Meeting Iowa’s Transportation Agencies’ Leadership Development Challenges

Content Provider	Semantic Scholar
Author	Smith, Duane E. Sperry, Bob
Copyright Year	2009
Abstract	This paper describes how the fiscal environment for today’s public agencies includes reduced staffing levels, reduced capital resources, increased expectations for services provided and increased restrictions for travel and educational sessions. In addition, there is a greater dependence on cross-training and on employees being proficient in many and varied job assignments. The Iowa Public Employees Leadership Academy is a training program designed to develop better (and/or new) leaders and supervisors. It provides a curriculum to train the next generation of leaders replacing existing leaders when retirements occur. In addition, the Academy provides cross-training, allowing management the full use of the new leaders’ resources. The development and implementation of the Academy has been conducted as a research project of the Iowa Highway Research Board (IHRB). The IHRB is composed of representatives from state, county, and local transportation agencies. A Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) has been assembled to oversee the development and implementation of the Academy. The TAC provided a vision and identified 10 core modules to be developed, presented online, and incorporated into professional association meetings and conferences. As the TAC worked through the development of the first Academy modules, a process started to develop. The process includes 10 steps, starting with appointing a TAC and ending by recognizing the volunteers that contributed their time and efforts making presentations. The products that came from this research project are an identity to be used in the production of module content and promotional materials (a logo), a marketing plan, integration into conferences, workshops and training activities for professional organizations and agencies, identification of measures of success, and a process to conduct peer reviews. The TAC and the development teams have learned many things and have smoothed out the process. Throughout the development of the Academy, many adjustments were made to facilitate the content development, the recording activities, and the posting online. Those lessons are provided to assist others developing similar activities.
File Format	PDF HTM / HTML
Alternate Webpage(s)	http://www.intrans.iastate.edu/publications/_documents/midcon-presentations/2009/SmithLeadership.pdf
Language	English
Access Restriction	Open
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Notice