Poor Leadership "Training" Approaches and Models Are a Big Contributor to The Worsening Global Leadership and Sustainable Development Crisis.

As a scientist, technologist and engineer , I used to think that science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) would, by themselves, solve all the problems that we face on the planet as a human race. I admit that the misuse and abuse of STEM has created most of the most serious challenges we face today. STEM, for example, is at the core of military software and hardware that is killing people including innocent civilians. In my thinking, I do not ignore the innocent warriors who lose their lives in wars around the world. Military software and hardware is destroying infrastructure that takes billions and trillions of United States Dollars to build and will recover even more to rebuilding. The environmental damage caused by war, from demolition waste of destroyed building, shelled vehicles and infrastructure, thick black plumes of smoke and copious amounts of carbon dioxide from denotation of bombs and the burning of the bombed infrastructure and material. Humans being maimed for life and being killed and being sent into abject poverty. All these militate against the spirit of sustainable development and the spirit of making sustainable development a reality.

STEM aside, wars and all the other major development problems do not happen by themselves. Humans decide to engage in wars. Humans decide to spend more resources on developing sophisticated weapons to destroy each other than to spend resources on enhancing human life and protecting the environment. Humans choose to hate other humans and engage in brutal killings of those they hate, many times without any apparent provocation.

Let me be more direct. Not all humans make these decisions, but a few select who either step forward to decide for other or are chosen by others to represent them or decide for them. The social structure is such that there will always be a few people who make big decisions for others. These people, who are supposed to be leaders, are not always leaders but something else. This comes to the point where organisations such as the World Economic Forum asserted that we have global leadership crisis. And this leadership crisis is real and its devastating impacts are experienced throughout the world. The only people is that the majority, the global grassroots never paid much attention to this; they either do not understand what leadership is all about themselves or they lack the leadership to face the leadership crisis. What am I saying?

I am saying leadership is required to address the leadership crisis that we face!

I have already said this and I am only repeating what has been long observed;

1. The attributes that make people rise to positions of leadership are not the same attributes that drive leadership performance once a person occupies a position of leadership.

Please repeat this over and over again until it sinks and share it with as many people as possible.

2. The overwhelming majority of people who appoint or elect others to positions of leadership have no clue about what real and effective leadership looks like. The result is that too many people who ascend to positions of leadership are inherently incompetent and their incompetence goes unnoticed because they are surrounded by others who also don't understand the whole phenomenon of leadership.

Let me tell that despite thousands of books written on the subject of leadership, very few people agree what leadership is all about. I have read very few books I can count on that give clear and credible ideas on how someone can lead.

The Contribution of Conventional Leadership Training to The Global Leadership Crisis and Mediocrity

Let me start with my first point;

First, we have a global leadership crisis because a big number of people who get into leadership get in there not based on the criteria and attributes that drive battlefield leadership performance.

Second, the majority of these people already suffer from ego problems that keeps them from wanting to learn and practice how to lead effectively or they develop some arrogance because of the mistaken belief that they have risen to those positions of leadership because they are already good or great leaders when they have no idea what real leadership is all about. They mistake power for leadership.

Now, people try to improve leadership performance through some "leadership development" or "leadership training" and they get all wrong. If you have not heard it, as much as 80% of corporate efforts to develop leaders and improve leadership ends up in failure, meaning billions of USD go up in smoke in the process. Those in charge of the training never see it because they too are in the dark; they have no idea what a great, effective leadership development programs looks like.

We know the reasons why these traditional approaches to developing leaders and improving leadership performance and results through leadership training and education end up in failure.

Ending the global leadership crisis is critical for sustainable development; but it is a huge fight because you are fighting the whole establishment including those who are benefiting from the crisis. Many institutions providing traditional leadership training and development are part of this system. The corporate world is also a big, powerful system that can successfully suppress all the fire aimed at the current theory and practice in leadership. But it is a fight that we must fight because without sufficient, sound leadership, this world is heading for doom.

There is also confusion that when we talk about leadership, many people think we are talking about leaders. No what needs change is the leadership and not necessarily the leaders.

simonsbere@gmail.com

?Simon Bere, 2024