, visioning, or leadership vision, consists of three distinct stages: envisioning , visioneering, and sub-vision (Kakabadse, Kakabadse, & Lee-Davies, 2005). Firstly, envisioning stage, visionary leadership develops a clear desired future (Kakabadse et al., 2005; Westley & Mintzberg, 1989; Zaccaro & Banks, 2004), by linking self-concepts of follower to the values and outcomes (Shamir, House, & Arthur, 1993), which is expressed in the organization vision. Effective visions emphasize change and aspiration for growth (Senge, 1990).

Secondary, visioneering stage, visionary leaders articulate and communicate vision to followers (Gluck, 1984; Kakabadse et al., 2005; Westley & Mintzberg, 1989; Zaccaro & Banks, 2004). In this process, leaders need to explain the rationale for the changes mandated in a vision, also have followers participate in making decision in implementation to minimize the resistance and gain the commitment. Finally, sub-visioning stage, visionary leaders play an important role in organization change management (Conger & Kanungo, 1987; Kakabadse et al., 2005; Westley & Mintzberg, 1989; Zaccaro & Banks, 2004), by utilizing empowerment process to enhance follower confidence and self-efficacy (Bass, 1990).

To ensure the vision’s acceptance, effective leaders need to perform four roles of direction setter, change agent, spokeperson, and coach (Nanus, 1992). Furthermore, in the visioning process, Kakabadse et al. (2005) suggest that visionary leaders should also consider five multifaceted elements that are: outcomes of all senses, internal verbalizations and visualizations, participation patterns and norms, all manner of feelings affecting acceptance, and values.

Characteristics of Visionary Leadership

Visionary leaderships have various characteristic styles that vary form one situation to another (Manning & Robetson, 2002; Strange & Mumford, 2002; Westley & Mintzberg, 1989), regarding the nature of their particular attributes. Westley & Mintzberg (1989) described those attributes as: Firstly is the salient mental capacity such as imagination, inspiration, insight, foresight, and sagacity. Individual leaders express these capacities differently.

Secondly is the mental origin and evolution of strategic process such as holistic, introspective, deliberate, deductive, crystallization and so forth. “Mental origin refers to the combination of mental and social dynamics” while “evolution refers to the deliberateness and pace of development of the vision” (Westley & Mintzberg, 1989, p. 22). Intensity and durability aspects of these two components are different for individual.

Thirdly is the core and circumference of vision such as invention and innovation, adaptation, niche market, zero-sum market, political concepts and so forth. Visionary may focus on the sole of core, the sole of circumference, or the gestalt combination of core and circumference. Finally is the nature of organization itself such as entrepreneurial, start-up, turnaround, public, revitalization, bureaucracy and so forth. It varies in ownership, in structure, in size, in developmental stage and others.

According to the study of Wesley & Mintzberg in 1989, they investigated into a variety of relevant characteristics of visionary leadership, especially the contextual and stylistic factors, by comparing five leaders renowned and admired for their visionary abilities. They found that those leaders had demonstrated five distinct styles of visionary leadership: Creator, Proselytizer, Idealist, Bricoleur, and Diviner. Nevertheless, those visionary leadership patterns are the consequence of their times, followers, opportunities and situations. Times and contexts certainly change, therefore visionary leaders need to have the ability in monitoring, learning and adapting to change, also initiating and driving a new vision.

Components of Visionary Leadership

Visionary leadership requires considering capability in diverse aspects as the following: strategic management – demonstrate how effective leaders envision the future, execute of strategic management processes, and utilize a range of vision implementation leadership qualities (e.g. Fechter & Horowitz, 1991; Manning & Robertson, 2002; McGivern & Tvorik, 1998; Nanus, 1992; Nwankwo & Richardson, 1996); leadership personality and behavior – exhibit how effective leaders respond to various situations (e.g. Manning & Robertson, 2002; Nanus, 1992; Sashkin, 1989; Nwankwo & Richardson, 1996); innovation and change management – reveal how effective leaders challenge people to align their purpose, identity, and mastery with necessary organization change (e.g. Fechter & Horowitz, 1991; Manning & Robertson, 2002; Nanus, 1992); problem solving and decision making – demonstrate how effective leaders deal with uncertainty, complexity, and conflicts (e.g. Fechter & Horowitz, 1991; Manning & Robertson, 2002; Nanus, 1992); and organization diagnosis – express how effective leaders nurture the quality and continuous improvement (e.g. Fechter & Horowitz, 1991; Nanus, 1992).

