Anton Guinea
Entrepreneur, Speaker, bestselling author, and founder of The Guinea Group of Companies. For over 15 years, Anton has helped leaders move their teams to become psychologically safe, physically safe and overall better versions of themselves.
It is the age-old question: are leaders born or bred, and can leadership be taught?
The answer is a resounding yes … leadership is a skill, hence it can be learnt, though there are some stipulations that sit behind the answer, and it is important to understand those, and what you need to really do to get leadership training right.
So, can leadership be taught, yes – then, how should it be taught?
Charles Jennings developed a model that lays out the best way to train leaders. His theory is that only 10% of the training that leaders receive should be formal (classroom styled) training. The remainder should be on the job training, and informal learning.
As much as I agree with this model, and the fact that leadership is learnt ‘in the trenches’ and through experience, and the school of hard knocks, fundamentally, leadership training most importantly should not be just focused on leadership, is needs to be based on the requirements, and the values of the business.
Given that leaders are ‘value ambassadors’ and ‘care factor agents’ for the business, it is important that these elements are included in the leadership training program. And, can these elements of leadership be taught (values and care factor) … absolutely.
So, as you start thinking about investing in leadership training, please consider these things…
Ensure that the training is specific to your business:
Your leaders will get way more from the experience if it is not just vanilla training. Your leaders need the chocolate training, with strawberries on top, they need a totally aligned and integrated program, that helps them understand what leadership really is, and how to develop their skills
Leaders need to want to attend the training:
This is essential. Please, please, don’t send your leaders to leadership training if they are conscripts. Take the time, make an effort, to talk your leaders through the value of the training, why it is important, and how it will benefit them. Frame it up in the positive – you would not believe how many times I have stood in front of a group of leaders that either don’t know why they are there, or just don’t want to be
Leaders need to be supported after the training:
This is also essential. Leaders who sit in a classroom and are then expected to go out and fix the world, are just not being set up for success. For information, our business has moved away from a day after day training model to one that includes an element of training, and an element of coaching. The coaching session is where we see the best results – it makes it more personal, and leaders can internalise the information, then discuss what it means to them, and how they can implement it.
Can leadership be taught? It sure can, if done right!
And please click the image below if you’d like to chat about what leadership means to you.
If you would like to learn more about Anton or The Guinea Group, please click here to book into Anton’s calendar, to:
UPGRADE your Mindset
UPSKILL your Leadership
UPLIFT your Teams