Leadership development: teaching versus learning

The purpose of this article is to elucidate the limitations of contemporary approaches to developing leaders and to present alternative approaches.

This paper offers a review and critique of the assumptions on which current leadership programs are based.

Most leadership training initiatives fail to produce leaders. Typical programs teach leadership theory, concepts, and principles; they promote leadership literacy but not leadership competence. Paradoxically, however, while leadership cannot be taught, leadership can be learned. Men and women become leaders by practice, by performing deliberate acts of leadership. The primary role of a good leader (one who is competent and ethical) is to establish and reinforce values and purpose, develop vision and strategy, build community, and initiate appropriate organizational change. This behavior requires character, creativity, and compassion, core traits that cannot be acquired cognitively.

For those charged with the responsibility of developing leaders, the three necessary steps are to select the right candidates, create learning challenges, and provide mentoring. Those who seek to develop effective leadership training programs must first establish a metric for assessing leadership effectiveness. They must then design experiments that can establish a causal or statistically significant relationship between training initiatives and leadership competency. Evidence suggests that the most effective leadership programs will focus on building self‐knowledge and skills in rhetoric and critical thinking.

This paper challenges the utility of most leadership training. Leadership cannot be taught, although potential leaders can be educated.