Teaching Leadership: The Discussion

I have been thinking a lot lately about the importance of leadership.  I think in the past I always took it for granted because the majority of my experiences were with good leaders.  There were plenty of bad leaders, but usually there was a good one in the room to help out the bad one.  The question asked is, can the bad leader become a good leader?  My answer, YES.

One of the core classes at the Naval Academy is leadership.  When I was a midshipman I thought it was one of the dumbest classes I took.  I had the reaction that many do, “you can’t teach leadership.”  I rescind my statement.  At the time I was a 19 year old kid without many life experiences.  Now I’m a 29 year old KID with a few more experiences.  I was on the varsity lightweight crew team, worked on a US warship, got married and now am training with the national team.  Time has given me more wisdom and perspective. 

Of course, I do believe there are natural leaders and those who are not as natural and need some help.  Those who need help only need to look at those around them to figure it out.  You need to look at those who are leading you and decide if they are doing a good or bad job, and see what you like and don’t like about their leadership traits.  If you see something that you like, then try to emulate it.  When you see something that you don’t like, don’t see as being effective or don’t agree with then put it in your bank of things not to do. 

All 4 brothers with Mom, Shaunnah and Max

I have 3 younger brothers.  I try not to say little brothers anymore because I am now the smallest.  Anyway, my youngest brother Patrick is 10 years my junior.  I used to tell him he should make almost no mistakes because he had 3 older brothers to learn from.  Tommy, Chris and I (the older ones) all made mistakes and have been successful in different ways.  Patrick had the opportunity to see it all, or at least hear my parents yell at or praise us.  He has done an excellent job in avoiding the mistakes we made and excelling beyond any of our successes.  He’s a better athlete and is majoring in engineering in college.  He’s a stud and Tommy, Chris and I take all of the credit, haha. 

For those of you that disagree with me and say you can’t teach leadership, you are entitled to your opinion and I respect that.  I think my keystone statement for argument is: If you can’t teach leadership, then how do leaders develop their leadership skills through life experiences?  Like I said before, there are natural born leaders, but not all of them come out of the womb with a full leadership toolbox.  Leaders develop over years and years of experience, proving to me that they learn and can be taught. 

Have a good one.

- Jimmy