ABSTRACT
By simply asking the question ‘can leadership be taught?’ one is immediately putting oneself in danger of ringing alarm bells and raising hackles on a truly grand scale. That is because an enormous amount of business activity, on a global basis, is based on creating the belief among buyers that not only can leadership be taught, but that there are many who are qualified to teach it, through a variety of methods. These include textbooks, conventional training courses, unconventional training courses (such as getting managers to perform Shakespeare plays or abseil down rock faces with their colleagues) and computer-based training programmes. The market for these products and services is large, growing and genuinely global. Well established since the early twentieth century in North America, and later in Western Europe, the leadership teaching business has spread to nearly all parts of the world, with recent high growth in the emerging economies (Szamosi et al. 2008). An examination of the market for ‘leadership skills’ books will quickly reveal the type of territory in which leadership training providers operate; in fact the very use of the word ‘skill’ is highly indicative. The three key implications are as follows. First, that leadership capability can be acquired didactically, through instruction in relevant knowledge and techniques. Second, that these ‘skills’ are universal and, once acquired are applicable to any and all leadership roles and situations. Third, that leadership is, in essence, an individual-level phenomenon or, put another way, the base unit of analysis in the study of leadership must always be the individual rather than the group, the organization, the surrounding society and culture, or humankind. The social and cultural contexts in which leaders perform are deemed secondary to how they conduct themselves, particularly in applying their leadership skills. In this chapter, I shall critically examine each of these implications and use this analysis to try to address the question of whether, as many are keen to assure us, leadership can be taught.
