What’s Missing, and How Does it Impact Our Leadership and Our Students?

Written by Dr. Donald R. Kudek

It is estimated that $166 billion is spent annually on leadership development in the U.S. (Westfall, 2019). That is nearly $1,000 for every person between the ages of 18 and 65 (60% of 332 million people). Books, seminars, coaching sessions, and even degrees are offered as ways to enhance one’s ability to lead. Has anyone spent that amount on you? Did you or they get their money’s worth? What impact has all of this training had on those we are entrusted to teach? In some cases, it is having a negative impact.

What Makes a Good Leader?
Like all areas of study, the study of leaders and leadership has evolved over time. In the late 1800s, it was believed that certain individuals were born leaders, and either you had it or you didn’t.

When that proved false, decades were devoted to the study of individual characteristics or behaviors that people needed to possess in order to be a good leader, only to have nearly every idea and theory shown as inconclusive. Since a person’s characteristics or genes were not able to define a successful leader, the inclusion of the situation became a key factor. Some people could be effective leaders in some scenarios but not in others. As a result, the person could be an outstanding leader one day, but when the situation changed, they were less effective or, in some cases, ineffective.

Can Everyone Be a Leader?
In a society that has embraced the idea that everyone should be treated as a winner, the concept that everyone is a leader was sure to follow. John Maxwell, a foremost expert on leadership, has stated, “Leadership is influence. That’s it. Nothing more; nothing less” (Maxwell, J.C., 1993, p.1). If that is true, everyone by default is a leader, because everyone influences someone. No doubt, that position helps sell more books, fills more seminars, and develops more training revenue, because if we can convince people that everyone is a leader, then the audience for leadership self-help books and workshops will grow exponentially.

But is influence all it takes to be a leader? The bully on the school playground influences the activities and actions of those targeted. Students find reasons not to go outside in fear of running into them. They walk down the hall without making eye contact, hide in a corner of the library, or even eat their lunch in the restroom stall because this person has influence over them. Maybe worse yet, they don’t even come to school.

Is that really the definition we want to use for a leader, someone that has influence over someone else? If the answer is no, then is everyone really a leader? If we take the position that not everyone is a leader, then the question we must ask is, “Does everyone have the ability or desire to be a leader?”

What About Those Who Don’t Want to Be Leaders?
There is no doubt that some training and education and encouragement and exposure can help move individuals along on their journey to becoming leaders. I spent my career in endless training, with the desire to be better. But is that for everyone? If it is not, what are we telling those people when we say everyone is a leader? How do they feel when they hear time and time again, “Be a Leader,” “Be a Leader,” “Be a Leader,” and they do not feel they are or want to be? Take that one step further. What is the impact on children who have been sheltered from failure or from learning it is OK to fail?

Bestselling author Brené Brown (2012, p.69) says that shame is an “intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of love and belonging.” If our message to students is that everyone is a leader, are we telling the students who have no desire to lead that they somehow are flawed? How many times can one hear that they are flawed before this feeling of unworthiness begins to impact their self-worth? Is that the message we want to tell our kids?

It is time to start telling a different message. Time to “Rethink Leadership.” Join me at the WELS Education Conference at the Ingleside Hotel in Pewaukee, Wisconsin, on June 20-22, to hear what we can do to reshape this message.

Donald R. Kudek, MBA, Ph.D., serves as an assistant professor of Business Administration and the department chair for the School of Business at Wisconsin Lutheran College in Milwaukee.

Dr. Kudek will present this topic at the WELS Education Conference in Pewaukee, Wisconsin, on June 20. REGISTER HERE to attend the conference and this sectional.

References
Brown, B. (2012). Daring greatly: How the courage to be vulnerable transforms the way we live, love, parent, and lead. Penguin.

Maxwell, J. C. (1993). Developing the leader within you, Thomas Nelson. Inc.: USA.

Westfall, C. (2019), Leadership Development is a $366 Billion Industry: Here’s why most-programs don’t Work. Forbes. ttps://www.forbes.com/sites/chriswestfall/2019/06/20/leadership-development-why-most-programs-dont-work/?sh=3aa7eed961de