This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by Alejandro
The moment I realised leadership training was broken happened during a coffee break at a corporate retreat in Sydney. A participant approached me, visibly frustrated, and said, “Mate, I’ve done twelve leadership courses in three years. I can tell you exactly what transformational leadership means, but I still can’t get my team to turn up on time for meetings.”
That hit me like a brick wall.
After fifteen years of delivering “leadership development programmes,” I’d become part of the problem. Teaching theory to people who needed practical solutions. Sharing frameworks with folks who couldn’t figure out how to give feedback without starting a workplace war.
The Leadership Industrial Complex
The leadership training industry has created a monster. We’ve turned basic human management into some sort of mystical art form that requires certification, complex models, and extensive vocabulary lessons.
Walk into any leadership seminar and you’ll hear about “servant leadership,” “situational leadership,” “authentic leadership,” and about seventeen other types of leadership that all sound impressive but leave people more confused than when they started.
Here’s what nobody admits: most leadership challenges aren’t leadership problems – they’re communication problems dressed up with fancy labels.
That manager who can’t motivate their team? They probably can’t have honest conversations about performance. The supervisor struggling with “change management”? They likely haven’t learned how to explain decisions without sounding like a corporate press release.
The team leader dealing with “conflict resolution issues”? Nine times out of ten, they’re just avoiding difficult conversations until small problems become departmental disasters.
What I Got Wrong for Fifteen Years
I used to believe that good leaders were born with some magical combination of charisma, vision, and natural authority. Complete rubbish, as it turns out.
The best leaders I’ve worked with – and I mean the ones who actually get results, not just positive 360 reviews – share one common trait: they’re willing to have uncomfortable conversations before those conversations become unavoidable.
That’s it. No mystical leadership aura required.
I remember working with a supervisor in Adelaide who was struggling with what HR called “team engagement issues.” Fancy way of saying half his crew couldn’t stand working with him. Instead of enrolling him in another leadership course, we focused on something much simpler: helping him learn to manage difficult conversations without losing his mind.
Six months later, his team’s productivity had increased by 23%, and more importantly, people actually enjoyed coming to work. No vision statements or leadership competency models required.
website : https://optionshop.bigcartel.com/
This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by Alejandro