Page 262 - The extraordinary leader

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THE ORGANIZATION’S ROLE

IN DEVELOPING LEADERS

I start with the premise that the role of leaders is to produce more leaders,
not more followers.
—Ralph Nader

The house shows the owner.
—George Herbert

In this chapter, we seek to provide the leaders of organizations (as well as
human resources practitioners) some thoughts about how to make these ideas
operational. The entire thrust of this book is about leadership development.
Our primary concern has been to help organizations rethink their funda-
mental approach to this important need. We have deliberately avoided
any discussion of leadership selection. We have also avoided the debate about
the distinctions of “transformational” versus “transactional” leadership. We
have deliberately skirted the complex issues of the psychological makeup of
leaders.
The fact of the matter is that we are simply not producing leaders at the
rate at which they are needed. This will be compounded by the demographic
trends in the United States, which will have a shortfall of 10 million workers
beginning in the year 2010, with an attendant shortfall of leaders.

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