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Can Leadership be Taught?
Leadership is not an innate trait built into genetic code, nor is leadership provided through the "Divine Right of Gaud". No instead it is a natural phenomena that can be nurtured and taught. There are many reasons why some people seem to become great leaders and others don't become leaders at all. But that is for another article, in this article I'd like to discuss the topic of teaching individuals how to become leaders.
Leadership is guiding intent with integrity. These three qualitative values "Guiding", "Intent", and "Integrity" work together to help people choose a style of leadership that works for them personally as well as works for the group they are guiding. The first step in teaching someone to be a leader is to help them see the vast range of methods used to guide.
Guiding someone is not an art. Someone asks a question, you give an answer. You point them in a direction. You provide them with feedback on what has happened. You console them. The guidance provided though is based on your intent.
Your partner asks you if this looks good, how do you respond and why do you respond in that manner? Do you tell them that they look good even when they don't? Do you tell them that they don't look good in that outfit? Is the outfit appropriate for the environment you are going to attend? Or do you find another way to help them towards their goal?
Intent isn't just about your intent, it's also about their intent. What is it that they intended for themselves. If your partner wants to look good, then the language you use will help guide them to a better choice. Or the language you use will trigger an emotional episode. Is your intent to make them emotionally dependent on you, or emotionally dependent?
Finally there is integrity. Integrity has many different synonyms that mean roughly the same thing: accountability, ethics, morality, virtue, sound, honest, chaste, and so on. In the sense that we will use integrity here, it is in relation to the social contract.
The social contract is the written or verbal agreement made between the leader and the follower. The accountability determines whether or not the leader and the follower are following this social contract, and if not how are they correcting each others deviation from the contract? Are they demanding that the contract be adhered to, are they penalizing each other for not holding to the contract, are they talking about the contract as malleable or are they looking at the social contract as the target they want to reach?
There are many different things that the social contract can become. It can become a beacon of hope, or a weapon to beat each other up with. It depends on how the contract is designed and what it is designed to do. As this is an agreement between two people, the contract can always be re-evaluated and adjusted as needed. But, in order for that to occur, both parties need to be willing to examine how the contract is affecting themselves and see how the contract is affecting others.
A good question to determine if the social contract or integrity of the people involved is in line, is to ask, "What is the goal?" Many people use rules that determine a persons integrity. Above 50% and you're good, below 50% and you're bad. However, in many games there is the goal at end of the field. In order to reach that goal all parties have to work together to reach it. So, if the social contract is written at the 50 yard line, then the parties involved are constantly battling over who is in integrity. But if the social contract is written with a focus on the goal, then every play that helps everyone move towards the 100 yard becomes a positive reinforcing step in the right direction.
While the short answer is that leadership can be taught, there is a lot to learn about what affects leadership. While looking at Guiding, Intent, Integrity, and the Goal we also learned that language and the social contract play an important role in the guidance given. We can make people dependent on us or independent on us. We can celebrate the small victories or fight over the small upsets, the question is what is used to measure progress, and where is the goal marker?