A Feel for Leadership

If you are in tune with your emotions during the important passages in your life, you’ll be more a consistently more effective leader.

BY David Dotlich, James L. Noel and Norman Walker

http://www.darwinmag.com/read/feature/column.html?ArticleID=1141

If you want to become an effective leader, what, specifically, should you do to make that happen?

Hundreds of leadership books purport to answer this question today. Just walk into any bookstore.

Broadly, the research, thinking and writing about leadership can be divided into two camps. One camp holds that leadership is all about behavior and that if you want to excel, you should learn and replicate the key behaviors of good leaders. Many companies pursue this view by developing competency models and then rigorously assessing and training their leaders accordingly. The other camp holds that leadership is all about character, values and authenticity; companies that adhere to this view focus on transmitting company values and orienting leaders to the right way to do things.

Both approaches are valid—and incomplete. Most leadership development efforts that revolve around either character or behavior are only sporadically effective because of an inherent problem: Leaders emerge from training emboldened with new ideas and ways of doing things but then re-enter a company culture that has not been modified. They find it difficult to sustain their leadership effectiveness, failing to carry over their success from the learning context to the leadership context.

Consider that in recent years the leadership development industry has exploded, yet just about every organization complains about a leadership shortage. With the increase in training programs and knowledge about this subject, logic dictates that we should be doing a better job of meeting the organizational demand for talent. In fact, most organizations bemoan the dearth of “ready now” leaders with maturity, judgment and skill.

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http://www.darwinmag.com/read/feature/column.html?ArticleID=1141