A plan for the evaluation of leadership training in the United States Army

Abstract

The Army, in a period of constrained resources and increasing demands on its leaders, can ill afford to pursue leadership training which is ineffective. The evaluation plan developed in this study seeks to provide the decision maker with information necessary to guide the training development toward its desired outcome: producing better leaders. A review of the leadership theories contributing to the Army's organizational leadership model, their training programs, and the leadership training of other services is presented. Their methods of program evaluation are studied. The evaluation plan is a systematic study employing five principal criteria: process evaluation, learning, attitudinal change, behavioral change, and the change in organizational performance. Each is discussed in terms of its source of data, experimental design, and contribution to the overall understanding of the training program's effectiveness. The evaluation scheme is presented in an action plan format to coincide with other ongoing initiatives in the leadership and educational fields.