Strategic management. To achieve strategic competitiveness and generate viable future, an organization requires strategic management process, the set of commitments, decisions, and actions (Hitt et al., 2005). Future leaders need to anticipate, envision, maintain, flexibility, and empower others to initiate strategic change as necessary. Ireland & Hitt (1999) identify the most critical of effective strategic leadership as: determining strategic direction, exploiting and maintaining core competencies, establishing balanced organizational controls, effectively managing the firm’s resource portfolio, sustaining an effective organizational culture, and emphasizing ethical practices. Vision implementing leadership qualities include providing high levels of motivation, recognizing accomplishments, performing exceptional communication, giving individualized support and serving as a role model (Richardson, 1994).

Leadership personality and behavior. Leadership involves the leader, situation, and the followers. Future leaders need to be aware of self-leadership and adaptability, and present behaviorally complex response appropriately to crisis and challenges (McCarthy, O’Connell, & Hall, 2005). Sashkin & Sashkin (2003) establish three contexts of visionary leader as: visionary leadership behavior; visionary leadership characteristics; and visionary culture building. Visionary leadership behaviors are described as: intelligence, persistence, patience, confidence, analysis, friendliness, energizer, sincerity, independence, creativity, honesty, and forcefulness. Visionary leadership characteristics consist of listening well, supporting, risks taking, communicating, mentoring, giving other credits, sharing feelings, consistently acting, giving feedback, coaching, explaining, and delegating. Visionary culture building comprise of involving the team, grabbing attention, committing to aims, having a vision, looking for info, understanding the system, having astute politic, viewing broader, and understanding environment.

Innovation and change management. “Change management is the process of continually renewing an organization’s direction, structure, and capabilities to serve the ever-changing needs of external and internal customers (Moran & Brightman, 2001, p. 111).” Future leaders need to create environment involving people in the change process in order to encourage them to have a new mind-set, challenge old assumptions, adopt new assumptions, and overcome their resistance to change. Additionally, trust and participation of people is the crucial factor providing the power to change (Laszlo, 2004). Burke (1987) identifies eight change agent’s roles of leaders as: advocate, technical specialist, trainer or educator, collaborator in problem solving, alternative identifier, fact finder, process specialist, and reflector.

Problem solving and decision making. In strategic making decisions, leaders concern of identifying, developing, deploying, and protecting the organization’s resources, capabilities and core competencies (Hitt et al., 2005). As most strategic decisions are made by human, typically in groupthink, the strategic decision-making processes will be adversely affected by cognitive biases, such as escalating commitment, illusion of control, hubris hypothesis, reasoning by analogy, and so forth (Hill & Jones, 2004). Future leaders need to enhance strategic thinking and counteract groupthink and cognitive biases. They need to build teamwork, develop team and individual talent, foster a readiness for change, hold people accountable for their work, and be encourage, self-confidence, integrity and the capacity to deal with uncertainty and complex.

Organization diagnosis. Organization diagnosis is the underlying effort to assess organization, plan actions, and strategies leading to high performance organizations (Rothwell & Sullivan, 2005). Future leaders need to understand their organization before attempting to change and improve them so that the strategies fit the organizational unique characteristics, needs, and circumstances (Cummings & Worley, 2001). They must be able to: specify current performance standards; identify where outputs are at variance with standards; determine the causes of variances; identify and initiate actions to correct causes; specify desired performance; compare the desired standard to current standards and identify gaps; develop alternatives to close the gaps; and institutionalize new standards (McCormack, 1992). Additionally, in assurance continuous improvement, Crumrine & Runnels (1991) identify their associated tasks as the following: commitment – investigate, evaluate, adopt, and obtain commitment to total quality management; organizational development – integrate total quality management into key management processes and support their employees; customer focus – determine work teams and analyze customers/products/services; process orientation – identify, standardize, and improve process control; and continuous improvement – develop method for identifying opportunities and integrating the improvement process into daily operations.

