5 ways to develop leaders

Leadership is big business. There’s over 3,200 products tagged “leadership” on amazon.com. This leadership industry of selling goods and services shows there’s tons of interest in leadership development amidst organizations of all kinds: government, business, corporations, non-profits, ministries, churches, et al.

Since leadership development has become a big part of my work life via L² Foundation and Leadership Network, I’ve found basically 5 ways (programs, methods) to train and develop leaders:

• cohorts – a group of leaders get together regularly over time and provide peer-to-peer feedback to spur on one another’s leadership development
• conferences – event that brings a larger number of people together for more of an inspirational experience
• courses – teaching content about leadership in some kind of an educational and cognitive manner, class size could be small or large, and volumes of knowledge gained
• coaching – a personal coach gives coaching feedback to the leader
• residency – the mentor and apprentice(s) work and/or live in the same place, blending both content and practice, both coaching and and intangible character formation

All of these ways to do leadership development. What’s missing? Are there any other ways? Please let me know!

Aside: I just started reading a preview copy of a forthcoming book, Making Room for Leadership: Power, Space, and Influence, by Mark Kate Morse. Unlike many (most?) other leadership books filled with pithy sayings and illustrative stories, the author calls out the rarely-addressed issues of power and space, exploring the dynamics of body language and inter-personal relationships. These have to be addressed! This looks like a very valuable book I’ll read through in its entirety.

And then, there are some individuals that are naturally gifted leaders, who can still benefit from training programs, but they’ve already had a head-start out of the womb, and unless they mess up ethically or morally, those are the “leader of leaders”.