can leadership be taught

Can Leadership Be Taught?Perspectives From

Management EducatorsInterview and Commentary by JONATHAN P. DOH

Villanova University

“More than knowledge, leaders need charac-ter. Values and ethics are vitally important.The basics of leadership can be taught. Whatis desperately needed is more responsibleleadership—a new ethic to confront the chal-lenges of our day.”

—Oscar Arias (personal communication,June 18, 2001)

Leadership is an increasingly ubiquitous subjectin business school curricula, a theme of popularbusiness books, and a topic for academic and prac-titioner research.1 Leadership research has blos-somed: It is now a primary focus of great bodies ofscholarly and practitioner research and the do-main of more than a dozen journals. Concurrently,undergraduate, graduate, and executive manage-ment institutes, programs, and courses directedtoward training future leaders and improving lead-ership skills have proliferated. Historically, there hasbeen debate over whether leadership is a skill, trait,

or innate behavior.2 Although most management ed-ucators now agree that leadership is both a skill anda behavior that exhibits that skill, this dual defini-tion has generated additional disagreement overwhether leadership can be taught.3 That question isthe primary focus of this forum.

To provide initial observations regarding the ques-tion of whether leadership can be taught and to ex-plore the subsidiary issues of the potential effective-ness of leadership education, particularly within U.S.business schools, I interviewed leading manage-ment scholars involved in leadership research, edu-cation, and development. I chose individuals whoseresearch and pedagogical experience related toleadership (broadly defined), but who also had inter-ests and experiences that would allow them to placeleadership within the context of the broader goals ofmanagement education. All have had experience inexecutive education or other contexts that allowedthem to critically evaluate the questions posed here.I asked these experts to respond briefly to a series ofquestions about whether leadership can be learned,and if so, whether it can be taught. As a subsidiaryfocus, I inquired as to what approaches and tech-niques are likely to be most effective in teachingleadership and developing leadership skills, whatindividuals and groups are most likely to benefitfrom leadership education, and what institutions orindividuals are best positioned to deliver effectiveleadership courses.

In the selection of these scholars, I sought toinclude some of the major living contributors toresearch at the intersection of leadership and ed-ucation. I wanted to include educators who hadresearched and engaged in scholarly exchange

I thank AMLE associate editor Allen Bluedorn and two anony-mous reviewers for helpful guidance in preparation of thismanuscript. I also express appreciation to the six managementscholars who participated in this project, acknowledge researchassistance of Brandon Ruppel, and extend particular gratitudeto Stephen Stumpf for his guidance and support of this effort.1 See Bird (1940) and Stogdill (1948, 1974) for representative ex-amples of early research on the individual factors associatedwith leadership; Hencley (1973) and Hoy and Miskel (1987) forreviews of research examining the situational context, setting,and climate in which leadership is exhibited; House, Spangler,and Woycke (1991), Klein and House (1995), and Pawar andEastman (1997) for more recent leadership research focused onquestions surrounding CEO and top management team cha-risma; Hambrick and Mason (1984), Hitt and Tyler (1991), andIreland and Hitt (1999) for insight into the intersection of strate-gic management and leadership; and Bass (1985), Bryman (1992),Sashkin (1988), Tichy and Devanna, (1986), and Westley andMintzberg (1989) for reference to research into “transformation-al” leadership, i.e., leadership that prompts a fundamental shiftin organizational paradigm. Bass (1985), Conger (1989, 1990), andKanungo (1988) provide broad introductions to research intocharismatic leadership.

2 By “innate,” I mean built-in, such as breathing or sleeping (forsome). However, even here, we can learn to breath easier andsleep better.3 As a simple convention, I define teaching as instruction, andlearning as the process whereby knowledge is gained, whetheras a result of being taught or by other means.

� Academy of Management Learning and Education, 2003, Vol. 2, No. 1, 54–67.

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about leadership as well as made contributions topractice through their writings, consulting, and ex-ecutive training.

The panel members are Christopher A. Bartlett,Harvard Business School; Kim S. Cameron, Univer-sity of Michigan Business School; Jay Conger, Lon-don Business School and University of SouthernCalifornia, Los Angeles; Michael A. Hitt, ArizonaState University; Stephen Stumpf, Villanova Uni-versity; and Michael Useem, Wharton School, Uni-versity of Pennsylvania.

Three interviews were conducted in person dur-ing summer and fall, 2001, and three were con-ducted by way of e-mail exchange during fall, 2001.The face-to-face interviews were recorded. The re-spondents were given the opportunity to reviewthe abbreviated written transcripts of the inter-views to correct factual errors or clarify meaning,but they were not permitted to alter the transcriptor change their responses to the questions posed.To further clarify perspectives related to whetherleadership could be taught (versus learned), I con-ducted a short follow-up interview by way of e-mail during January, 2002.

The small sample is limited in several respects.First, with the exception of Chris Bartlett, it is com-prised of U.S. management scholars and educa-tors, and therefore, does not reflect a nationally orculturally diverse population (Bartlett is a native ofAustralia and divides his time between the UnitedStates and Australia). Second, there are no womenin the sample, and therefore, the views are notfully representative. Third, the responses may notbe fully comparable because those who respondedto written inquiries were afforded greater opportu-nity to contemplate and review their responsesprior to making them than were those interviewedin person. Nonetheless, this brief review providessome interesting insights into the individual andcollective views of these experts. Such insightsmay begin to clarify some questions about whetherleadership can be taught, and more broadly, mayinform discussions regarding the role of manage-ment education in developing leadership skills.

