Page 272 - The extraordinary leader

The Organization’s Role in Developing Leaders • 249

Developmental practices must hold out the expectation and provide the
tools for people to move beyond average to good, and move beyond good to
becoming great.
Historically, leadership development programs were conducted by uni-
versities on their campuses. Then companies began doing their own in-house
programs but still relied heavily on academics to conduct them. The instruc-
tional methods were transported from academia and mirrored the way
professors taught in the college classroom. The traditional learning methods
for leadership programs, therefore, were

● Lectures
● Case studies
● Extensive reading assignments
● Small group discussions
● Speeches from company executives
● Video and film presentations

What we are proposing is a dramatic shift to new learning methods. The
principles that should guide the selection of learning methods are

● Practicality
● Immediate opportunity to apply knowledge or skill
● Concrete versus abstract
● Job-related
● Action-oriented
● Emotionally engaging
● Personalized
● Ongoing versus a one-time event
● Built-in accountability for implementation

In practice, this leads to the use of some markedly different instructional
methods.

● Feedback. It means the greater use of personalized feedback
procedures, such as 360-degree feedback instruments. Most leaders
are not good at reflection and self-analysis. The pace of their work