Brad Hill has published an article in The Street called “Good Leaders Take Time: The Innovators” which begins with a series of questions designed to pull in the reader:
The One Minute Manager? Who’s ever heard of The One Minute Surgeon or the One Minute Trial Lawyer? Can you become a company-certified manager after reading a book or “graduating” from a three-day class? Is it really that easy, or are we kidding ourselves?
My first reaction to his opening salvo of questions is Huh? Does anyone really believe this? Who’s kidding whom? In my twenty five+ years in leadership development, I’ve never heard anyone make the claim that reading a book or attending a three-day seminar could turn someone into what Hill calls a “company certified” manager.
Hill then cites the work of Malcolm Gladwell, who wrote Outliers, and who claims that world-class expertise in almost any complex skill requires 10,000 hours of deliberate practice. He writes,
Note that the threshold is 10,000 hours of deliberate practice – practicing and adjusting to a defined model. Unfortunately, spending 10,000 hours in a management position doesn’t count.
Hill cites four causes for “leadership development failure.” I think his arguments are flawed in three and a half of the four.
First, he says that management development practices “teach the unteachable.” He says that “in America, we believe anyone can succeed in anything. That’s not true. I am never going to play in the NBA. You can assign me, full-time, to three of the best coaches who ever lived and it won’t matter.” … “You can’t fix a talent problem with training.”
I’m not sure what leadership development efforts he’s attacking, but none of the approaches I’ve ever seen is based on the notion that anyone can succeed in anything. Hill’s right – no amount of training will produce a “world-class” leader if the participant doesn’t have the traits, desire, and passion to learn. But if Hill’s assertion is that leadership is innate, rather than developed, (are good leaders born or made?) then he’s simply wrong. Many people can become quite effective leaders if they develop their skills and have the courage to use them.
Hill likes to use a comparison between leadership development and mastering the piano. He writes,
Can a person become a certified pianist by reading The One Minute Pianist and attending a three-day class on piano theory? Certainly not. Playing the piano requires years of dedicated practice.
Hogwash. Almost anyone can be taught to play the piano pretty well. No, not Carnegie Hall well, but they can learn to read music, play well enough to enjoy their own playing, and so on. Can they learn this in three days or through one book? No, but they also don’t need to spend years of dedicated practice.
Just as most folks don’t need to (or want to) become world-class pianists, most managers in most companies don’t need to become Steve Jobs or Jack Welsh or the like. They DO need to develop skills and competencies, and there is clearly a place for leadership development programs in that process.
Hill’s second issue with leadership development is that we “train traits.” He writes,
Sales managers manage the sales pipeline, assign territories, and position with customer executives. CFOs write annual reports, manage the media, and roll up quarterly results. The two jobs are very different. Why then do companies offer the same management development course to both populations? Because many look at leadership as a set of ideal traits rather than as a learnable skill. A body of management research called “situational leadership” suggests that there are not universal leadership traits — the leader’s style needs to fit the situation (e.g., job, culture). Teach to the situation. Teach sales managers how to run a motivating pipeline review session. Teach CFOs how to create an annual report. Forget the classes on optimism or achievement.
If companies are offering the same management development course to sales managers and CFOs, then Hill has a point. But most aren’t. Good leadership development programs arise from research into the actual competencies that are needed in specific leadership families. Supervisors need a set of competencies that are vastly different from executives, for example.
Frankly, I’m not sure where Hill gets the notion that most leadership development is “one size fits all.” It shouldn’t be – and in every organization I’m familiar with (I’ve consulted to over 200 in my career) it isn’t.
(And by the way, Hill refers to “situational leadership,” which comes from the work of Paul Hersey and Ken Blanchard. You’ll remember that Blanchard was the author of The One Minute Manager, which Hill uses to slam leadership development. Go figure.)
