Defining the competencies of leadership

Of the Best Rulers

Of the best rulers,
The people only know that they exist;
The next best they love and praise
The next they fear;
And the next they revile.
When they do not command the people's faith,
Some will lose faith in them,
And then they resort to oaths!
But of the best when their task is accomplished,
their work done,
The people all remark, "We have done it ourselves."

Leadership Can Be Learned

"Leadership can be defined as a set of competencies which can be learned. Some eighty aspects of knowledge, skills, and attitudes have been taken into account in our research which have been clustered into competencies. To sum it up. an understanding of the concepts described here has helped us to bring into focus that the acquisition of leadership competencies should occur by plan and design, rather than by accident. Although leaders may emerge — as they do today — as by-products of group processes, this is neither an economical nor an effective way of developing leadership."

Leadership is a "process with a purpose. It is a process of the learner moving from a state wherein he cannot yet perform as the described purpose of the training to a state where he can demonstrate such performance. This move is what training is about. Training is the making of specific arrangements in the environment of the learner which provide him with experiences by which he can confront and master the learning task, by which he can be transformed to the state where he can perform as desired." 

"Leadership development cannot be perceived as a single training course or as a one-shot event, but must be a continuous sequence of closely chained and systematically organized learning and experience-building opportunities." Bela Banathy

The Teachable Leader

A mature leader is teachable. Not only do they seek knowledge and inspiration from others, but they turn inward and upward to be lifted up by God. 

"Being a teachable leader is one who serves without question, and values others more highly than themselves."  Niki Pellegrin

When King Nebuchadnezzar was disciplined by God (Daniel 4:31), all he possessed and trusted were taken from him. He returned to his palace a changed man. Where before he was self-centered and prideful, he gave up his claim to sovereignty or wisdom. He gave credit for his greatness to God. He put God first, rather than himself.

Nebuchadnezzar developed a teachable spirit:

• He expressed appreciation for God's grace and mercy.
• He developed a passion and hunger for personal growth.
• He developed a perspective of life from a higher viewpoint.
• He was not satisfied with the things as the are.
• He acted with humility.

"For most people, it's not what they are that holds them back, it's what they think they are not." John Maxwell

The Humble Leader

To become a leader, you must first submit.

Identify your shortcomings and faults.

Give up any notion that you are in charge.

Acknowledge your debt to those who have taught you.

Confess your sins and seek forgiveness.

Give credit where credit is due.

Find what your people need and serve them.

"Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it." Dwight Eisenhower

The Founding Principle

Of everything we teach, the competency Manager of Learning is fundamental. Without it, little else has real meaning. A grasp of its basic concepts leads to an understanding of the entire White Stag program's operating thesis.

Manager of Learning Concepts

An effective Manager of Learning first writes down specific, measurable objectives that define what he will teach. He tells the participants what these objectives are so they know what he is expected to learn during the session.

The Manager of Learning then creates a need to learn in the participants with a pre-planned situation, what we call a guided discovery. It is designed to make a demand on the learner so that he can internalize the need for new principles, concepts, skills and techniques and/or improvement of those existing. The learner and the manager of learning will understand what the learner's current knowledge is relative to the manager of learner's stated objectives.

Once a need to learn has been established, the Manager of Learning proceeds, teaching from the known to the unknown. He employs a variety of preferably hands-on teach/learn methods that actively engage the participant in practicing the attitudes, skills, and knowledge being introduced. 

Having effectively transmitted the information and raised the participants' level of knowledge, the Manager of Learning gives them an opportunity to practice their new attitudes, skills and knowledge in the form of an application. This hands-on practice session gives the learners a chance to put their newly acquired knowledge to work. Research confirms that individuals who practice -- vs. those who just listen, read, or recite -- remember considerably more. 

Lastly, the Manager of Learning asks the participants to evaluate their learning. He revisits the originally stated objectives and helps the participants to compare what the information they started with to the information they gained. Furthermore, he asks them to evaluate the session itself -- its strengths and weakness and areas for improvement.

Operating Principles

White Stag describes group development as having four maturity levels:

Manager of Learning begins with an assessment of what the learner’s know in the form of a Guided Discovery. The staff then proceeds from that point forward, utilizing the expertise of more knowledgeable participants to facilitate the learning of others. A variety of teaching methods are employed, including games, assigned projects, buzz groups, exhibits, simulations, games, role plays, and more. Among those is one method that closely resembles the Leading EDGE technique. We call it the Introduction, Explanation, Demonstration, Application, and Summary (IEDAS). These are steps utilized within the Teach/Learn phase of a leadership training session.

"The Manager of Learning process is not lock-step but at the learner's own pace of discovery. It is open ended, not confined to one 'right way,' and cyclical — new learning is based on old learning plateaus. It is a design for producing in-depth learning. The emphasis is on learning, not on what the instructor teaches.

