I have had the unfortunate (mis)opportunity to attend a number of leadership training seminars in the past, and as you can tell from my snarky comment, I have been consistently underwhelmed.
Why, you ask?
Because, these training courses consistently miss the main point that they purport to do. Train leaders.
Instead they focus on other non-relevant functions of leadership, or seem to skip the topic all together.
The reason for this is that a true definition of a leader seems to be hard to agree on.
However, I will assert that leadership consists of four very attributes, all of which are uncommon, especially to find someone with strengths in more than one area.
1) Self-initiative
2) Brains
3) Guts (calculated risks)
4) Personality.
The last three are in no particular order or importance, by the way.
That’s it.
And I have yet to be at any training seminar that focused on any of these four topics. Have you?
So if you are looking to train leaders, put together a weekend that explains to people those aspects of the above four topics that they need to focus on, and let them choose which areas they are weak in. Since Brains and Personality people either have or don’t have (from a leadership perspective only), the focus really needs to be in the other two areas, since it is an uphill battle to train the other two things. Better to make them solid followers.
Of course, as an organization looking for leaders, it is better just to find people pre-programmed with these four attributes, and stay out of their way, since in truth these four things are all exceptionally hard to teach.
After all, that is probably why no leadership seminars try.