Harvard Business School Leadership Program Evaluation
Harvard Business School Leadership Program Evaluation
The Harvard business school started a program for leadership development (PLD) is aimed at the acceleration of high potential leaders’ careers.However, the learners who enrolled in the leadership development program were expected to meet some set objectives by the institution. These objectives include leading changes in their organizations and companies as well as inspiring their team’s(Narayandas & Moldoneanu, 2016).Moreover, they were expected to generate a personal leadership philosophy to drive more capabilities and confidence in their workers. The learners also the obligation to capitalize on opportunities sourced via digital transformation and further formulate productive action plans towards leadership challenges. Finally, the leadership development students were expected to enroll and be part of the global Harvardbusiness school community alumni.
Background
The development of evaluation skills is a crucial education process element. Evaluation of a program is defined as the attempt to determining if objectives are met and the collection of information to assess the efficiency of the program. It can also be defined as the collection of systematic data on the quality of objects in education. Evaluation of an application is aimed at answering the attainment of educational objectives and assessing the standards of education offered (Mertens, D, & Wilson, 2018). Program evaluation is done to improve program implementation, to monitor measurable attainment progress, provide stakeholders with accountability information, and provide funders with the assurance of effectiveness in the program. Program evaluation can also be done to sensitize the community about the advantages of supporting initiatives, which in turn helps in decision-making policies. Furthermore, the community gains trust with the program, and that attracts more funders or donors.
However, some limitations are associated with the process of evaluating a program. This calls for the wise choice of the measurable outcomes as well as balanced considerations. It is also considered to be time-consuming, and in some cases, the institutions are unable to affect the cultural changes for better outcomes. Finally, the program evaluation process can be costly. Therefore the evaluators should be on high alert not spent more resources during the evaluation than the worth of the evaluation data.
Several modes of evaluation have been discussed, including management, expertise levels, objective attainment, and naturalistic oriented approaches. Educational institutions have been recommended to consider the advantages and disadvantages of diverse methods and models of evaluation. This would help the institutions in the development of an evaluation model that can meet their needs and evaluate both the education process and its results. Program evaluation should start with a first-level assessment within achievable limits continue up to the fourth level.
Research Problem
Most institutions of higher learning, like colleges and universities, offer different and broad choices of programs to their students. Due to the advancement in technology today, the applications which initially operated before advancement in technology are challenged. Some end up losing essential meanings and essential details during the efforts to digitize them to fit in the new technology. Therefore, most programs in the tertiary learning institutions have been scanned, and due to lack of program evaluation, the departments lack students to enroll and finally collapses. The Harvard business school’s leadership development program has recorded a decline in its enrolment tallies.
Moreover, the students who have enrolled in the leadership development program in recent years have recorded a drop in their performance. Most of the students have been performing poorly to an extent where half of the class count scored less than average in their exams. Parents and guardians have been concerned with the students’ performance, but most blame it on students.
The leadership development program has also been charging slowly for the program. Students have been paying more than $5600, which very compared to the other programs offered in the institution. Comparing this amount to the amount charged in other collages for the same program, it has been revealed that the amount is $ 2000 more.
Methodology
This research was aimed at investigating the efficiency of the leadership program at the Harvard business school and finding out whether the program objectives have been fully implemented in the curriculum.
Methods of Data Collection
The research utilized both qualitative and quantitative methods of data collection.
Quantitative Method
Survey –The survey comprised of 5 multiple choice questions which the respondents had to answer. The goal was to target 50 students of which 40 should be undertaking the leadership program and the ten from other programs of the university. The participants were sampled from the university after the leadership class schedule, while the additional ten were randomly picked at the university premises.
Qualitative Method
Interviews /Focus Groups
This evaluation used interviews to collect qualitative data on how effective the program was to the students; semi-structured interviews were conducted with four students who enrolled in the program and one from another application of the institution. These were selected from the surveys undertaken because they were representatives of the target group. The interviews were conducted at the faculty basement for privacy and the answers recorded by note-taking.
- b) Participant observation –2 participant-observers observed the turnout of the students during the on-campus leadership development session for two sessions and recorded the findings by a note-taking.
Data analysis
Quantitative Method
Before the analysis of the data collected from our respondents, the data checked for outliers and missing data via the outlier labeling rule. The values above the calculated range were regarded as outliers. The data were, therefore, analyzed by the use of SPSS statistical software.
