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satisfied with life in the “slow lane” while another has a high level of
motivation to make a major impact on his or her “world.”

John Gardner, in his book On Leadership, noted that most of what leaders have

that enables them to lead is learned. Leadership is not a mysterious activity …
And the capacity to perform those tasks is widely distributed in the population.
21
Subsequent chapters of this book will demonstrate how basic leadership
competencies and skills can be developed and nurtured through a variety
of means including education, training, and experience.

Leadership and Inspiration

Clearly, leaders must be able to inspire people if they are to have followers,

but this means that they have to have something worthy of inspiration to
communicate. People will be inspired if they strongly desire and believe in
what the leader stands for. The leader has to be going somewhere
desirable, and must be able to persuade other people to go along. The
ability to communicate and invoke action is more important than any other

specific personal leadership style or characteristic. The concept of
inspiration will be covered in more detail in subsequent chapters of this
book.

Facilitating the Learning of Leadership

Peter Senge (The Fifth Discipline) and other noted leadership experts say
that the primary job of leaders now is the facilitation of learning. People
don’t change their behavior unless they first change their attitudes, and this

type of change generally comes through a process of learning. Leaders
must be able to make a compelling case for the current need for change, or
their constituents will stay satisfied with the existing situation, no matter
how bad it is. A considerable portion of this book will be devoted to
clarifying the learning of leadership competencies and skills.

21 John Gardner, On Leadership, New York NY: Free Press, 1993, p. xv.

David Kolzow 15