PERSPECTIVES ON TEACHING (AND LEARNING)LEADERSHIP

Leadership has long occupied a prominent placein management research and education.4 Lead-ership has also become a pervasive subject ofmanagement education research and practice.Leadership journals have proliferated (see Table1), and leadership courses are now a part ofnearly every major business school’s curriculumin the country (see Table 2). More than threefifths of the top 50 U.S. business schools as de-fined by the 2002 U.S. News and World Reportrankings publicize that they offer some course-work in leadership. In addition, a wide array ofleadership research centers, institutes, and pro-grams within and outside of business schoolsexists. The existence and proliferation of theseinitiatives presumes that leadership is (1) an im-portant area for management learning; and (2)

4 Early contributions to this research include Barnard’s (1938)discussion of the functions of the executive and early investi-gations of leaders as individuals possessing specific personal-ity traits that defined leadership abilities (Bird, 1940; Stogdill,1948, 1974). These leadership scholars have debated what spe-cific individual factors were associated with leadership andwhether such factors can be developed and learned. In partic-ular, some researchers have argued that leadership is situa-tional or context specific, suggesting that there may be oppor-tunities for mentors to influence leadership development bysubordinates or colleagues. Hoy and Miskel attempted to iden-tify “distinctive characteristics of the setting to which the lead-er’s success could be attributed” (1987: 273) and Hencley argued“the situation approach maintains that leadership is deter-mined not so much by the characters of the individuals as bythe requirements of social situation” (1973: 38).

Jonathan P. Doh

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that business schools are well equipped to un-dertake the mission of providing training andeducation in leadership. Table 2 presents exam-ples of leadership training and education initia-tives, estimates of the number of top 50 businessschools that offer those particular programs orcourses based on a search of the web sites ofeach school, and representative examples ofthese offerings both within and outside of busi-ness schools.

Leadership has also become a pervasive subjectof management education research and practice.In 1994, James Bailey, writing in The Journal ofLeadership Studies, found that

since the inception of the Journal of Manage-ment Education in 1991, 10 articles (a littleunder 10%) have appeared that dealt directlywith leadership, with a score of others eitherindirectly or parenthetically evincing thetheme. Such pedagogical attention stands astestimony of the importance of leadershipconcepts in organizational studies, but more

Christopher A. BartlettDaewoo Professor of Business Administrationand chair, Program for Global Leadership, Har-vard Business School. Previously with Alcoa andMcKinsey. Author (with Sumantra Ghoshal), Man-aging Across Borders: The Transnational Solution(2nd ed., 1998, Harvard Business School Press);named by Financial Times as one of 50 most influ-ential business books of the century; and The Indi-vidualized Corporation (HarperBusiness, 1997);winner, the Igor Ansoff Award for best new work instrategic management. Articles have appeared inHarvard Business Review, Sloan Management Re-view, Strategic Management Journal, and Acad-emy of Management Review.

Kim CameronProfessor, organizational behavior and human re-source management, University of Michigan Busi-ness School. Author, Developing ManagementSkills (HarperCollins), Diagnosing and ChangingOrganizational Culture (Addison Wesley Long-man), Organizational Decline (Ballinger), Organi-zational Effectiveness (Academic Press), andParadox and Transformation (Ballinger). Formerpresident, Bay Asset Funding Corporation and Ful-bright Distinguished Scholar. Recipient, Organiza-tional Behavior Teaching Society’s OutstandingEducator award.

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pointedly it underscores the need for innova-tive methods by which these concepts can becommunicated to and understood by the man-agement community (Bailey, 1994: 32).

A central question that has not, to date, been sat-isfactorily answered is whether leadership can betaught, and that is the focus of this discussion.

Can leadership be learned?

All the educators indicated belief that leadershipcould be learned, although each offered a number

of caveats and expressed reservations about how,where, and under what conditions such learningcan most usefully take place:

Steve Stumpf: “Can leadership be learned? Ofcourse. Leadership is not like breathing—if youdon’t focus your efforts and work at it, you won’tbe an effective leader. It may be that every per-son cannot ‘learn’ how to be an effective leader,but we could say the same about learning chess.Everyone does not have the potential to be amaster chess player. There are concepts and

Jay CongerProfessor, organizational behavior, London Busi-ness School, and senior research scientist, Centerfor Organizations, University of Southern Califor-nia, Los Angeles. Formerly executive director,Leadership Institute, University of Southern Cali-fornia. Author (with B. Benjamin), Building Leaders(Jossey-Bass), Charismatic Leadership in Organi-zations (Sage), The Leader’s Change Handbook(Jossey-Bass), and Learning to Lead (Jossey-Bass).Author, articles in Harvard Business Review, TheLeadership Quarterly, Academy of ManagementReview, and the Journal of Organizational Behav-ior. Associate editor of The Leadership Quarterly.

