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circumstances and situations are in a constant state of change around us,
leadership development must be a dynamic process that constantly seeks
to respond to change.
In order for organizations to improve their effectiveness, the mind-set
should be shifted from viewing leadership development as strictly
individual development to developing an organization-wide community of
leaders that learns and grows together through coursework, dialogue,
mutual coaching, and accountability. High performance organizations
306
spend significantly more on training and development than typical
organizations.
307
Unfortunately, many CEOs and organizations still tend to think that people
who are managed and employed and paid to do a job should do what
they're told to do. We are conditioned from an early age to believe that the
way to teach and train, and to motivate people towards changing what
they do, is to tell them, or to persuade them. From our experiences at
school we are conditioned to believe that skills, knowledge, and
expectations are imposed on or “put into” people by teachers, and later, by
managers and bosses in the workplace.
However, just because the CEO, or Mayor, or Governor says so, doesn't
make it so. People today have a different perspective. Increasingly, just
about everyone in the typical organization wants to know what is going on
and wants to have some say in the functioning of the organization. The
challenge is to encourage the development of leadership capacity at all
levels of the organization, whether it is government or a nonprofit agency.
One important key to successful leadership development in the
organization is that top management should try to know and understand
each individual of the staff before attempting to develop them into leaders.
It is likely that two people experiencing the same events will not
necessarily become similar type leaders, depending on what they are
“bringing to the table.” The meaning that one attaches to work or life
events is determined by that individual’s perspective, and that strongly
306 http://www.trainingmag.com/article/leadership-development-meets-teambuilding.
307 Tom Hornsby & Larry Warkoczeksi, New Roles for Leaders. Franklin TN: Hillsboro Press, 2000, p. 25.
David Kolzow 284

