Management research is a core activity of the Institute of Leadership & Management, helping us to build a unique knowledge base on leadership and management practice and the development of effective leaders and managers.
Research informs practice
Our leadership in the areas of leadership and management practice and its development rests upon the solid research we carry out into both areas. By rooting our approach to management in rigourous research, we are able to speak authoritatively about the reality of being an effective leader and manager today.
We emphasise theory-into-practice and our research helps us test management theory in the real world and report back on the actual challenges facing managers, leaders and their organisations. We then carry our research findings through into our qualifications, our learning support materials, Edge magazine and our services to members, to help people translate theory into practice. By using research in this way we believe people can use the best ideas to become better managers and leaders.
Focused management research
ILM is constantly in dialogue with practising leaders and managers, with their employers and with learning and development professionals. Through these conversations we are aware of the issues that currently concern people. We look at existing sources of information and advice and assess their validity and applicability, and then develop research projects to fill in gaps where we believe there is a need.
ILM undertakes three or four major research projects a year, plus some other shorter, lighter research activities to address more topical issues. Some of this research is undertaken wholly within ILM; other projects are commissioned from selected research agencies with the appropriate expertise. Research methodologies range from large-scale, quantitative surveys of managers and other employees to small scale, qualitative surveys of HR Directors or CEOs.
Harnessing research
We are often able to draw on published academic research and bring these findings to wider notice, testing out their relevance or applicability to the challenges facing leaders and managers in practice. For example, since 2009 ILM has undertaken an annual survey of a representative sample of employees to measure the Index of Leadership Trust. The Index uses six dimensions derived directly from a large body of academic research into the nature and determinates of trust, and its significance for organisations and their leaders.
The ILM approach
ILM has a unique perspective on leadership and management practice and development through which we apply this theory-into-practice approach to research. We talk about leadership and management in terms of Knowing, Doing and Being. A key focus of our research activity is to identify those ideas and practices which can be shown to be most effective in enabling people to be better leaders and managers, to convert their knowledge and understanding (Knowing) into performance (Doing), by drawing on their own values, motivations and personal characteristics (Being).
Our emphasis on putting theory into practice is coupled with the idea of ‘evidence-based management’, an idea coined by Profs. Pfeffer and Sutton of Stanford University in their book Hard Facts, Dangerous Half Truths and Total Nonsense.
All ILM research reports are available on the ILM website and are freely available to download, copy and use for personal development or in training and development activities – all we ask is that ILM is acknowledged when the reports or their contents are used commercially.
For more information about ILM and its research activity, please get in touch with us. Please feel free to email David Pardey, ILM’s Senior Manager, Research & Policy, with your questions, suggestions or comments.