Can leadership be taught?

[James Fisher]

Can leadership actually be taught, or are there only naturally born leaders?

 

[Toby Willows]

No, but it can learned through experience.

Unless you are on about shouty armed forces means of leadership then that’s a whole different ball game.

 

[youngtrepreneur]

No, but it can learned through experience.

Unless you are on about shouty armed forces means of leadership then that’s a whole different ball game.

I agree with this.

In fact I would go further.
In my opinion leadership is taught.
Nobody is born a leader of people, but their circumstances, they way they were raised, and their lifelong experiences mould them to be able to get on with people to the extent that they bring out the best in others.
This isn't teaching in the formal sense.

Can it be taught in the formal sense?
In my opinion, principles can be formalised and learned by people, and experience will allow these formally defined principles to be put into practice.

 

[Mark T Jones]

leadership can and should be taught.

Sadly, many people who see themselves as ‘natural leaders’ are just self-obsessed bullies. Like most interpersonal skills, good leadership is quiet and understated.

 

[Mr D]

Yes leadership can be taught. Just not everyone can learn it.
And some great leaders are not great teachers.

 

[JEREMY HAWKE]

It is taught
Some public schools instil leadership in their pupils and most become good leaders because it becomes normal to lead
I don't know much about these schools but most others on here went to them

 

[estwig]

The Scouting movement doesn't teach leadership, but as an organisation it is good at recognising and encouraging it.

 

[The Byre]

If leadership could not be taught, then Sandhurst would have to close.

Leadership is the art of having a vision and inspiring others to join in and pursue that vision. Any decent film director has to be a great leader. He/she (and the producers of course) have a vision of what the final product will look like and they have to excite and enthuse the crew and actors into achieving that vision.

Or as Dwight D. Eisenhower said "Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it."

 

[Chris Ashdown]

Leadership is about recognising a problem, assessing it, having the ability to make a plan to solve the problem and organise and motivate the team members to follow the plan and over come the problem

Its not about ordering people about, but explaining why you need this or that done by them

The forces are different in that by law you must obey the last command given, with high penalties for failing to do so, but leadership is still a massive benefit to working together without conflict. The person with the hardest leadership job is the humble Corporal or equivalent who must work and sleep with his comrades but at the same time be in charge of them and give them their orders

 

[Noah]

Or as Dwight D. Eisenhower said "Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it."

Reminds me of the fine example of a leadership puzzle I first saw in a book by Jim Fixx (started jogging craze, died of congenital heart failure, but a good chap nevertheless) :

Q. You're a captain with a sergeant and two privates under command. You have been told to erect a 100 ft flagpole with 2 50 ft poles and 25 ft of rope. How do you do it?

A. "Sergeant! Get that flagpole up!"

 

[Noah]

Some public schools instil leadership in their pupils and most become good leaders because it becomes normal to lead

I beg to disagree. Quite strongly.

 

[JEREMY HAWKE]

I beg to disagree. Quite strongly.

You maybe right its OK for all you posh people I never went to one

I think your a great leader if you can get everybody on your side and pool their ideas together and make them feel part of something that they want to be part of and you still cant teach it

 

[The Byre]

The person with the hardest leadership job is the humble Corporal or equivalent who must work and sleep with his comrades

I can assure you that in my time in the Paras, I never once slept with a corporal.

I can't of course speak for other regiments, especially in today's army, where such things may be on Part-Two-Orders for all we know.

 

[Noah]

I can assure you that in my time in the Paras, I never once slept with a corporal.

I note you avoid any reference to privates.

 

[JEREMY HAWKE]

You maybe right its OK for all you posh people I never went to one

I think your a great leader if you can get everybody on your side and pool their ideas together and make them feel part of something that they want to be part of and you still cant teach it

I actually intended to say you can teach it !

 

[Chris Ashdown]

Byre
Looking at films of Para's during a drop, they seem to be well spaced out once there shutes open, I guess in strong winds it must be quite a distance the platoon is spread over, to get back into one unit

 

[The Byre]

60 men fit into a C130 and that is called a 'stick' and is at least two platoons. Finding one another on the ground can be a 'challenge'! Also they have to be fairly well apart to prevent one drifting over the top of another - if that happens then the bottom chute 'steals' the air from the top chute and the top one can plummet into the bottom one and they both 'candle' into the ground with collapsed chutes.

One one very memorable occasion, we did an exercise with the US 'Green Berets' using US C130s and pilots. What we (and our jump-masters) did not know, is that the USAF tests the jump lights a few minutes before reaching the DZ. Suddenly and without warning, we got the order to hook-up and then it was "Red-on! Green-on! Go! Go! Go!"

