Today saw me attend a ‘leadership and motivation’ course and I must confess that by 4:30 this afternoon I’d lost all of my motivation and would happily be a follower rather than a leader!! It’s not that the course wasn’t interesting – in fact it was – but I simply couldn’t take any more theory.
For those of you ‘into’ that sort of thing, we looked closely at the traits and attributes of good leaders and as you can imagine various names cropped up. For me personally, I was more interested in the traits of a good leader (as opposed to actual leaders) and came up with the following as being essential – communication, honesty, flexible, optimistic, motivated and understanding. Ultimately, I guess everyone’s perception of what makes a good leader is different and that was very apparent today.
The ‘motivation’ aspect was a completely different kettle of fish and arguably more interesting – in terms of concept. This part of the course covered Edward de Bono’s ‘Six Thinking Hats’ theory and David Kolb’s ‘Learning Styles’ theory. It certainly proved very thought provoking stuff, but I suppose you could always argue the use and benefits for/against such theories in any organisation however big or small.
One other web site worth noting in ‘Business Balls’ which will no doubt provide me with some useful anecdotes for any future meetings I might organise/chair!
The problem with leadership courses – and I run them! – is that beyond theory there’s no where to go! We hope that in some – absolutely unproven way – giving people kowledge will somehow enable them to hook into new understandings that lead to changed behavious. And, voila, you are now a leader.
Perhaps.
More directly understanding about learning styles DOES enable you to make informed choices about how youlearn most readily/comfortably and so on. So here the theory can really b useful.
Hi Peter – thanks for the comment and feedback.
I noticed the more I learned about the theory and understood it, the more I began to visualise how it could indeed help me in numerous ways in my current role and the challenges I face.
I know people who have scoffed at the course I attended, now I’ve been, more the fool them.