[September 14, 2015] When Abraham Lincoln reached the elected office of the President of the United States in 1861, he had not arrived at that point because of the formal training he had received but due to a life of unique experiences that educated him in the principles of leadership. Today, despite the fact that we recognize the importance of formally training leaders, there yet still remains a lack of good leaders throughout most of America.
The training of leaders is important for the proper development of fully capable future leaders. However, there is some level of controversy over what constitutes “proper development”. Many have argued that our current model of leadership training is seriously out of date. The industrial age of control over worker productivity, which worked so well for two centuries, has begun to fail us, some have argued, as we enter the modern age of information.
“The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.” – Albert Einstein
The industrial age leadership model assumes that problems are solved at the top of the organization and control of the mission and resources flows downward to a well-oiled human machine of many employees working in harmony. In this model, everything that supports productivity is welcome and is easily bought by the highest salary, power, or fear for the job to get done. It requires little in the way of creativity and passion. Innovation, imagination, and enterprising behavior are discouraged.
The current information age however is suffering from leaders trained under this model. We read about their failures every day; corruption, dishonesty, and cowardice. Few modern leaders have been capable of breaking out of the industrial age form of leadership; but a few have done so and are highlighting a new way. They show us that it is not control that is the key factor in leadership but genius, loyalty, initiative, and tenaciousness; traits that are only volunteered by the leader.
Leaders who depart from the rigid model of an age gone by are frequently hailed as inspirational, imaginative, and authentic. No wonder we like them. Leadership to them is a choice, not a position.1
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- The idea that leadership is a choice not a position was developed by Steven R. Covey who wrote the now famous book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. He had a number of great insights into leadership and how it differs from the concept of management. Sadly, he passed away a few years ago in 2012.