Michael A. HittProfessor and Weatherup/Overby Chair, ExecutiveLeadership, Arizona State University. Recipient, Ir-win Outstanding Educator Award from the Busi-ness Policy and Strategy Division, Academy ofManagement. Past president, Academy of Manage-ment. Author (with Robert E. Hoskisson, Downscop-ing: How to Tame the Diversified Firm (OxfordUniversity Press), “Achieving and MaintainingStrategic Competitiveness in the 21st Century: TheRole of Strategic Leadership” (with R. Duane Ire-land), Academy of Management Executive, 2000,and numerous other articles. Former editor, Acad-emy of Management Journal.

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practices that can be learned (and taught) thatwill enhance the leadership effectiveness ofmany people (but not all).”

Leadership is not like breathing—if youdon’t focus your efforts and work at it,you won’t be an effective leader.”—Stephen Stumpf

Mike Useem: “Some managers have a head startin acquiring leadership capacities, but everyonecan improve. It is a learned capacity, albeit onethat for many proves very difficult to master.”

Kim Cameron: “Some people have an inclinationto learn some competencies faster or better thanothers, of course, and some people reflect morecharismatic or likable characteristics than others.But many great leaders are not those that appearon the covers of Time and Fortune. They havelearned to achieve spectacular results in their owncircumstances. Think of parents. Can people learnto become better parents, or are we just born either

Stephen StumpfProfessor, Management Department chair, andFred Springer Chair of Business Leadership, Vil-lanova University. Formerly dean, Professional De-velopment, Booz/Allen/Hamilton; dean, College ofBusiness and Graduate Studies, The University ofTampa; professor and director, Center for Leader-ship, Stern School, NYU. Author, “21st-CenturyLeadership: Redefining Management Education,”Strategy � Business; Learning To Use What YouAlready Know (with J. Deluca; Berrett-Koehler);Taking Charge: Strategic Leadership in the MiddleGame (with T. Mullen; Prentice Hall). Recipient, theOrganizational Behavior Teaching Society’s Out-standing Educator award.

Michael UseemWilliam and Jacalyn Egan Professor of Manage-ment at the Wharton School and director, WhartonCenter for Leadership and Change Management.Author, The Leadership Moment: Nine True Storiesof Triumph and Disaster and Their Lessons for UsAll (New York: Times Books/Random House) andLeading Up (Crown Business/Random House). Or-ganizer, teams of Wharton graduates, companymanagers, and other groups for treks up MountEverest, trips to Civil War battlefields, and otherlearning events for leadership development.


competent or not? Everyone would agree that ef-fective parenting can be learned and improved. Socan effective leadership.”

Jay Conger: “Yes, most definitely. Here work ex-periences, bosses, special projects, role models,education all play a role in leadership develop-ment. Using an analogy with sports, . . . not every-one can become an outstanding player despitecoaching, yet most will benefit and improve their‘game.’ A few will go on to become stars or out-standing leaders given coaching, extensive expe-riences, and personal drive.”

“. . . Not everyone can become anoutstanding player despite coaching,yet most will benefit and improvetheir ‘game.’”—Jay Conger

Mike Hitt: “I’m not of the view that you are eitherborn with a trait or not. Obviously, some people aremore prone to be leaders. For example . . . somepeople are more extroverted and some more intro-verted. And maybe those who are extrovertedwould be more comfortable in leadership posi-tions . . . but the bottom line is, leadership can belearned.”

Can leadership be taught?

Agreeing that some aspects of leadership can belearned is not the same as saying that they can betaught, at least in the formal sense. Most of themanagement educators agreed that some aspectsof leadership could be taught; although, there weredifferences in their views regarding how success-fully leadership skills can be developed throughformal courses and coaching. According to many ofthe experts, whether leadership can be taught is ascontingent on the student as on the teacher.

Jay Conger: “Yes [leadership can be taught], butonly certain aspects. Let’s say that leadership ismade up of three different dimensions: skills, per-spectives, and dispositions. Many leadership skillscan be taught, and to some extent perspectivesmay be developed and enhanced through educa-tion. For example, we can teach how to presentideas more persuasively and communicate moreinspirationally. We can also teach aspects of stra-tegic thinking so one’s perspective is broadened. Atthe same time, there is a critical contextual dimen-sion to strategic thinking which is [the] product ofimmersion in one’s field as well as a mental capacityto think more conceptually. These are difficult toteach. In terms of dispositions, these are a product of

life, family, and possibly genes. So the latter cannotbe taught. For example, we cannot teach a person tobe ambitious or to be more open to risk taking—which would be dispositional characteristics.”

Kim Cameron: “Let’s take the assumption thatthe answer is ‘no.’ Leadership can’t be taught andleadership can’t be learned. That means we shouldchange entirely our research and teaching empha-sis in universities. We should begin to focus onfinding the genetic code that is associated withleadership. Forget theory. Forget models. Forgetcorrelations and predictors. Forget qualitative in-vestigations of great leaders. Close down Fortuneand Business Week and all the leadership journals.Eliminate training and development departmentsin most companies. If I can’t learn it and I can’thelp someone else improve it, let’s stop wastingresources on all this nonsense we pretend to bedoing in higher education. If leaders are born notmade—and if no one can teach anyone else toimprove—let’s start investigating leadership in thebiology lab rather than in the business world. Soyes, unequivocally [leadership can be taught].Some people have an inclination to learn somecompetencies faster or better than others, ofcourse, and some people reflect more charismaticor likable characteristics than others.”