Just as I beasted out of the door, I heard the jump-master behind me shout "Stop!" and the rest of the stick remained in the aircraft. I was the last man out!

We had jumped out over somewhere in Turkey in the middle of nowhere. Nobody had a radio and we all came down into a sunflower field near a village with about 20 people living there and no telephones or any other forms of communication. Nobody in the village spoke English, French or German and all we could gather, was that the next village was over 50km away.

The powers that be had absolutely no idea where we were, as the time of the testing of the lights was not logged. They pinned it down to an area of about a hundred miles long and 20 wide.

We spent several happy days as guests of the villagers, drinking ouzo, smoking pot and playing endless games of chess with the old men of the village.

We were no no special hurry to leave, but they found us in the end anyway!

 

[Jessica A.]

Can leadership actually be taught, or are there only naturally born leaders?

Yes, leadership can be taught. It's just a matter of who is the willing candidate to take on the role as a leader. It's easier to learn something than to unlearn them. Not everyone can lead but everyone has the capacity to learn. The problem lies with people who are unwilling to practice what they have learned.

 

[GTL]

No, but it can learned through experience.

Unless you are on about shouty armed forces means of leadership then that’s a whole different ball game.

Toby is ignorant and quite wrong about 'shouty' military leadership. I did my time, and have seen more shouting and bullying in the boardroom. At times pathetic.

The best leaders are naturals; i.e. born with it. But the principles can be taught and, to some extent, achieved.

 

[Toby Willows]

Toby is ignorant and quite wrong about 'shouty' military leadership. I did my time, and have seen more shouting and bullying in the boardroom. At times pathetic.

The best leaders are naturals; i.e. born with it. But the principles can be taught and, to some extent, achieved.

In the military you are taught chain of command and how to make your underlings follow that chain of command without question. You are not taught to lead by “natural” means.

Leadership (in business, not the armed forces) is about inspiring, enthusiasm, charisma and leading by example, so people want to follow you and do well for the business as a whole. This is a BUSINESS forum not a military forum.

I also still stand by natural leaders learn through experience (good and bad) not lessons in a classroom.

You can’t reach leadership (in business), it’s learned

 

[The Byre]

Absolute nonsense. Leadership in the military is ALL about having that ability to inspire.

It is business where I see F-wits with little or no real vision, micro-managing people with many times their ability.

 

[GTL]

In the military you are taught chain of command and how to make your underlings follow that chain of command without question. You are not taught to lead by “natural” means.

Leadership (in business, not the armed forces) is about inspiring, enthusiasm, charisma and leading by example, so people want to follow you and do well for the business as a whole. This is a BUSINESS forum not a military forum.

I also still stand by natural leaders learn through experience (good and bad) not lessons in a classroom.

You can’t reach leadership (in business), it’s learned

This is the biggest load of bollocks Toby - sorry. leadership in the military is to get people to follow you into very challenging environments. Yes there is a chain of command. But there is a chain of command in business, too. Natural leadership is far more evident in the military than business.

 

[Toby Willows]

This is the biggest load of ******** Toby - sorry. leadership in the military is to get people to follow you into very challenging environments. Yes there is a chain of command. But there is a chain of command in business, too. Natural leadership is far more evident in the military than business.

I can’t see the military style of leadership translating well into the business world. You said yourself how you’ve seen the “shouty” type of “leadership” in the boardroom and how pathetic it is which kinda shows that’s it’s not the best style of management to get results in business. I’m not saying for a minute the military chain of command leadership doesn’t work, it very obviously does, it’s just a very different style of getting the best from people in a totally non-business environment.

And to get people following your lead as a business owner is pretty much a learned skill through experience rather than sat behind a desk.

 

[Mr D]

I can’t see the military style of leadership translating well into the business world. You said yourself how you’ve seen the “shouty” type of “leadership” in the boardroom and how pathetic it is which kinda shows that’s it’s not the best style of management to get results in business. I’m not saying for a minute the military chain of command leadership doesn’t work, it very obviously does, it’s just a very different style of getting the best from people in a totally non-business environment.

And to get people following your lead as a business owner is pretty much a learned skill through experience rather than sat behind a desk.

For some it can translate. May depend on the charisma the person has.
In the military you obey because of the rank and authority to give orders. Along (usually) with familiarity.
A family member has a boss who is the CEO of the organisation. Ex officer in the RAF and by what she has said the worst person to be in charge of anything.
He has had the rank and the experience of being slotted into an organisation - he's got little leadership skills he has retained. More suited to staff rather than line.
I daresay he has been taught useful skills and uses them. Just not leadership ones.

