Leadership Is Caught, Not Taught

I was going back through some interviews today and ran across a very short, but extremely cogent interview with Warren Bennis, which was part of an interview series at Harvard's Center For Public Leadership. One of the phrases that piqued my interest was, "Leadership is something that's caught, not taught."

Whether you are in a corporation, small business, or educational institution, we all spend large amounts of time developing trainings and courses, writing books and creating webinars in the hope that we'll be able to teach people to become leaders. I don't think we're wasting our time with these endeavors. Development is part of the learning process itself - when we teach, we are, in effect, learning more about what we already know and adding new learning to our knowledge base.

In this video, Mr. Bennis explains that leaders need to be "masters of doubt and uncertainty". They need to be generalists rather than focus on specifics. He likens leadership to what a basket ball coach does - sees the full court, the big picture. This skill cannot be taught in a step-by-step learning system. Rather, it has to be embedded in the individual through countless hours observing excellent leaders, trying techniques and being put into situations, and then reflecting upon those experiences and observations with the guidance of a mentor. Perhaps even one of those excellent leaders whom she observed and mimicked.

Take a few minutes to watch the video yourself - see what you think. The first time I watched it, I replayed it 4 times to catch all of the nuances of what Mr. Bennis was saying. Now, I want to share that experience with you.

Peace,
Shelly