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Australian organisations are concerned about the global shortage of leadership talent and the increasing mobility of leaders. At the same time, studies are raising awareness among executives of the need to develop a cohort of leaders for the future. The rail industry is one sector that has been deliberating on how leadership capability can be enhanced by putting aside organisational and/or state differences in favour of a national, harmonised approach to nurture leadership development. At a time when Australian leadership talent is in short supply, this article draws on findings from research involving six major rail organisations working in partnership with universities within an Australian Government Cooperative Research Centre (CRC).

The article finds that leadership development programs within the industry are infrequent, undervalued and under-resourced. It highlights the critical importance of gaining executive commitment, and develops a formative evaluation tool of 10 principles and evaluation criteria forming observable, measurable and evidence-based standards that can be appraised at the start of leadership development initiatives and programs and monitored as they unfold. The article illustrates how engaging executives in a 'formative evaluation' process before embarking on leadership development initiatives has the potential to promote successful and sustainable programs.

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This chapter presents and discusses organisational leadership from a historical and theoretical perspective to identify issues and challenges for leadership going forward into the 21st century. Leadership and management theory, the global context, changing demographics and mobilities of workers, and contemporary perspectives on organisational structures are introduced and discussed. Particular reference is then made to the Australian context with a focus on the rail industry as an example of a large and established enterprise that is facing contemporary challenges in moving towards a workplace culture based on workforce development and participation models rather than traditional hierarchical, command-control structures and bureaucratic processes.

The chapter begins with a review of external perspectives including an overview of leadership and management, and the latter part then focuses on internal perspectives including what it means to be a leader in Australia. [The authors] then consider how developments in leadership and management theory and practice are viewed and dealt with in the Australian rail industry and conclude that robust evaluation tools and continuous improvement processes for leadership development programs are recommended for modern organisations to avoid costly and time-consuming mistakes.

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Purpose - This paper aims to explore why harmonisation, given its potential, is so difficult to achieve. It analyses the issues and challenges in achieving harmonisation of training and development across an industry. Design/methodology/approach - The approach was a meta-analysis of six research projects undertaken in the Australian rail industry. These projects varied in duration from 12-24 months. Between 2009 and 2013, rail employees in varying roles and levels of seniority, including middle managers, front-line supervisors, rail incident investigators, track workers and drivers, were interviewed (n = 176) and surveyed (n = 341). Findings - The meta-analysis identified a range of characteristics associated with harmonisation. It uncovered three categories of harmonisation, seven types of risk modelled in a layered risk pyramid and analysed key structural, environmental and organisational barriers to harmonisation. The paper concludes that harmonisation struggles to gain strategic significance and is hampered by operational pragmatism.

Research limitations/implications - There are few published papers examining harmonisation across companies or based on meta-analyses, especially qualitatively. Despite limitations of insufficient detail to allow close analysis, potentially variable quality data across projects from which to develop a meta-analysis and the danger of comparing apples with oranges, more attempts using this approach would be helpful in gaining nuanced insights into an industry. Practical implications - Achieving industry harmonisation requires significant change in the mindset of executives. To enhance the chances of harmonisation, there is need for a strong national entity with overview of the entire industry, high-quality training and development resources and activities and cost-benefit analyses and active campaigns. A major outcome of this research is the risk pyramid, which can be used by managers as a strategic evaluation tool. By using such tools based on sound research, leaders can be equipped to make informed decisions and reduce downstream risks. Originality/value - This research has value in extending the literature in two main ways: through examining the notion of harmonisation across an industry as distinct from within organisations that has been the focus of most studies and through using qualitative meta-analysis in a field dominated by quantitative approaches. It analyses the grey areas between rhetoric about its potential and difficulties in its achievement.

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