Agree that shouty is not a good style of management in business.

 

[Jeff FV]

A lifetime ago I was in the military (RAF)

I do not recognise those posts that suggest that military leadership is all shouty and dictatorial- the leadership I encountered could not have (in the main) be further from this.

The military does have the back up of being able to use rank to get your way, but having to “pull rank” was seen as a last resort, and normally because the leader had failed to lead. It was a tool of last resort.

The forces invest heavily (both financially and metorphorically) in leadership at every level - it is part of the military doctrine and effective leadership at all levels was a significant point of departure between, say, UK and Soviet doctrine.

I am hugely grateful for the leadership lessons I learned, both directly and indirectly, during my time in the RAF.

In short answer to the OPs question, yes, leadership can be taught but, as in everything, it is the practice and experience of leadership that develops those learned skills.

 

[The Byre]

I can’t see the military style of leadership translating well into the business world. You said yourself how you’ve seen the “shouty” type of “leadership” in the boardroom and how pathetic it is which kinda shows that’s it’s not the best style of management to get results in business.

You obviously know absolutely nothing about either the military or the art of leadership.

 

[Toby Willows]

You obviously know absolutely nothing about either the military or the art of leadership.

I know very little about military leadership, just what I have seen. I am however very experienced, and successful, in the art of business leadership. Two very different kinds of leadership, and they have to be. Horses for courses. Not saying one is right or one is wrong, just saying they are usually not interchangeable.

 

[Scott-Copywriter]

Can leadership actually be taught, or are there only naturally born leaders?

Reasonably decent leadership can be taught, but eventually, personality becomes the overriding factor in terms of being a great leader.

Much of it is down to respect, but it's difficult to manufacture a facade that will make people genuinely respect you when they wouldn't have otherwise.

Another major factor which is very difficult to teach is what one might call "man management". To do that well involves detecting nuances in the way people think and feel, and then knowing what to say to elicit the desired response. Empathy is a crucial part of that which some might argue is impossible to teach.

I find football to be a great analogy for this. Some footballers can be world class and work under the best managers their entire career, but struggle when they decide to become managers as well. Meanwhile, some of the best managers in football today barely had a playing career to speak of.

 

[The Byre]

I know very little about military leadership, just what I have seen.

Unless you have been in the military and on active service (i.e. under enemy fire) all you will have seen is on TV. Full Metal Jacket, Platoon, or any other dramatisation is one million miles away from the reality, just as Dixon of Dock-Green, NYPD-Bue or Z-Cars are accurate portrayals of police work or NCIS shows the day-to-day work of forensic technicians.

Two very different kinds of leadership, and they have to be. Horses for courses. Not saying one is right or one is wrong, just saying they are usually not interchangeable.

They are (or rather they should be) extremely similar. It is quite remarkable how many famous movie producers of the past served in the military and brought the same inspirational leadership styles to both tasks.

An NCO or officer who fails to inspire his men is an NCO or officer who will not remain an NCO or officer for long. Yes, the men obey the uniform, but they follow the man inside that uniform - just as an employee obeys the orders from their boss, but they follow the inspirational CEO who shows them that the company is striving for greater goals than just turning a Buck.

In the military, the number one thing you learn, even from day-one as a raw recruit, is how to develop leadership qualities. Just as in a business, you are looking for people with vision and drive and the ability to organise and inspire others, so is one looking for the self-same qualities in the military.

 

[Toby Willows]

Unless you have been in the military and on active service (i.e. under enemy fire) all you will have seen is on TV. Full Metal Jacket, Platoon, or any other dramatisation is one million miles away from the reality, just as Dixon of Dock-Green, NYPD-Bue or Z-Cars are accurate portrayals of police work or NCIS shows the day-to-day work of forensic technicians.

They are (or rather they should be) extremely similar. It is quite remarkable how many famous movie producers of the past served in the military and brought the same inspirational leadership styles to both tasks.

An NCO or officer who fails to inspire his men is an NCO or officer who will not remain an NCO or officer for long. Yes, the men obey the uniform, but they follow the man inside that uniform - just as an employee obeys the orders from their boss, but they follow the inspirational CEO who shows them that the company is striving for greater goals than just turning a Buck.

In the military, the number one thing you learn, even from day-one as a raw recruit, is how to develop leadership qualities. Just as in a business, you are looking for people with vision and drive and the ability to organise and inspire others, so is one looking for the self-same qualities in the military.

