Fred Nickols (whom Mg-Ed-Dv considers a world-class consultant!) responds
from Princeton (and the world distance consulting) to Nancy and David:
>The premise being, we can't lead others until we can lead ourselves.
Sounds like "Know thyself." Generally a good idea.
I'd be inclined to say that knowledge workers expect and demand leadership
more than they "prefer" it. As Drucker has pointed out for more than a
quarter century now, most of them can't be managed, they have to manage
themselves.
I'm less convinced than most, I guess, that leadership is a quality that can
be systematically developed in Person A by Persons B, C et al. More on that
in a moment. That said, I will leave the door open on the possibility of a
protege learning many important things about leadership from a mentor but I
will also stipulate that this occurs in what I view as authentic or genuine
mentoring relationships, not the contrived kind that are so commonplace now.
I will agree that the leadership qualities of a person do indeed develop
over time but, then, I can add, So
what? Development over time is true of us all (I hope).
Ultimately, all learning centers in one's self. Classroom or self-directed
are labels for interventions from outside. I agree with Nancy; I don't know
that either is likely to be more effective than the other. It's the
learner who's at the center of this thing, not the intervention or the
interventionists.
>I'm looking forward to more responses to this question.
>Nancy Probst
>
NProbst261@aol.com
Hi, Nancy. Glad to see you here, too.
I will share what I consider to be the one truth I think I know about
leadership. It is a point I made in a letter to Walter Kiechel when he was
an editor at Fortune and it was a letter he promptly published: I have never
known a good or great leader who set out to lead. Leaders set out to do
something else and other folks do or don't choose to follow. We who observe
make note of this and instead of focusing on what the leader is up to and
the relationship between that and the hopes, dreams and aspirations of those
who follow, we focus instead on the person we call the leader. And what do
we find? Some are charming and some are abrasive S.O.B.s. Some have
magnetic personalities and others border on being asocial. (Drucker, by the
way, has also pointed this out on more than one occasion.)
So, let me close as a sometime and erstwhile follower. It's the mission
that matters -- and my view of the capabilities and competencies of the
mission leader that determines whether or not I will follow. These are the
major factors that come into play in my decisions regarding the extent to
which I will actively support or simply go along with the program; whether I
will passively resist or actively oppose; and, eventually, whether I will
work to protect or conspire to unhorse the person at the top.
--
Fred Nickols
The Distance Consulting Company
"Assistance at A Distance"
http://home.att.net/~nickols/distance.htm
nickols@att.net
(609) 490-0095