Leadership: Part 4 - The Hard Question

At some point in my exploration of this thing we call leadership, I asked a question that halted my thought process. By this time I was quite sure that leadership and management were different roles with different skill sets.

The question was so central to my exploration of leadership that every time I thought of anything tangential to management or leadership, I found myself drawn to the question.

Coffee with Tom

I get together with my friend Thomas W. regularly at a local coffee shop and we chat about anything and everything. Tom is the most people-y people person you'll ever meet. What's more, he genuinely cares about the people in his life. For some extreme extroverts (I'd say pathologically extroverted, but only because I'm so introverted), being around people is just how they operate. It gives them energy. Tom is a rarity, not because he's energized by spending time with people, but because he'll go out of his way to help people whenever he can.

Tom and I have talked many times in our coffee shop about our experiences in management. If I can use the farming analogy from my previous post in this series, I had to study farming. Tom has a proverbial green thumb. He's gifted as a manager and he truly enjoys it.

Asking the Question

One day, a couple of weeks after I had asked myself the hard question I couldn't answer, I met Tom for coffee and posed the question to him. I started by noting that I think management and leadership are different things. He agreed.

I said something like, "We've been to management trainings and I believe most people can learn to be managers, but can leadership be taught?"

He immediately responded, "Yes. Absolutely." For him, this was a no-brainer. This question that had stumped me seemed so simple to him.

The discussion that followed was enlightening. I realized that Tom viewed most people in their best light, so off course people can become whatever they want to become and mentorship can help them get there.

Now I will say that I wasn't entirely convinced that leadership can be taught after that discussion, but I did realize something. One of the things that makes Tom so great at what he does is how he sees people. He sees the potential of everyone he works with. He sees each person as mere inches from fulfilling their potential and he wants to help them see that for themselves.

Can Leadership Be Taught?

Here I am, months later, and I still don't know the full answer to that question, but I suspect the answer is yes. However, I don't believe it can be taught in the way we teach other things because I have come to believe that leadership isn't a skill set. I'm sure that's a heretical belief to plenty of people.

Next Time

If leadership isn't a skill set, what is it? I think I've got a simple way of defining it. This is generally how I operate, by the way. I go super deep into a concept, overthink it, and sometimes come out the other side with some clarity. Next time I'll talk about the different kinds of people and what I believe is at the very core of leadership.