Conceptual Framework

In an effort to develop visionary leadership in BOT, the major objective is to encourage executives leaning how to shift from “conventional working practices” to “transformational working practices”. Executives should be able to view change as opportunity for the creation of new alternatives, share visions within their organization and followers, have the system thinking in strategic decision making, and reinforce values to individuals and team. Consequently, the “Future Leader” development program and project milestones were covered eleven months period by focusing on developing adaptability and change management skills. This program incorporated several approaches and customized methodologies, formal instruction and work experience, such as course work and structured learning, class room training and workshop, on the job training, interviewing, assessment, consulting, and so forth to ensure effectiveness of the designed program. The framework of future leader skill development is proposed in Figure 1 as the following phases:

Pre-Development Program Phase

Under the pre-development phase, the researcher worked closely with the BOT liaison team to define the objectives, scope, structure, expected outcomes, methodologies, and timeline of the future leader project, as well as to identify the target group to participate in this program. Twenty-six top management participants were selected in the “Future Leader” project 2005. Additionally, any likely obstacle would be identified and appropriate strategies to tackle those obstacles would be developed. The aims of this phase are to have mutual understanding and define the roles and responsibilities of both parties.

FutureLeader2.png

FutureLeader1.png

Firstly, the key interview questions were developed based on
BOT five facets of core visionary leadership competency and were asked to respond related to organization diagnosis, strategic management, leadership personality, innovation and change management, and problem solving and decision making leadership areas.

This in depth interview was designed to gather information with all related participants and their direct reports regarding their point of view and perceptions toward BOT leadership development program. Later on, the program utilized the outcome from the interview to develop leadership competency assessments to identify the current leadership competencies of the individual participant.

Interview Results

Results from the first interviewing instrument based on five facets of visionary leadership model were presented as the following:

Organization Diagnosis. For enhancing high performance in an organization, most participants signified that leaders needed to understand organization’s purposes, characteristics, people, processes, needs, and circumstances in order to determine the strategic direction. Generally, most participants perceived that their leaders had the ability in analysis, forecasting, and readiness for the future change. Additionally, BOT had utilized the international standards of Central Bank to benchmark its performance. Nevertheless, they suggested that the leaders should develop the continuous improvement culture to the whole organization.

Leadership personality and behavior. For an organizational success, most participants indicated that the leaders needed to work with intelligence and persistence, along with high accountability and responsibility in works. They should also be friendliness, energizer, forcefulness, honesty, and creativity. Their characteristics also involved sharing feeling, communicating, mentoring and coaching, supporting, and listening. They needed to build visionary culture in realizing the organization’s benefits rather than their own benefits, having continuous learning and improvement, and involving the team working. In the overall view, most participants perceived that their leaders currently were intelligence, honesty, and a good role model. However, they suggested that the leaders should give more attention to personal management and apply the good governance in their working.

Strategic management. To achieve competitiveness and generate viable future, most participants signified that the leaders needed to determine the organization’s strategic direction, anticipate events, envision possibilities, and empower others to create strategic change. Generally, most participants perceived that BOT had the strength in strategic planning and implementing. Nevertheless, they recommended that BOT should clearly define the key success factors to evaluate the strategic outcomes. Additionally, the leaders should have much more communication and encouraging their followers to implement strategies in operational level.

Innovation and change management. For enhancing an organization’s capabilities to serve the dynamic changing environment, most participants denoted that the leaders needed to be a role model in driving change and creativity, as well as involving people in changing process. Furthermore, they must create environment that facilitates people to learn and have a new mind-set. Normally, most participants perceived that people in BOT were always aware of and fostered a readiness for new change. Nevertheless, they suggested that the leaders should support their followers to develop new skills and have continuous learning to respond the rapid changing.

Problem solving and decision making. For making strategic decision with effectiveness, most participants indicated that the leaders needed to have an open-minded to receive others’ opinions and make decisions based on groupthink. Moreover, they must have capacity to deal with uncertainty and complex founded on integrity. In the overall view, most participants perceived that their leaders had the outstanding in strategic thinking and decision-making, as well as the ability to view matters in various ways and totality. However, they recommended that the leaders should anticipate problems rather than cope with a problem. Also, they should delegate authority in making decision in some tasks in order to have a rapid decision.