“If leaders are born not made—and if noone can teach anyone else to improve—let’s start investigating leadership in thebiology lab rather than in the businessworld.”—Kim Cameron

Steve Stumpf: “Can leadership be taught? Ofcourse. But the methods of teaching need to focuson creating meaningful experiences from whichthe student can learn. Book knowledge is only asmall part of effective leadership—just as readinga tennis book is only a small part of being anexceptional tennis player. Leadership is a perfor-mance sport. Leadership requires both thinkingand doing—to the satisfaction of many others withdiverse expectations. Hence, most of what istaught as ‘best practice’ is only best practice for aspecific audience—one that the particular learnermay not encounter. This is what makes it appearthat leadership can be learned, but not taught. Ifwe could stop the world, then the teachings wouldwork next time. With the world changing (i.e., ev-ery leadership episode being unique, just like thesnow flakes that are falling), what is taught—to beuseful—must be learned in a personal, applicable,more intuitive way.”

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Mike Hitt: “The basic definitions of teaching andlearning are ‘to impart knowledge’ and ‘to acquireknowledge,’ respectively. The short answer to yourquestions is ‘yes.’ Obviously, it is a little morecomplex, however. The knowledge required to per-form what my colleagues and I refer to as strategicleadership has both explicit and tacit components.The explicit components are easier to teach. Someof the explicit components include knowledge ofthe steps necessary to develop a strategy and vi-sion. There are actions required to ‘empower’ em-ployees to take desired actions. However, there aresubtle and tacit actions and processes required togain commitment to a strategy and vision. Thereare tacit components of empowering employees(building relationships, demonstrating confidencebut with humility). Some of the tacit dimensionsmay be conveyed through experiential teaching,through case discussions and by ‘learning by do-ing’—on the job learning such as an internship.But the bottom line is leadership can be taught.”

Chris Bartlett: “If I define leadership to includeknowledge, skills, and attitudes, we can cer-tainly teach the knowledge. Leaders have toknow about what it is they are leading. For ex-ample, a great political leader has to understandthe philosophy, structure, and issues of the coun-try he or she leads. This knowledge is transmit-table through either formal training or more of-ten through life experience or development. Youcan’t lead something you don’t understand. Ac-quiring the skills can be accomplished through

coaching, mentoring, and those fine-grainedskills that include the ability to communicate, tosee patterns, and to work effectively through oth-ers. These are the sorts of things a good mentorwould do. But attitudes are, at best, coachable atthe margin. But if you believe that all of this iscoachable, then we could simply create leaderswith ease. But we don’t and we can’t.”

How can leadership be taught?

As the scholars considered the caveats and con-ditions associated with the question of whetherleadership can be taught, I asked them to iden-tify what techniques might be more (or less) suc-cessful in transmitting some of the skills thatthey believed could be imparted through formalor informal management education. Commonthemes were that such programs should behighly practical, include training or coachingfrom practitioners, that students may learn asmuch or more from failures in leadership as theywould in attempting to replicate successes, andthat to effectively teach leadership, programsmust be tailored to the particular needs, atti-tudes and circumstances of the students.

Mike Useem: “Managers can begin by engagingthose closest to them in a leadership debate, andasking them to do the same with their associates.They can discuss their moments of both successand setback; ask them to synthesize lessons fromtheir own leadership experiences; provide them

TABLE 1Selected Leadership Management and Leadership Management Education Journals

JournalYear FirstPublished Publisher Focus

The Leadership and OrganizationalDevelopment Journal

1980 Emerald Provides “concepts and ideas on theexpected qualities of leaders.”

Leadership Quarterly 1990 JAI Press (1990–1999);Elsevier Science (1999–)

Publishes “leadership research andapplications.”

The Journal of Leadership Studies 1997 Baker College Flint, MI The journal is “for individuals seekinginformation, ideas, and networkingopportunities in leadership education.”

Leadership Studies Journal 1997 Student Leadership Institute,University of Colorado

On-line journal focusing directly on the“development of leadership programsand courses in colleges anduniversities.”

Strategy and Leadership 1973 Emerald Outlines “powerful strategies for long-range planning and strong leadership.”

Leader to Leader 1996 Drucker Foundation Offers “cutting-edge ideas on leadershipmanagement and strategies from today’stop leaders from private, public, andsocial sector.”

Note. These are only a sample of the many journals devoted to topics related to leadership. Other journals address issues such as(1) the broader, spiritual aspects of leadership; (2) leadership in a specific profession such as nursing or education; and (3) leadershipin a specific context such as change management or innovation.


with personal coaching and individual mentoring;and change the business culture so they can makedecisions without acute fear of failure.”

Steve Stumpf: “Once a foundation of ideas aboutleadership is internalized (from books, cases, discus-sions, guest speakers), it must be practiced withfeedback in realistic, rich environments. Thesecould be simulation settings, client-consulting set-

tings, internships, role-plays and other experientialexercises.”

