I agree wholeheartedly with the content of this article and subsequent comments below however have a concern for the current level of leadership expertise and ability from current 'leaders' for the less inexperienced staff to be modelled/ learn from. I believe that there is a duty of responsibility from senior managers to totally engage with the learning and development of their staff and review succession planning by reviewing competencies as well as knowledge and skills regularly. This way they can focus on skills gaps and ensure that managers become better leaders through increasing knowledge, dealing with situations and increasing experience.

You could compare this to a matriarch elephant, albeit she is normally the eldest, who becomes the leader of the herd due to her wealth of knowledge and experience in her lifetime and from modelling her behaviour over the years each elephant in turn learns the same routes, knows how to handle difficult situations and survive and ultimately become leaders in their own right. I am not saying that a great leader needs to be of an older generation but as senior positions are being filled progressively by a younger generation they do not have the same life or work experience for others to follow leaving a gap in leadership capability and incorrect modelling.

I feel that blended training solutions help and would not write off Leadership Training on the basis of it being the part of the knowledge or background behind best leadership or management practices. The difficulty with this type of training is the post re-enforcement or generally lack of which happens after the classroom. This should be accompanied with personal development plans, coaching on shift and regular feedback and performance reviews. I would also suggest that the integration of several measurement systems such as 360 degree feedback and also looking to simulate difficult situations under training supervision to allow those the opportunity to put into practice what they have learned but also getting feedback afterwards would also help bridge these gaps.

Having managers self assess their current skills and also post assess situations allows them also as mentioned in the comments above to become more self motivated as opposed to extrinsically motivated having a longer term effect on performance.

Very interesting reading.