Hill’s calls his third issue “Personality Games.” He writes:
A common activity in management development programs is self-awareness training. And the most widely used self-assessment instrument is Myers-Briggs, a 60 year old personality assessment tool. According to CPP, Inc. more than 2.5 million Myers-Briggs surveys are administered each year. Hundreds of studies show that Myers-Briggs is quite useful for career development counseling (i.e., person-job match), but can Myers-Briggs improve leadership? There seems to be no empirical evidence that it does. If the purpose is to have a stimulating discussion on who we are at our core, Myers-Briggs is a good tool. But if you want better leaders, neither personality tests nor tear-filled sessions of childhood traumas will get you there.
Excuse me? Hill seems to be saying, “If you want better leaders, forget self-awareness training.” While I agree that the Myers-Briggs, and similar instruments, may not directly improve leadership, I would strongly suggest that good leaders are people who know themselves, their strengths, their blind spots, and so on. Self-awareness is critical.
There are many roads to self-awareness, and instruments are one. Another, more powerful tool is the 360-feedback process. Does getting feedback from your boss, your peers, and your staff make you a better leader? Yes – if you know how to use feedback.
Hill’s fourth criticism is “Product-based Courses.” He writes:
What is the goal of management development? Is it to create an emotionally well-adjusted workforce or is it to grow profitable revenue? Programs like The Fifth Discipline or The Socially Intelligent Manager assume 1) class participants will emerge self-actualized (if only mental health professionals could do that in three days), and 2) self-actualized managers deliver better results. If your data confirms both assumptions, do it. Otherwise, don’t buy packaged programs. Teach to the job and offer therapy in your benefits package.
Once again, I take strong exception to the assertion that the programs he cites as examples truly believe that participants will emerge “self-actualized.” Will they learn some things they can use back on the job? Yes. Can they take this knowledge to become a better leader? Of course.
I do agree that there are some inherent problems with packaged programs, because they are not necessarily based on a competency analysis for each participant. Their value, however, stems from a profoundly simple idea: get leaders into a room, and dialogue about models, ideas, concepts, approaches, and techniques that may help them get better results.
So what’s the bottom line?
I think Hill has knocked down a straw man argument. Authentic, professional leadership development programs never, ever purport to “graduate” fully competent, self-actualized, world-class leaders. (If you find one that does, run – don’t walk – away.)
Leadership development is but one piece in a complicated process to help people learn, grow, and succeed in leadership positions. There are many other elements that should be brought to bear: mentoring, stretch assignments, special projects, individual coaching, and the like.
Hill concludes with, “Leadership is a complex skill. It’s not about certification; it’s about being able to do something that adds value to shareholders, customers and employees. When it comes to great leadership, there are no shortcuts.”
I agree. But leadership development workshops, seminars, and books are not a shortcut – they are one ingredient in a complicated recipe.
I once put together a leadership development program for a group of Supervising Deputy Attorneys General for a state department of justice. These were senior level attorneys who supervised other attorneys.
My credentials were challenged on the opening day right off the bat, since I’m not an attorney. A seasoned participant with forty years experience in the department) asked, “Why are YOU here, and what gives YOU the ‘right’ to teach us about leadership?”
Great question!
I responded with a question of my own. “How many of you have ever attended a leadership development workshop at any time in your career? No hands went up. “How many of you have read a book on management practices?” No hands went up.
Why not? Because they had spent their professional lives learning to be great attorneys – not managers. Now they were in management roles. I’ve spent my professional life helping sophisticated, technically brilliant people learn how to manage and lead others. That’s why I was there.
The old salt smiled and said, “Makes sense. Please begin.” In unison, thirty attorneys pulled out yellow legal pads and prepared to take notes.
There is a need for leadership development programs and books. Not because in one minute, or three days, they produce world-class leaders. But because they provide opportunities to learn how great leaders actually ply their craft. They give people the time to meet others, to practice behaviors, to explore ideas. Without these opportunities, people would be restricted to an apprentice model, and that just isn’t practical in these times.
I’ve reread Hill’s article several times, and I’m still not sure whether he’s condemning leadership development programs and management books out of hand, or just warning against simplistic programs and books which promise something they can’t deliver.