To be fair I actually wasn't basing my opinions on TV shows or films but my time spent as a civilian working at Tidworth and Bulford barracks. And during that time I saw very little "leadership" that I would have been happy with in my business. I suspect just like there are different types of leader there are different types of people being lead. I would guess your style of leadership and mine are quite different, and we (subconsciously or not) employ people that fit in with our ethos.

As to the "under enmy fire" I can honestly say I can't think of one person I have employed (or myself for that matter) that would have been anything but a usless quivering wreck under such circumstances!

 

[Chris Ashdown]

Well that another thing the forces train you for, to be confident in all things you do so that you are happy to accept a challenge, that's not to say you will not be scared , but you will still do your job, regardless of that fear

 

[Jay Shields]

I strongly believe that the leadership skills can be learned but the essential passion is a gift only given by fate.

In the context of leading in your career , business, local community etc. an amazing life changing experience may not be necessary once you truly dedicate yourself towards obtaining leadership qualities.

 

[AWA Training]

Well if it can't be taught then people have probably spent 1000's for nothing on Leadership courses, Masters and such.
But i believe leadership is not just about taking the lead. Managers are concerned with productivity, sickness, holidays, everyday operational issues.
Leadership is concerned more with mission, the business goals and strategy. Can a leader be a line manager, sure.

But i also believe this, there are natural born leaders and those not so good at it. But leading people is about inspiring and motivating them. Sometimes offering an incentive to put their best in. That is leadership. Managers help make that happen.

Can it be taught? We thats like teaching a trainer to train. You can give the skills the knowledge for someone to step up and deliver. However you cannot teach passion, interest. This has to come from within.

 

[Blood Lust]

Can leadership actually be taught, or are there only naturally born leaders?

Nearly everyone fancies themselves as a leader but only about 5% actually excel in the role. Those 5% are born with certain traits that cannot be taught:

Intelligence - Only about 20% of the population are bright enough to be university material. If you put someone less intelligent into a leadership role you get poor decision making. Over investment in education only raises IQ levels a couple of points.

Personality - Only about 25% of the population have the right type of personality to make a decent leader. Some personality traits derive from genetics and some by parental upbringing but once a person reaches ten years old their personality type is largely set in stone. You cannot teach selfish, exploitative, egotistical, or self-absorbed people to have an genuine interest in the rights and well-being of others. Because they are only in it for themselves other people dont follow them.

If you have someone who is bright enough and has the right type of personality then the rest can be taught. By taught I mean you can pass on all the current leadership and management theories and models. And because they have a genuine interest in others they will look after them by using what they have been taught.

 

[Mr D]

Nearly everyone fancies themselves as a leader but only about 5% actually excel in the role. Those 5% are born with certain traits that cannot be taught:

Intelligence - Only about 20% of the population are bright enough to be university material. If you put someone less intelligent into a leadership role you get poor decision making. Over investment in education only raises IQ levels a couple of points.

Personality - Only about 25% of the population have the right type of personality to make a decent leader. Some personality traits derive from genetics and some by parental upbringing but once a person reaches ten years old their personality type is largely set in stone. You cannot teach selfish, exploitative, egotistical, or self-absorbed people to have an genuine interest in the rights and well-being of others. Because they are only in it for themselves other people dont follow them.

If you have someone who is bright enough and has the right type of personality then the rest can be taught. By taught I mean you can pass on all the current leadership and management theories and models. And because they have a genuine interest in others they will look after them by using what they have been taught.

I'd disagree slightly. Sure intelligence is a good trait, however in itself it can also be a bad thing.
Have met intelligent people who are a LONG way from being a leader. University lecturers, people with multiple qualifications, people with high IQ. Some of my teachers were poor leaders, they had degrees and teaching qualifications.

While The Big Bang Theory is somewhat divorced from reality would any of those intelligent people show traits of a good leader?

 

[Chris Ashdown]

Nearly everyone fancies themselves as a leader but only about 5% actually excel in the role. Those 5% are born with certain traits that cannot be taught:

Intelligence - Only about 20% of the population are bright enough to be university material. If you put someone less intelligent into a leadership role you get poor decision making. Over investment in education only raises IQ levels a couple of points.

Personality - Only about 25% of the population have the right type of personality to make a decent leader. Some personality traits derive from genetics and some by parental upbringing but once a person reaches ten years old their personality type is largely set in stone. You cannot teach selfish, exploitative, egotistical, or self-absorbed people to have an genuine interest in the rights and well-being of others. Because they are only in it for themselves other people dont follow them.

If you have someone who is bright enough and has the right type of personality then the rest can be taught. By taught I mean you can pass on all the current leadership and management theories and models. And because they have a genuine interest in others they will look after them by using what they have been taught.

Just about qualifies for the biggest load of garbage on this forum