Jay Conger: “The dimensions of leadership youwish to teach determine the appropriate peda-gogy. For example, case studies and action learn-ing may be most useful for developing strategicthinking. Experiential exercises are most useful forteaching and honing behavioral skills such as

TABLE 2Types of Leadership Initiatives and Examples in Management Education

Leadership Initiative

Estimated Number, Top 50 U.S.Business Schools Offering(U.S. News & World Report) Example(s) at Various Schools

Leadership courses 32 Business Leadership in Changing Times, University of ChicagoLeadership and Change in Organizations, MIT (Sloan)Leadership and Influence Management, University of California—IrvineLeadership and Organizational Change, Georgia Institute of Technology(Dupree)Leadership and Personal Development, University of Iowa (Tippie)Leadership and Teamwork, University of Maryland (Smith)Leadership in Organizations, University of WashingtonLeading Organizations, Dartmouth (Tuck)Leading Out Loud, University of California—Berkeley (Haas)Leading Teams and Organizations, Vanderbilt (Owen)The Practice of Leadership, University of Chicago

Leadership school NA Jepson School of Leadership Studies, University of RichmondLeadership

institute/Center7 Business Leadership Center, Virginia Tech (Pamplin)

Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership, Center for InternationalLeadership, University of BuffaloCenter for Ethical Leadership, University of Texas (Lyndon B. JohnsonSchool for Public Affairs)Center for Leadership and Change Management, University ofPennsylvania (Wharton)David Berg Center for Leadership and Ethics, University of PittsburghInstitute for Global Leadership, Tufts UniversityLeadership Institute, University of Southern California (Marshall)Leadership Research Institute, Indiana University (Kelley)Student Leadership Institute, University of Colorado, BoulderThe Center for Leadership, Babson CollegeWilliam F. Achtmeyer Center for Global Leadership, Dartmouth (Tuck)

Leadership program(Mostly executivemanagement programs)

17 Global Leadership Program, Southern Methodist University (Cox) GlobalLeadership Program, University of MichiganGlobal Leadership Program, George Washington UniversityProgram for Global Leadership, Harvard Business School

Leadership concentration 6 Community Leadership Major, Aquinas Collegeor major James MacGregor Burns Academy of Leadership, University of Maryland

Leadership Concentration, Claremont Graduate University (DruckerGraduate School of Management)Leadership Concentration, Michigan State University (Eli BroadGraduate School of Management)Leadership Concentration, Texas A&M University, (Lowry MaysGraduate School of Business)Leadership Concentration, Yale School of ManagementLeadership Major, Penn State College of Agricultural SciencesOrganization and Leadership Major, Marquette University

Leadership fellowship 2 Park Leadership Fellows Program, Cornell (Johnson)Women’s Leadership Forum, Texas A&M

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communications and persuasion. Feedback ques-tionnaires and coaching can be very helpful inbenchmarking one’s current capacities in leader-ship. Personal growth methods can be helpful infocusing individuals on what types of work situa-tions they can be most skillful in and most pas-sionate about and therefore have a higher proba-bility of being an effective leader.”

Kim Cameron: “I would cite David Whetten whoadvocates a learning model consisting of five dis-tinctive (although sometimes overlapping and in-tegrated) learning activities: (1) skill preassess-ment, (2) skill learning (concepts and bestpractices), (3) skill analysis, (4) skill practice (withfeedback), and (5) skill application.”

The approaches described above emphasize, inpart, the use of modeling techniques that allowstudents to learn to pattern behavior based on theexperiences of successful leaders. Yet, what is rel-evant to one individual or group may not be validfor others. Further, some educators argued thatsuch patterning efforts could be self-reinforcingand reflect past practice rather than the potentialto impart new knowledge or insight.

Chris Bartlett: “Consultants typically go in andinterview a bunch of successful people in the com-pany, and they say, ‘What does it take to succeedin this organization?’ Then they document it andlook at the common characteristics and say, ‘Hereare the important competencies that you need inthis company.’ What they’ve just done is capturewhat it has taken to succeed in the past, embeddedit, and locked it in. There is an assumption that allmanagers are alike and that the challenges ofmanagers are the same—that there is a universalmodel of management. I think that what we’ve gotto do is decouple this notion of competencies andthink about attitudes and knowledge and skills.We can train development of knowledge, of indus-tries, of companies, and of financial tools. We canteach knowledge and develop skills. We can coachpeople on how to be more effective team players.We can teach them on how to interpret data andthink through analysis to recommendation and im-plementation. But the attitudes part is the harderone.”

“There is an assumption that allmanagers are alike and that thechallenges of managers are the same—that there is a universal model ofmanagement.”—Chris Bartlett

Steve Stumpf: “Leadership must go beyond cog-nitions to actions, communications, inspiring oth-ers, and being a role model. There is a differencebetween a leadership position (a position of powerand authority) and leading. If one has no ‘free will’followers, they are not a ‘leader’ in the sense wemean in management. When a person in a positionof authority tells someone subordinate to them todo something—or else—that person is not leading.We should reserve the term leadership to some-thing other than directing or coercing.”

Jay Conger: “In terms of ‘faculty,’ the idealleadership development program would includethree groups of ‘instructors.’ The first would be asmall group of faculty who have a depth ofknowledge about leadership and possess the ca-pacity to teach using a broad range of pedago-gies (plus a keen interest in developing an indi-vidual’s potential). The second set would be avery small handful of company executives whopossess teaching skills, are accepted role mod-els for leadership, and are capable of conveyingsimple but powerful frameworks about leader-ship that are derived from their work experi-ences. The final group would include profes-sional trainers and would include individualsmost familiar with using experiential and feed-back methods extensively.”

