Taking Initiative in the Public Sector: Measuring the Impact of Leadership Development Training

Abstract

Training in the United States is expensive for organizations in both the public and private sectors. Therefore, two questions arise: is the transfer of training to the workplace occurring, and does time make a difference after completing training? One key component of leadership training is taking initiative. This study seeks to determine if completion of a leadership development program impacts participants’ personal initiative. Two leadership development programs were included in this study, both requiring over 180 hours of training. In both programs, a 360 assessment was given at the beginning of the training. The 360 is a proprietary assessment from a major research university and measures 23 public sector competencies. Three questions on the assessment measure personal initiative. As a follow-up, participants were given these three personal initiative questions after completing the programs. Researchers included participants who completed the leadership development program from one to five years prior. As a result of one-way ANOVA analysis, no statistically significant difference was found on personal initiative for participants after completing a leadership program. Results may be attributed to participants having a high level of initiative, or initiative may not be specifically taught in the leadership development programs. The research is important as informs how training is transferred to the workplace.