Sadly, I don’t have much time to blog this week, as I’m facilitating a symposium later in the week. I’ll talk more about the event in the future, but today I just want to point you towards Donald ‘Plan B’ Clark’s article concerning the role of leadership training in our current economic troubles. Real soul food for thought, in my view.
The author discusses how
the cult of ‘leadership’ contributed to megalomaniac behaviour that ultimately led to the financial crisis… All of this leadership lark is quite recent. For years we got by with management training, good old sensible stuff about being nice, clear and organised. Then, around the Millennium, the training world went all evangelical about ‘Leadership’.
Now the last thing you want to do with a bloated ego is feed it a diet of hubris. These guys […] think they’re omniscient and omnipotent.
Mr. Clark provides a well-structured, comprehensive, and frequently hilarious analysis of the snake oil of “leadership” and those who subscribe to it.
While I don’t have time to discuss this in more detail, think about the subject in the context of Peter Senge’s notion of learning organisations and systems thinking.
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References:
Clark, D. (2008) Leadership training – cause of credit crunch? [Internet] Available from: http://donaldclarkplanb.blogspot.com/2008/11/leadership-training-cause-of-credit.html Accessed 12 December 2008
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1 response so far ↓
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Anna
// Dec 18, 2008 at 8:26 pm
“It’s good old fashioned preaching with stories, parables, miracle cures, and live performance.” Ha! This is a great article.
Many similar arguments could be made about many education and pedagogical theories–”With no solid core of theory it’s a potpourri of ideas.” However, this doesn’t mean that there aren’t some valuable leadership theories out there, or that some basic leadership skills don’t exist.
At Coggno.com I’ve seen some training courses for leaders that received great responses.
Most basically, the most effective teams require a leader who can communicate goals and provide direction and support. Teams must be able to trust and believe in their leaders. If members are unable to do this, they’re probably not going to follow the leader’s directions or listen to his or her advice–especially in difficult or challenging times.
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