Mike Hitt has found that discussing leadershipfailures may be more effective than focusing onleadership successes:

Mike Hitt: “Unfortunately, we don’t always un-derstand why the success occurs. We think weknow why, but we really don’t. Often times, we canmore easily pinpoint why things didn’t go well.”

“Unfortunately, we don’t alwaysunderstand why the success occurs. Wethink we know why, but we really don’t.Often times, we can more easily pinpointwhy things didn’t go well.”—Mike Hitt

Useem cites Jon Krakauer’s book, Into Thin Air asan interesting reference for teaching leadership.The book describes how two climbing groups, si-multaneously nearing the summit of Everest, werehit by a violent storm, and how each respondeddifferently to the challenges they faced. His per-spective echoes Mike Hitt’s comments:

Mike Useem: “It is useful to ask what wentright—and why so many things went so terriblywrong—for the leaders of the two teams as theydesperately sought safety.”

In this particular case, blind ambition to reach


the top, and a consistent record of placing individ-ual interests ahead of collective ones, appeared tohave caused a lapse in judgment and leadership.

To whom can leadership be taught?

Not surprisingly, most of the management educa-tors believe that individuals who are motivated toacquire leadership skills and character and whoare actively seeking leadership positions are thebest subjects for leadership education. However,here again, the educators suggest that not every-one is naturally poised to acquire leadership ca-pability:

Kim Cameron: “Leadership education is most ef-fectively presented to those who are aware thatthey must be leaders. Often, MBAs or undergradu-ates do not yet have the experience, nor do theyhave the perspective that makes leadership a rel-evant topic. Neither urgency nor importance isattached to leadership development. After thesestudents’ first promotion, however—or their firsttoddler or teenager—leadership becomes a morerelevant topic. It is then that leadership educationbecomes a passionate pursuit. [Hence,] knowingwhy, and feeling the need, are prerequisites togreat leadership development.”

Mike Hitt argues that a broader group mightbenefit from leadership education:

Mike Hitt: “People who aspire to be in manage-ment or leadership roles, and I assume most stu-dents in business and other college programs areamong these. Even high school students. It wouldbe almost easier to identify those who could notbenefit.”

Jay Conger has found that the individuals whocan most benefit from leadership education wouldpossess:

Jay Conger: “(1) high achievement and ambitionneeds, (2) a strong capacity for strategic thinking,(3) a strong degree of pragmatism, (4) a baseline ofeffective communications skills (both in terms ofpersuasion and inspiration), (5) a measure of emo-tional intelligence, and (6) a genuine learning ori-entation and desire to lead.”

Steve Stumpf: “To benefit from leadership edu-cation, one must be motivated to be a leader. Thissuggests a need for both a setting in which onewants to lead (accomplish something with andthrough others), and some interpersonal maturity(emotional intelligence) based on experience.”

Mike Useem: “Many managers will have knownbrilliant colleagues who had every answer but norespect. Cognitive intelligence is a prerequisite formost responsible positions, whether a NASA flightdirector or an investment bank manager. What dis-

tinguishes those who move up to those positions isa capacity that writer Daniel Goleman has calledemotional intelligence. It amounts to the following:If you are self-aware and self-regulating, empa-thetic and compassionate, and skilled at bringingout the best in people around you, you will hearwhat you need to know and inspire what they needto do.”

“Many managers will have knownbrilliant colleagues who had everyanswer but no respect.”—Mike Useem

Chris Bartlett argues that there may be a sort of“creaming” effect, especially in the teaching ofexecutives:

Chris Bartlett: “We take people with records ofleadership, and we bring them in, and off they go,and they end up leading great organization[s] andwe say ‘look what we did.’ We are preselecting tosome of that genetic code (for leadership). We givethem the trainable and coachable part, and whilethe skills part may spill over in to the attitude part,the fact is we get highly competitive people in thefirst instance. And we probably reinforce that, butwe aren’t changing the world.”

By whom can leadership be taught?

Many in the group argued that leaders themselveswould be among the most effective teachers ofleadership. Others cautioned that while the char-acteristics of individual leaders are interesting tostudents, they are rarely and not easily imitated. Infact, such behaviors are often idiosyncratic andcontext dependent, and therefore difficult for stu-dents to follow.

Steve Stumpf: “Students of leadership seem togravitate toward real leaders. They want to hearfrom them, learn from them, because they havecredibility. But they don’t necessarily learn a greatdeal from them. What it takes for the learning tohappen is experiences for them to practice whatthey have heard.”

Kim Cameron: “One would normally say thatleaders would be the best teachers of leadership.Jack Welch ought to be the best teacher in thebusiness. He’s not, because he describes idiosyn-cratic events and experiences. I can’t do what hedoes in my role, my organization, and facing myproblems. Instead, I need some frameworks, somesense-making devices, and some tools to help mebehave effectively in a variety of circumstances.That means the best teachers are those who can

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provide me with the theoretical frameworks, themodels, and the foundation tools that allow me tosucceed as a leader.”