Learning situations are designed that hopefully are directly relevant to the content of the training. For example, in the session about communication, the learners are first put in a situation where they must use their communication skills to relay essential information, such as the destination for that day’s hike, or the location of their next meal. If the session is about teaching, the learners are given an opportunity to practice teaching.

Manager of Learning "... is much more than merely the key instructional method we use, but explains the philosophy of perception/exposure/application as our dominant philosophy." Read more about Manager of Learning. 

Participants are not blank slates

Among the skills the National Boy Scouts of America used to include in its Junior Leader Training program was one called Effective Teaching. In the updated National Youth Leadership Training program, this has been re-christened Teaching EDGE™ (Explain, Demonstrate, Guide, Enable). 

At no time before getting started are the trainers given an opportunity to assess whether the participants actually know anything. The trainers assume the learners know nothing and teach from scratch. Now when was it ever true that every participant in a training experience start off with the same level of skill?

Even were that true, how does the trainer know whether the participants actually learn anything? Trainers teach participants to evaluate using the "start, stop, continue" method, but they never apply it to their own objectives, as in, "What should we stop doing because it isn't helping?"

Originally conceived by Bela Banathy as "Manager of Learning," this competency has been watered down until it is no longer a recognizable part of anything taught during the NYLT program. In this change, the BSA National Training staff reveals their complete lack of understanding of the competency.

Learning should establish respect

In a nutshell, Manager of Learning describes a system for exposing learners to the need to know and involving them in their own learning. Because the competency doesn't assume that the participant is a blank slate, it establishes mutual respect between the trainer and trainee. 

It is not only one of the competencies taught in the program, it is a method for leadership development which we embrace as essential to participatory, experiential, leadership development. In re-christening the competency as "Effective Teaching," the default attention once again shifts to the instructor. We believe the main attention belongs on the learner: did they actually learn anything new?

In Manager of Learning, the focus is on the learner

The reason the competency was named "Manager of Learning" is because we have shifted our attention from instruction to learning. This does not mean that we minimize the importance of instruction or the role of the instructor.

The significance of instruction is not questioned here at all. The point that is made here is that the learning task is the nucleus around which to design instruction. The role and function of instruction should be viewed in its proper relationship to learning. It should be planned for and provided for accordingly. Instruction is a means to an end and not an end in itself. Its function is to facilitate learning. 1

The effectiveness of the learning experience is not measured by the effort made by the instructor but by the amount of learning achieved by the learner.

The emphasis is on learning

A "manager of learning" is not simply a teacher. Teaching connotes activities too typically requiring a lecture hall and a large number of desks. The phrase manager of learning is carefully chosen. The emphasis is on learning, not on what the instructor teaches. Your job, as a manager of learning, is to help the participants to become more effective leaders.

Managers of learning are different from "teachers" or "instructors." They know that people learn as individuals, not as a class or group. They know each individual is important; therefore, each individual leader must learn or all will receive an inferior program. Whoever accepts the responsibility for managing learning must use unusual techniques to get unusual results.

The trainer is more than a teacher

A "manager of learning" is not simply a teacher. Teaching connotes activities too typically requiring a lecture hall and a large number of desks. The phrase manager of learning is carefully chosen. The emphasis is on learning, not on what the instructor teaches. Your job, as a manager of learning, is to help the participants to become more effective leaders.

Managers of learning are different from "teachers" or "instructors." They know that people learn as individuals, not as a class or group. They know each individual is important; therefore, each individual leader must learn or all will receive an inferior program. Whoever accepts the responsibility for managing learning must use unusual techniques to get unusual results.

Manager of Learning builds in respect for both the trainer and the participant. It assumes that trainers can discern the different capabilities of participants, and gives them the opportunity to alter the objectives as needed. The participants only get the information they need in that adds to what they already know.

State-of-the-art Leadership

I recently received an email from an individual who, after receiving a copy of our book Resources for Leadership, expressed his appreciation that the skills of leadership are timeless.

I at one time worked professionally in the arena of Training and Organizational Development. Competing against one another for clients and contracts, the consultants and companies I grew to know had to differentiate their product. Each put his or her own spin and imprint on the concepts of leadership development. As fellow members of the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD), my perception was that they never quite trusted one another, with whom they competed for the same client dollar.

I've been exposed to many leadership concepts and models over the years, but have yet to see anything new under the sun that could not fit somewhere into the eleven competency model originally distilled by Bela Banathy in the early 1960s. Teaching about communication? Look into Getting and Giving Information. Thinking about project planning? See Problem Solving , Evaluation, and Controlling the Group. Considering what you must change within yourself?  Consider Setting the Example. 

Have you seen anything new under the sun?