Rick,
I can only comment from my social science perspective, but much of
what I am arguing is from a strict definitonal, measurement,
methodological slant. Still, I'll try to give you some food for thought
below.
Regards,
Dave
On Wed, 5 Mar 1997, RICHARD CORCORAN wrote:
> Dear List,
>
> I have been monitoring the recent discussions on leadership
> training on the list, as I am coming to a close on conducting
> leadership training for our Senior staff.
>
> I read comments from the list that "we can't define leadership",
> "it is not something that is trainable...", "there is no
> difference between leaders and managers, "you can't train managers
> to be leaders", etc., but I have just completed the first phase of
> training and none of the 7 people in the class have had a
> difficult time in understanding the difference in the terms, the
> behavior, the application or usefullness.
Without getting into an esoteric discourse, let me instead simply ask,
would your definitions, behaviors etc. lead you the same conclusion about
the following individuals: John F. Kennedy, Fidel Castro, Martin Luther
King, Josef Stalin, Vince Lombardi, Harry Truman, Pope John, Jim Baker,
Margaret Thatcher, Adolf Hitler - all very famous (or infamous) leaders?
And then let me ask, whatever happened to Lek Walensa, Mikel Gorbachov,
Michael Dukakis, Steven Jobs, and Lee Iaocca. One day they're leaders, the
next day they're not? Why? Could your program train (or retrain) them to
be leaders?
> We have a definition, a process and measurables. Maybe we are
> training something other than leadership, maybe we have
> oversimplified it. I don't know.
Again, if you were to rank order the above leaders using your
measureables, how would it come out, and why?
> For awhile, I have stayed out of the discussion on leadership
> because it looked like we were at a stale mate and the only thing
> I could contribute would have been things that I have added
> before. But it has still been gnawing at me....
>
> I am not sure what I expect to get from posting this post, but I
> feel better after having said that.
Me too! Enjoy!
Dave
> Thanks for listening (reading),
>
> Rick Corcoran
> internet:"corcoranre@excelinc.com"
>