ABSTRACT
Organizations seek to manage the development of individuals to fulfil their requirements; individuals seek to find work situations and developmental opportunities which suit their needs. A key problem for employers, therefore, is how to align these respective wants. The concept of the ‘career’ offers a useful means of exploring how this matching might best take place, because the concept of career ‘has meaning to both the individual pursuing an occupation-the “internal career”—and the organization trying to set up a sensible developmental path for employees to follow throughout their working life in the organizationthe “external career”’ (Schein 1978:1). The career therefore provides a framework within which leadership and management development might be viewed, since it is within the context of organizational needs (for example environmental or strategic) and individual competences (for example sensemaking and ability to deliver change) that this development must take place.
