Leadership and Training

"Leadership is a skill that is learned through life experiences and watching fellow leaders. While many experts would agree that leadership is a skill that can be taught very few institutions take the time to train new leaders. Many institutions of higher education are more focused on managing the daily crises which occur on a regular basis. These issues are important however, many of these crises may be prevented by having people properly trained to handle these situations. Many usually lack the administrative experience to transition from a faculty member to a leadership position (Tucker, 1984). While managing a classroom and an institution may have similar attributes, most would argue they are vastly different. Learning the political, financial, and societal factors of an institution is a complicated process." (p.33-34)

According to Morris, key issues are: lack of training, financial resources as well as involvement of top managers. In attempt to adress these issues, planning, concrete training and monitoring are essential parts of the solution.

Hargreaves (2007) claims that sustainable leadership “preserves and develops deep learning for all that spreads and lasts, in ways that do no harm to and indeed create positive benefits for others around us, now and in the future” (p. 224). The claim makes Grooms & Reid-Martinez (2011) draw the conclusion that there is a "need for leadership education to encourage leaders to know themselves, their gifts, and personality tendencies, as well as their leadership abilities within the organization" (p.415).

In a study of strategic leadership in a global firm, Van Beek and Grachev (2010) relate leadership effecitivity directly to leadership competencies:

"Leader effectiveness is a function of interaction between strategic organizational contingencies, leadership competencies, and leader attributes and behaviors. Leader attributes and behaviors that meet the requirements of strategic organizational contingencies will result in increased leader effectiveness (House et al., 2004). Hence, directed development of leadershipcore competencies in a global firm changes managers‘ behaviors and contributes to effective growth in the markets" (p. 320).

According to Hollander (1958, 1974), we can differentiate between the hierarchical and the emergent leadership. The first category is based on a formal position within an organization whereas the emergent leadership refers to a leader in an uformel position based on collegiate support.


References
Grooms, L. D., & Reid-Martinez, K. (2011). Sustainable leadership development: a conceptual model of a cross-cultural blended learning program. International Journal of Leadership Studies, 6 (3), 412-429.

Hargreaves, A. (2007). Sustainable leadership and development in education: Creating the
future, conserving the past. European Journal of Education, 42(2), 223-233.

Hollander, E. P. (1958). Conformity, status, and idiosyncrasy credit. Psychological 

Review, 65, 117-127.

Hollander, E. P. (1974). Processes of leadership emergence. Journal of Contemporary Business,
Autumn, 19-33


Van Beek, M. & Grachev, M. (2010). Building strategic leadership competencies: the case of unilever. International Journal of Leadership Studies, 5 (3)313-332.

Morris, A. (2012). Perspectives and Thoughts on Leadership Development in Higher Education e-Journal of Organizational Learning and Leadership 10,(1), 33-36.