Later, the leadership competency 180 degree assessment was therefore used to conduct survey with all related participants, superiors, and their subordinates. The 180-degree survey was arranged to cover at least three supervisors/subordinates for one participant. In addition, the Extended DISC Assessment was also assessed supplementary to determine personal analysis each of all 26 participants in the program to identify their predominant style and key behavior.

On completion of the assessment process, interview summary was analyzed for gaps and the outcomes of the participants. The assessment research finding gaps were reviewed and incorporated into the design of the development of the “Future Leader” project learning interventions and BOT leadership development program.

Communication Session

The communication session was introduced to clarify the project’s objectives, scope, outcomes, methodology, and timeline to ensure clear understanding and awareness. The communicative methodology used in this session will be as following:

BOT governor’s speech: BOT’s governor gave the speech to introduce projects aims, addressed his expectation and created buy-in from the participants, and leaded the leadership change champion.

Visual Leadership Situation Activity was used the “Mr. Peabody” story board to pin-point the difference between the leader’s perception and intention. This activity showed the differences in perceptions and intention within their workplace. The debrief session was emphasized on how to manage and how the importance to understand the perceptions of their subordinates as well as to prepare acceptance for the assessment results in order to gain acceptance and commitment.

Future Leader Big Picture Review was used to make apparent viewpoints to participants by explaining the process of the program, addressed the concepts and models that were used in each module, as well as provided a broad picture of the assessment results, including strength and area for development.

Comparative Movie Case Study was used by applying the movie clip “The Apprentice” to show participants the illustration between good leaders and bad leaders. After that, participants were asked to discuss in group about their lesson learn and identify the best and worst project leader from the clip.

Leadership Development Program Phase

At this point, the intellectual bonding replaced regular team building was introduced. The participants were assigned and made a field trip arrangement to visit the remote and poor communities in order to gain the strategic insights of the real problem, understand the real needs, and identify the main root cause of the problem. In this program, the participants will be asked to probe the needs of the communities and residents, identified the root cause of the problem, and provided the practical development solution framework for them. This program aimed to make participants aware of their significant roles and responsibilities in leverage people standard of living and problem solving especially in the remote communities as well as to be able to explore the real needs by closely interacting with real people & community. Viewing the real life and interacting with people made participants obviously understand Thai people’ living situations and having broader view in strategic thinking and planning in their future works and policy making.

Later on the future leadership development was started. Researcher was designed and developed customized BOT leadership development roadmap and blueprint incorporated the BOT five core leadership competencies by designing development modules: Diagnosis the Organization, Strategic Management, Leadership Personality, Innovation and Change, and Problem solving and decision making. Each particular module will be supporting by leadership concept coaching workshop with supplement activity to ensure clear understanding and workplace application.

For the first module, the “Organization Diagnosis” module will ensure several of diagnosis framework and model were explored. The aims of this module were to enhance leaders’ ability in understanding and diagnosing their organization and circumstances, also planning actions and strategies in order to enhance high performance of organization. This module focused on developing leaders in: making commitment to total quality management, integrating total quality management into key management processes, determining work teams, identifying standardize and improving process control, and identifying opportunities and integrating the improvement process into operations on a daily basis. Several organization diagnosis models were introduced such as Thailand Quality Award (TQA), Organization Alignment Survey (QAS), Total Quality Management (TQM), and European Quality Award (EQA). Several interventions were utilized in this module such as Teams Allocation and Case Study Stakeholder Activity, Team Expert-Creating Research and Discussion Activity, Model Presentation, and Voting and Pilot Test.

Under this module, participants were supported by 2 official visits: Thai Carbon Black Company and Minor Food Group that they were awarded for the best in class organization in Thailand in order to see the good practice how to apply the good practice that experienced into BOT organization development and performance.

For the second module, “strategic management” module, ex-CEO Ford Thailand was invited to be the visiting trainer to promote the best in class of strategic formulation and thinking. The aim of this module was to promote leaders’ ability in strategic thinking and adaptive management. This module focused on developing leaders in: determining strategic direction, exploiting and maintaining core competencies, establishing balanced organizational controls, managing the organization’s resource portfolio, sustaining organizational cultural values and norms, and emphasizing good governance practices. A variety of interventions were used in this module such as Icebreaker Activity, Classroom training, Strategic Thinking Discussion, Discussion-led Activities, Hands-on BOT-Specific Action Plan Development, Strategic People/Position Alignment Simulation Activity, and Resource Prioritizing/Matching Scenario Analysis.

