I hold the belief that leadership is as much a clinical discipline as counseling or psychology. Really, leadership takes the evidence of a given domain and then seeks to modify human behavior towards a desired outcome using the domain-specific evidence. But there are huge differences in the way clinicians are educated and the way “leaders” are trained.

For example, clinical disciplines follow a formal education pattern:

  • Undergraduate clinical training provides the language of a clinical discipline
  • Graduate education provides ways and means of applying and using the language
  • Postgraduate training provides opportunities to create new language

Leadership education is maybe one or two classes and perhaps a workshop here and there. Really, the day-to-day world sees leadership as a job function that anybody can perform. I’ve been around long enough to see that most managers really have had no real and verifiable training in human behavior. Where counselors and therapists have to provide evidence of both their training and experience in order to gain a license, all a manager has to do is either last longer than anybody else or be the best communicator who interviewed for a gig. I really believe that leadership training SHOULD follow the same path as clinical disciplines.

As a side note: In the Information Technology realm, especially, there’s so many bad managers that I’ve basically gotten to the point of accepting that IT management is just bad.   To me, formal leadership training should be mandatory before someone can hold a management or authority job. But, my opinion on the matter really doesn’t hold much weight, really.

Maybe I’m wrong, but I think that people all too often commingle personality traits with ideas about leadership that if someone is charismatic and outspoken, then most probably view that person as a leader. But that’s hogwash. Leadership is about the contextually appropriate distribution of power towards a certain outcome. “Leaders” can be built, but personality alone should never be an indicator of leadership capability.

But it is. And that fact saddens and frustrates me. Leadership training should be treated as a clinical discipline and not just be assumed that it comes with the territory of a job. Just because someone holds an authority position, say a manager or a supervisor role, does not make that person a leader. But what do I know? Years of watering down the idea of a leader has made even my suggestion that Leadership be treated as a clinical discipline quite laughable. But I dare ANYONE to get positive outcome without a real a fundamental understanding of leadership. It won’t happen.