I came across a Focus.com discussion asking “Can Leadership Be Taught?” From the business perspective, I think this is the wrong question to be asking. Leadership skills absolutely can be taught to anyone but the personal ambition or drive to lead can’t. This is an important difference that should be accounted for.
While everyone can be taught leadership skills, not everyone wants to be a leader. Organizations need to decide between “can be taught some skills” and “has deep desire to learn” when it comes to deciding whom to invest leadership training. It would be a costly mistake to assume that everyone taught leadership skills, necessarily wants to be a leader or will be a great leader. Great leadership is more than leadership skills. Great leaders love being leaders – it comes more from inside that from outside.
In your leadership pipeline, who is naturally driven to lead?
Instead of relying on skills training, identify those in your organization who are naturally driven to be leaders and forecast their leadership style. Advisor would answer the following about your leaders:
- Are they collaborative or decisive when making decisions?
- Do they warm up to people naturally or are they more reserved?
- Do they have a strong sense of urgency?
- Do they have a high attention to detail?
These are all important – and measurable – leadership characteristics that allow you to focus the efforts of your leadership program on the right people. After you have benchmarked what your ideal leader should look like, then identify who wants to lead and how they will lead. This will focus your training efforts on producing better, naturally-driven leaders. You and your organization will be happy you did.
Mike Kennedy is a Technical Evangelist at Talent Analytics Corp. He can be reached via mike@talentanalytics.com.
Valerie Iravani Says:
