I read through all the links you sent and am writing him today. I’ll keep you posted on what happens.

Thanks again!
Miki

I’ve been doing some additional research on the author, Chris Flett, that I talked about on my last comment. His company is “GhostCEO” (www.GhostCEO.com) and his book is a bestseller. I found it on Amazon here. Anyway, he was in the NY Times last Sunday under the “Career Couch” and he makes reference to women’s blogs like yours so I thought you might like to connect. I’d like to see you interview him and see what he’s all about. I saw on another blog he was a guest blogger. His email is: chris@ghostceo.com

Best wishes,

Bihter.

Great conversation :-)

>we can/will turn the chosen into ‘leaders’ and those ‘leaders’ can/will take the company to the heights

Sure, I’d agree, this is a pretty standard sales story for those selling leadership. That said, the message rings pretty hollow for me in as much as the market itself (B2B and B2C) is very fragmented, despite having been around for a reasonable amount of time. There are many reasons behind this fragmentation, some of which include;

1. Leadership is arguably a nascent industry, although I say that this view is pretty generous as there are many other historic examples of leadership that we can talk about e.g. Maslow, Hertzberg, classic psychologists like Freud, Jung and Skinner, military training etc. etc.

2. There is little consensus from suppliers, customers and even academics about what works e.g. http://tinyurl.com/5ec9rx

3. There are generally healthy levels of demand for leadership

4. As you say, the term has become ‘owned’ by the media, creating further problems around labelling and definition e.g. leadership is as much about personal and professional development as it is an alter to worship at as it is a watch word for ‘my career’!

5. I believe that there is a subconscious or unknown quantity to ‘leadership’ or self development, otherwise there would be more ‘if you do X you get Y’ type of thinking and results which tends to characterise problems that have been successfully solved (see item 2!)

5a. ‘If you do X you get Y’ thinking can be seen across many swathes of humanity, for example, healthcare, diet, exercise, financial services, engineering, computer science, politics, law and so forth

5c. Combining points 3 and 5 leads me to the view that there is an (as you say below) opportunity for pushing ‘leadership’ to a wider audience!

>I don’t believe that it’s just about outcome, it’s also about opportunity

Absolutely…

>Further, those who aren’t ‘chosen’ end up believing that they lack the potential

Possibly… I can certainly see your point. In a similar vein, especially around the marketing messages and point 2 above, I’m chewing on a couple of ideas at the moment that pick up on these themes…

* Self acceptance (and its derivative forms in language) are a lowest common denominator for human nature. People’s success/wellbeing/good stuff/bad stuff is a function of their self acceptance. I am currently chatting to and talking to people about this as I try and prove/disprove the notion

* Self acceptance is not (in the main) discussed as an outcome amongst practitioners. That said, outcomes discussed amongst practitioners are as widespread and fragmented as the problems that present!!!

Similarly, in crafting a proposition and delivery of outcome that addresses some of the points above, economies of scale will increase the opportunity by default!

Let me know if this catches the imagination but this, in part, is what I’m thinking about at the moment…

You say “everyone knows their leadership potential.” How do they know? Are they assessed in some way to determine it? At what point in their career? Is it potential in general or in a specific area?

What I would like to see is a culture of leadership where everyone knows their leadership potential and steps up into it. One of my favorite sayings is from The Art of Possibility by Zander. The authors talk about leading from any chair (the chair being any musician in an orchestra not just the conductor or the star violinist).

Lets have a culture of leading from any chair.

I don’t believe that it’s just about outcome, it’s also about opportunity. If you’re not ‘chosen’ you don’t receive training—unless you can pay for it yourself, which many can’t.

Further, those who aren’t ‘chosen’ end up believing that they lack the potential and therefore don’t aspire—kind of like being classified as slow because of an undiagnosed learning disability.