Learning to lead
January 26, 2008 by Miki Saxon
Regarding my Jan 17th post about why leadership training doesn’t provide leaders, Wally Bock comments, “Leadership is an apprentice trade.”
So true. His comment reminded me of an ancient Chinese proverb that holds the true secret of learning and growth.
As with most real wisdom, it hasn’t lost its meaning or its value over the ages.
I hear and I forget.
I see and I remember.
I do and I understand.
How do you learn best?
Your comments—priceless
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Being thrown to the wolves is a good way to force someone to learn portions of the trade.
I’ve been looking back at my life and realize that I regularly end up in some sort of leadership-ish role. However, I tend to regularly get to step into the fire with no useful apprenticeship. Or my apprenticeship comes from someone who was thrown into the fire and came out…or something along those lines.
Anyway, after having the ability to look back with 20/20 hindsight I can see a great deal of improvements that could’ve been made if I had the benefit of some well thought-out guidance. At what point does doing need to be tempured by hearing and seeing (teaching)?
Luke, There is probably nothing that couldn’t be improved based on 20/20 hindsight. That said, the ideal is to work for a leader, learn by watching, apply what you’ve learned and receive thoughtful critiquing. The unfortunate reality is that that rarely happens.
You can create an informal leadership advisory board. I’ll further describe how in tomorrow’s (1/29) post.
If I were the Head Proverb Writer, I would change the last line to read as follows: “I do, I get feedback, and I can do better.”
Wally, That would be a different proverb. The point here is that a person learns by doing, not reading or hearing about something. As you said last Thursday “Leadership is an apprentice trade.”