Several of the scholars noted that leadershipdevelopment programs are on the rise, and theypredicted a continued expansion and growing de-mand for such offerings. During the revision of thismanuscript, the Economist Intelligence Unit, a di-vision of The Economist, published a special sup-plement on executive education in which severalarticles evaluated and critiqued various executiveeducation programs based on their effectivenessand value added. Coincidentally, the title of thesupplement was “Can Leadership Be Taught.”

As more corporate universities, training insti-tutes, consultancies (both profit and nonprofit), andnontraditional educational programs continue toenter the management education marketplace, aproliferation of new actors and organizations en-gaged in leadership training will continue.

Mike Useem: “Abbott Laboratories, a $13 billionU.S. healthcare manufacturer with 57,000 employ-ees, brings groups of 35 high-performing, high-potential directors and vice presidents together for3 weeks of leadership development over 9 months.Participants examine the leader’s role and respon-sibilities at Abbott, they consider alternative lead-ership approaches, and they receive feedback ontheir own leadership style and impact.”

Mike Hitt: “Colleges and universities (but notnecessarily colleges of business), businessesthemselves, corporate universities, and others [areappropriate organizations for teaching leader-ship]. You are going to have many players in thisgame. A lot of organization types can deliver skilltraining. It is going to be difficult to sort out. And Icannot easily predict what direction it will go.”

LEADERSHIP AND IMPLICATIONS FORMANAGEMENT EDUCATION

In this interview and commentary, I reported ondiscussions with management scholars aboutwhether leadership can be taught, as well as re-lated questions regarding the potential contribu-tion of management education to leadership devel-opment. Although there were distinct perspectiveson the basic questions explored in these ex-changes, several themes and common perspec-tives emerged. In the following, I draw from thecomments and observations of these educators toderive some broader implications for assessing thecontribution of management education to leader-ship development.

Implications for Leadership Development

1. The relationship between learning and lead-ing is an important one. As Conger and Benjamin(1999) have argued, an important feature of leadersis their ability to instill a learning mindsetthroughout the organizations. Mike Useem echoesthis view, arguing that effective leaders them-selves have a “teachable” point of view—a mes-sage that defines what they want the company toachieve and how it will do so. He suggests bothmust be conveyed in a form that others can readilylearn and transmit. This notion is reflected in MikeHitt’s conception of the importance of vision inrealizing “strategic” leadership and Steve Stumpf’sview of leadership as going “beyond cognitions toactions, communications, inspiring others, and beinga role model.”

2. Several of the educators argued that someaspects of leadership are part of innate qualities.Although these characteristics may be enhancedthrough various learning experiences, there arelimits to the contribution of formal teaching to de-velopment of such skills. This does not necessarilymean that something cannot still be taught, butlike language, it may be much more easily inter-nalized early in life. As Chris Bartlett suggests,“some people are born as natural competitors ordriven achievers or empathetic people. These sortsof attitudes are more deeply embedded and lesstrainable than other skills and abilities. On theother hand, some of these characteristics, such asgood communication, are teachable.”

3. As an extension of the points above, eacheducator argued that leadership skills are bestacquired as part of a practical, experiential edu-cational program, suggesting that traditionalclassroom teaching methods are best for helpingstudents develop a general familiarity with someattributes or characteristics that have been asso-ciated with leadership, but not sufficient for ac-quiring leadership skills. The group was dividedas to whether leaders themselves serve as effec-tive trainers or coaches for developing leadershipskills, with several commentators arguing that theexperiences of such figures are inherently idiosyn-cratic. Hence, modeling or patterning behavior ontheir experiences is ineffectual.

Again, Chris Bartlett provides a specific exam-ple: “But what is not coachable are the very lead-ership skills admired by business schools in afigure such as Jack Welch—his ability to engagepeople personally, the intensity, the incrediblecompetitiveness of the man, his ability to get in-side the skin of and empathize [with others], andhis ability to challenge and stretch [members of


the organization]. There are a lot of those skills thatare built in to things that he was born with.”

4. Many of the educators linked leadership char-acter to some aspect of social or ethical responsi-bility, suggesting that leadership has a moral andethical dimension beyond the more common defi-nitions that emphasize motivation and power rela-tionships. For example, Steve Stumpf suggested,“leadership is about what you do to influence oth-ers to attain objectives, ethically, that they other-wise would not have pursued successfully. To dothis, leaders must be ethical, have integrity, betrustworthy, and have credibility to their stake-holders.” Mike Hitt said that “the value set andintegrity is an important part of [leadership]. Thisis a necessary but insufficient condition to makeyou an effective leader.”

Kim Cameron made the strongest case for link-ing leadership to moral and ethical values:“I . . . believe that effective leaders in the 21st cen-tury must have a well-developed sense of moralvalues and possess personal virtues (such as hu-mility, compassion, integrity, and forgiveness).When everything is changing, it is impossible tomanage change. Some stable or nonchangingpoint must be identified in order to understandwhat is changing. Moral values and virtues pro-vide the solid points that allow effective change(and leadership) to occur.” Chris Bartlett argued:“With the power of management comes enormousresponsibility. We need to focus and draw the stu-dents’ attention to that. The respect of human dig-nity and achieving results through others [is essen-tial].”

