Leadership and HR

Leadership and HR are rapidly becoming more intertwined, as our research into leadership branding is beginning to indicate. Human resource development has a key role to play in developing leaders in organizations, so HR professionals need to understand leadership theory, its promises and problems. At the same time, leadership of the HR function has become increasingly more important, yet needs to be better explained than the current vogue for HR competence frameworks are able to do. Currently we have a project on strategic leadership in HR that has produced a new framework for HR leaders, which we've written about in a recent conference paper and will be publishing in the near future. If you want a copy of the paper, just mail me on g.martin@mgt.gla.ac.uk.

Two very useful insights into the fields of leadership and HR leadership, which we will incorporate into our thinking, are discussed in a new special edition of the Leadership Journal (Vol 4, no. 3), edited by a colleague of mine, Dennis Tourish, and a brief, but timely, perspective on HR leadership by Pat Wright from Cornell in the current issue of Human Resource Executive Online. Both of these sources are well worth accessing.