For the third module: The “Leadership Personality” module. The aim of this module was to make the leaders be aware of self-leadership and adaptability, and present behaviorally complex response appropriately to crisis and challenge. This module focused on making leaders to: understand their own leadership styles and situational leadership behavior, develop leadership personality motivation, work toward clarity by understanding feeling, self concept, and self-disclosure, develop high performance teams, apply leadership personality through role modeling, and build leadership self-development. Various interventions were used in this module such as Brainstorming, Situational Leadership Scenarios, Partnering for Performance Interactive Role-Play Activity, Leadership Personality Coaching Role-Play, Leadership Personality Conflict Resolution Simulation, Role Model Case Studies, Guest Speaker, and others. The highlight of this module was about to invited 2 popular guest speakers or leaders from both public and private organization to share their leadership perspectives and ensured participants to distinguish between different leadership styles and their impacts.

For the fourth module: The “Innovation and Change” module, the aims of this module were to foster leaders’ readiness for change. This module focused on developing leaders to: be aware of innovation and change, understand the creative process and mind-set, nurture new ideas and solutions, cultivate a climate of innovation to ensure timely and effective change, and implement innovations. Diverse interventions were used in this module such as Potential Innovations Brainstorming, Creativity Style Application Activity, Change Identifying Simulation Activities, Applying Change Behaviors Exercise, Provisional Project Assignment Outline, and so forth.

For the fifth module: “Problem Solving and Decision Making” module, the aim of this module was to cultivate leaders to make decision with effectiveness. This module focused on developing leaders in: determining the root cause of problems, practically solving problem and making decision under pressure, generating better solutions with creativity, and encouraging group process skills and creativity. Different interventions were used in this module such as Decision Making Simulation Activity, Fishbone Analysis, Interrelationship Diagraph, Force Field Analysis, and others.

After the completion of five BOT leadership core competency development module, the “Project Simulation” module was introduced by dividing 26 participants into several groups to apply all knowledge they learned from previous workshops to initiate the real development project for BOT. This reflective module was designed to allow participants to utilize their learning experience into real life workplace application and to nurture leaders in driving change by implementing plan in practical. This module focused on developing leaders in: determining management issues, defining project leader and project team, setting project vision and goals, identifying actions to meet the project’s goals, forecasting risks and benefits of those actions, prioritizing and scheduling project actions, aligning and delegating the right resources, tracking actions and determining success of goal achieving, and mini-pilot test. Full Step-by-Step Project Planning Simulation was the main intervention in this module.

Post Development Program Phase

After the completion of five previous designed modules and project simulation module, the clinic session was provided to ensure one on one executive coaching, consultation, and advisory for the reflective initiative project design and implementation within BOT in order to grasp and to apply the knowledge gained from each module into real workplace implementation and development.

Finally, the overall project feedback and evaluation were provided to allow the participants to evaluate the effectiveness of the program and improve the BOT leadership program roadmap for BOT future participants. The research findings showed high level of satisfactory they perceived that this program contributed a successful change that had a positive influence on individual participants and management team. There was knowledge sharing and knowledge transfering that impacted on the organization performance. In addition, this BOT leadership development roadmap was selected and required to be the pre-requisite development program for the future BOT top executive development roadmap and career promotion.

Conclusions & Recommendation

This experimental research employed an exploratory and empirical survey to illustrate how the authors built up the “Future Leader” development program based on visionary leadership theory. Leadership development focused on transformation practices involving participants in a process which they can compare themselves with the benchmark, determine their concerned competency improvement, and build strategies to have continuous self-awareness and self-development. Implicit this process is some kinds of idealized notion of the best practice and model guiding action. The visionary leadership self-assessment utilized mainly in this process has provided individuals to assess themselves with behavioral benchmarks appropriate to their leadership situation and determine the means of adapting more effectively to changing environment. Moreover, to ensure leadership development effectiveness, Leadership Competencies Assessment and Extended DISC Assessment with 180 degree feedback, observations from role play and various participative activities are utilized for a coherent part of the “Future Leader” development program.

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