The Focus of Leadership Training

The goal of leadership training is to teach people how a leader motivates a group of diverse and talented people toward a common goal. So can leadership be taught? Good question. Scholars have debated this issue for many years, in many different studies. The results? Mixed. Some say you can other say you can’t. We believe, when it’s taught the correct way, that it can be.

Leadership always has been and always will be a challenge, given the fact that human behavior involves so much complexity. Of course, even the most revered leaders in history made their mistakes. Lincoln, for example, was not very well liked. But, yet, he is always found on the list of the most important leaders the world has ever known.

Great leaders are known to have strong personalities. It seems that they find a way to channel these extreme characteristics, along with a strong sense of emotional intelligence, to affect others in a positive way. Their influence has a lasting impact on the performance of the people they are influencing.

So what are the areas that professional leadership training programs should focus on?

• Fostering the development of ones particular talent and or technical skill
• Learning Initiative and entrepreneurial drive
• The tenants of Charisma – Ones level of attractiveness to others and the innate ability to leverage this esteem to influence others
• The drive to be motivated by a certain cause
• Learning purpose and commitment
• Developing a Results-oriented approach: every action positively affects the mission
• Optimism – How do you achieve this outlook?
• Self Confidence - knowing one had the ability to make a difference for a cause
• Empathy – the ability to encourage, nurture and delegate to help followers develop a particular set of skills
• The power of Role models
• Self-awareness
• The ability to choose winners – Leaders know they cant teach attitude (unlike skills)
• Understanding what others say (vs. how they say things..ie. "walking in someone else's shoes")
• The ability to motivate people out of their "comfort zones"
• Challenging the status quo and Influencing growth and change in an organization
• Improving decision-making abilities
• The “Vision Thing” - Learning ways to see the big picture
• Improved Goal Setting
• Building Successful Attitudes and Habits
• Developing Personal Goals on a daily basis
• The ability to take complex information into Solutions and then Action
• Effective Time Management
• Continuing Leadership Growth on a personal level

Many different types of skills, and some that take more development time and focus than others, but all important to the overall nature of leadership.

The Theories of Leadership Support Training Needs

David McClelland, a Harvard-based researcher in the psychology of power and achievement, sees leadership skills as a pattern of motives. He claimed that successful leaders will tend to have a high need for power, a low need for affiliation, and a high level of what he called “activity inhibition”, or self-control.

Then there’s Trait theory. Trait theory, which follows the approach of listing leadership qualities, says that particular personality traits or characteristics will tend to lead to effective leadership. Although trait theory has an intuitive appeal, many people have difficulty with proving its tenets, Opponents of the theory frequently challenge this approach.

The most compelling version of trait theory sees these "leadership characteristics" as innate, and looking at psychological makeup, labels certain people as "born leaders". In this way, leadership development involves identifying and measuring leadership qualities, screening potential leaders from non-leaders, then training those with potential.

All interesting theories, but the end of the day it all comes down to ones desire to be a leader. Everyone really does have it, just at varying levels.

Leadership IQ is a management training and development company that teaches the best practices in management. Their management training programs are helpful for managers at all levels; whether they are VPs, directors, team leaders, supervisors, and any leader responsible for the daily management of people.