5. More fundamentally, vigorous debate contin-ues over whether the skills or traits of managersand leaders are distinct, or whether managementand leadership are, in fact, part of the same whole.This debate underpinned the varying responses tothe questions posed here. Some scholars viewleaders’ roles as closely associated with the man-agers’ roles and use the terms interchangeably.Others draw sharp distinctions between these twoconcepts. A classic definition of a leader is “some-one who occupies a position in a group, influencesothers in accordance with the role expectation ofthe position and coordinates and directs the groupin maintaining itself and reaching its goal” (Raven& Rubin, 1976: 37). A more contemporary perspec-tive shifts the focus to interactions among leadersand groups as a “process of influence between aleader and his followers to attain group, organiza-tional and societal goals” (Avery & Baker, 1990:453). Among those who explicitly distinguish be-tween leadership and management is AbrahamZaleznick. In his classic 1977 Harvard Business Re-

view article, Zaleznick argued that managers andleaders differ in terms of motivation, personal his-tory, and in how they think and act. “Whether his orher energies are directed toward goals, resources,organization structures, or people, a manager is aproblem solver . . . . Leaders have a propensity toinfluence moods, to shape expectations, and toestablish direction. This is clearly seen in theirpersonal attitudes and very active approach to-ward goals” (Zaleznick, 1992: 127). John Kotter ech-oes this view in distinguishing between what lead-ers and managers are (and are not) able toaccomplish: “Leadership by itself never keeps anoperation on time and on budget year after year.And management by itself never creates signifi-cant useful change” (1990: 3).

A number of the respondents in this forum ac-cepted these distinctions—explicitly or implicit-ly—while others argued that they are artificial. AsSteve Stumpf argued above, “When a person in aposition of authority tells someone subordinate tothem to do something—or else—that person is notleading. We should reserve the term leadership tosomething other than directing or coercing.” ChrisBartlett, on the other hand, takes issue with thenotion that management and leadership are fun-damentally different skills:

I think that the literature has created a falsedichotomy. I guess it is useful pedagogically,and so people talk about leadership as differ-ent from management. They claim manage-ment is about administration and control andleadership is about mission and empower-ment. I think that is underestimating manage-ment. Good management is about achievingresults through others and I think that it al-ways encompassed leadership. But if man-agement—like the corporate model—becameidentified with this hierarchical bureaucracyand managers became administrative con-trollers, then we shouldn’t dispense with theterm just as we don’t dispense with organiza-tion because it became bureaucratic. Leader-ship is about achieving results through others(and) good management is about achievingresults through others. I think that it (the con-cept of management) always encompassedleadership.

Implications for Management Education

Management education has undergone extensive ef-forts to refine, revise, and revisit pedagogical toolsand techniques. The emergence of leadership edu-cation as a primary activity in business schools and

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in other educational settings raises serious ques-tions about how such an ambiguous and difficult-to-define concept can be effectively learned and taught.Although some practitioners and researchers rou-tinely detail the characteristics of effective leader-ship, the effectiveness of leadership training andeducation remains questioned, particularly by thosefunding it (Nevins & Stumpf, 1999). Moreover, if lead-ership skills or capabilities can be developed,whether they can be effectively taught and learnedin the context of classroom-based management edu-cation is unclear.

At the least, the management educators con-sulted here generally concurred that leader-ship—a personal quality more than a professionalskill or ability—requires a particular kind of edu-cation. Leadership education, like leadership it-self, must rely on heuristic approaches such asmentoring, coaching, patterning, and, trial-and-error experience. Jay Conger has argued that whileleadership can be taught, not everyone can benefitfrom such teaching. He suggests that managersand educators need to radically alter conceptionsof leadership to view leaders as “change masters.”As such, Jay Conger suggests, “leadership trainingmust teach managers and executives how to antic-ipate what is on their industry horizon and how tomobilize their organization to shape the future.”

Most educators agreed that individual personalitytraits provide at least part of the basis upon whichleadership skills are built, and such characteristicsreach stability by adolescence. Hence, a frame isestablished that drives how future managers viewtheir roles, their style of communicating, and theirmodes of interaction with others. Clearly, theseframes can change, and individuals can learn toview things differently. Managers, like educators,continue to grow socially, physically, and intellectu-ally. However, this early grounding and foundationmay strongly influence the choice of career or pro-fession, the style or attitude toward work relation-ships, and the approach of managerial roles andinteractions, including leadership roles.

As educators, we should be skeptical of our abil-ity to mold leaders, and instead should view lead-ership as one of several characteristics and skillsets that may be further developed by educationand practice. Management education is a holisticundertaking, one that does not lend itself to easycompartmentalization or quick fixes. Leadershipclearly requires personal commitments on the partof the learner. We as management educators mayspur, promote, cultivate, and develop such commit-ments, but it is unlikely that we can create themfrom scratch.

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Jonathan Doh is assistant professor of management in the College of Commerce and Finance,Villanova University, where he is affiliated with the Center for Responsible Leadership andGovernance. A senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Dohserves on the executive faculty of GSBA-Zurich. His research interests include internationalcorporate strategy, business–government relations, and socially responsible leadership. Re-cent publications have appeared in Academy of Management Review, California Manage-ment Review, Organizational Dynamics, and Business & Society. He is coeditor (with HildyTeegen) and contributor to a forthcoming volume, Globalization and NGOs: TransformingBusiness, Governments, and Society (Praeger Books, 2003).

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