I hope it’s the latter, but it sure looks like the former. We agree on at least one thing. Hill writes, “When it comes to great leadership, there are no shortcuts.” True enough. But great leadership development programs are an important catalyst in the process, and can’t be discounted out of hand.
You present the facts and a good argument negating most of his apparent claims.
Your article motivated me to give the short version of my story about “straw-men” and how to use a flame-thrower to burn them down.
In the 1980′s when microcomputers were emerging from the hobbyist’s domain and making in-roads in the corporation, I was challenged often as to why my introduction of Macs instead of PC’s into the company was better. They missed the point. I told them to bring a PC in and see how much work it does by itself. I told them the productivity increase is not in the technology itself but by the ability of people to use that technology wisely. They still missed the point.
It’s hard to stand against an almost entire group of executives who jump to conclusions without the knowledge to evaluate the situation properly.
Little by little over time, I proved my solutions by getting buy-in from the team, some of whom were initially my biggest disbelievers. I thought every day was a battle against straw men for over two years.
Then the layoffs of June 1987 hit the corporation. Because I worked directly for the CEO, it wasn’t so easy to lay me off. However, the day did come when I was presented with a challenge. A little background first.
One of the reasons most of the executives didn’t believe in microcomputers was because they had for years been paying on a mini-computer that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars. Even though the Mac with more memory and hard disk space than that mini, they still believed the size of the mini and its whirling flashing lights signified performance. I suggested to Apple they sell a shiny steel box with flashing lights and sounds to enclose a Mac so that corporate executives would feel more at home with them. No go.
Now it turned out that two people on the data processing staff spent 9 months trying to provide a solution to a management requested program. That’s 18 person-months of work on a project that failed to come to fruition. On the day I was told I was about to be laid-off I was given the choice to accept the layoff with a good separation package or to attempt to provide a solution to the previously failed 9 month data processing project. I was given two months alone to solve the problem. I took the challenge.
To make a long story short, real short. Using the relational database program on the Mac, I provided the solution to them the next day, ready to go. I was so tired of their “straw-man” arguments that I decided to “nuke them” beyond any doubt.
You can imagine the uproar I created by solving the project in one day! My boss, the CEO loved it. The rest of the executives found out that day that creating unsubstantiated “straw-men” can bring about crows and they feasted on those crows for some time after that.
The point of my story is that people without a solid foundation of understanding, often jump to conclusions and raise questions without merit. Unfortunately, I’ve witnessed a lot of this in executives over the years by creating “straw-men” as their first line of defense.
Good leaders are more open to suggestions that are new and innovative. They don’t need “straw-men” to lead the team.
By the way, I stayed with that company until the end of April 1988 and then received my separation package. I didn’t face any more “straw-man” arguments in that time with that company.
Don
cool posts dude
thnaks a lot
Gary, thanks for a great article.
Hopefully Mr. Hill is warning against the “Quick-Fix” mentality rather than trying to say that leadership development isn’t a valuable pursuit.
I am one of those who believes that developing a good leader takes time, but that it can be done.
To use Mr. Hill’s example, it is true that I may never play in the NBA, but then that may be a physical barrier, not a mental one. There are many great NBA coaches that could not play on the court because they don’t meet the physical criteria. But being a great coach requires a deep understanding of the game. Being a coach requires that you understand your strengths and weaknesses, your players, strategy, emotions, the competition, and more. All of this can be learned. You can develop great coaches who do “play” in the NBA.
Leadership is much more a mental game than a contact sport. You don’t have to be seven feet tall to be a good leader.
Thanks for the article. And, thanks for taking on the challenge of offering counter arguments.
Jim
Great post, Gary.
Thank you for keeping our attention on the fact that “Leadership development is but one piece in a complicated process to help people learn, grow, and succeed in leadership positions.”
Getting that complicated blend right isn’t a static formula, either. As you suggest, it changes and evolves as we grow individually, as the organization changes, and as the business environment morphs.
I appreciate your directness and passion.