Qualitative Methods
The interview findings were transcribed then the data were thematically analyzed where the data was coded before identification of the respondents’ motives and perception on the questions. The use of unstructured interviews and surveys best suited the research because the generated findings are not generalized past the sampled group(Abadie & Cattaneo, 2018). This provides a deeper understanding of the emotions and the perceptions of the participants.
Results
Our findings of the students who enrolled in the leadership development program were meager compared to the last years, and this trend was progressive down the years. For instance, in the year 2015, the leadership development program enrolled 204 students who registered to undertake the program. That number was better compared to the consecutive years, where they joined 186 in the year 2016 and 172 in 2017. However,2019 recorded the least amount of enrollment tally. These results showthat there was a decrease in the enrollment rate for the last four years. The enrollment rate was converted to percentages and represented in the column chart below.
We also found out that the class attendanceturnout was less than 50% of the enrolled students. It was observed that most students did not attend the session allocated for the leadership development program with few attending. Among the few, some showed up for the class late. This was also observed with the lecturer, where he showed up for the course more than thirty minutes late in several days during the evaluation period. The curriculum was not being covered full, and most of the time, the students covered the syllabus on their own.
Discussion
The qualitative and quantitative data from the questionnaires revealed that the program was being charged a lot of money compared to the other programs in the institution .this was noted to be one of the factors which contributed to the reduced number of students being enrolled for the program. Most students who were interested in taking the program could not afford the inflated cost charged for the program, so many ended up choosing alternative plans that they could provide. This was confirmed to be the reason for the low number of learners enrolling in the program.
The surveys also confirmed the leadership development program recorded the second-lowest enrollment numbers, which were linked to the high amount of fees charged for the program (Fernandez& Aramaki, 2017). As a measure to try and solve this challenge, the evaluation made a recommendation for revision of the amount charged for the program to attract more leaders enrolling for the attainment of the installation of advanced leadership skills in any organization and companies globally.
The decreasing performance in the students who were undertaking the leadership development program resulted due to the reluctant program managers. From the findings, there was poor class attendance by both the students and the lecturers, which limited them from covering the curriculum. Failure to complete the expected course content for the leadership development program contributed to decreased performance.
The findings also revealed that the leadership development program was not running following the set objectives. The plan as initiated to install quality leadership skills to the learners and help them transform their companies and agencies to better levels through the acquired skills. However, the managers of the program and the staff who assisted in running the program did not display excellent leadership skills themselves .since the students look upon the leadership development staff to be good ambassadors and mentors. Their failure was a source of discouragement for their students.
limitations
This evaluation faced several challenges, the major being the unwillingness of the program administrators to be interviewed. Most of the staff who helped in running the program did not allow the interviewers to talk to them. This posed a challenge to the evaluation since it relied on the critical information which would represent their views about the program they were running and managing.
The other challenge faced was that it was impossible to interview the students who enrolled in the program and were undertaking their studies online. This is because we did not have the required data about the students who made the application online. The institution was reluctant to share the data on how many students enrolled in the online program. Since online students should have been part of the unreviewedgroup that limited the data collected about the challenges and efficiency of the program online.
The operational cost for this evaluation was $130, which was spent in facilitating the evaluation of the leadership program in the Harvard business school. This money was spent on facilitating the evaluation in terms of interview papers, travel costs, among other expenses.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the program for leadership development was found to develop cross-functional and decision-making skills. This was done via the expansion of the leader’s ability to carry out operations of the business and be updated on the trends in the global marketplace. However, the program managers did not ensure the running of the program efficiently; hence fewer students were interested in enrolling for the program. For those who were already registered,they were charged heavily despite not being taken through the curriculum properly. This resulted in many students being influenced not to enroll in the leadership development program in the university but consider other institutions. The performance of the students had declined as a result of the poor delivery of the curriculum in the institution. Therefore, from the evaluation conducted, the leadership development program at Harvard University did not meet its objectives; hence its running is inefficient.
References
Abadie, A., &Cattaneo, M. D. (2018). Econometric methods of program evaluation. Annual Review of Economics, 10, 465-503.
Fernadez, A., C, R., &Aramaki, K. (2017). Turning potential into success.The missing link in leadership development. The missing link in leadership development., 95(6), 86-103.
Mertens, D, M., & Wilson, A. T. (2018). Program evaluation theory and practice. Guilford publications.
Narayandas, D., & Moldoneanu, M. C. (2016). Executive Development Programs Enter the Digital Matrix