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Leaders are made not born. It needs to start in uteri. As John Vasconcellos stated in his great treatise on the root causes of crime and violence in our society, "The concepts with which we raise our children start in the womb. They (the root causes) continue with the birthing process, parenting, education, peer groups, limited exposure to the media (especially when it concerns violence), conflict resolution, decision making, encouragement to take risks, encouragement to speak up without negative repercussion, positive reinforcement, trust in one's intuition, trust in one's own ability to make choices, learning from making mistakes, validation, and celebration when they do something right." I believe that the leadership crisis in America starts with the way children are birthed, parented, developed and raised. By the time these children reach corporate America, it's almost too late to re-train them. By the time they have been programmed and indoctrinated for twenty plus years, they have become so much a part of the system that they can hardly accept a new paradigm. It seems unfair to train them to be managers and expect them to know what it means to lead.
In the majority of businesses that I have seen locally, in the U.S., and abroad, I see managers, who don't know what to do. They are caught between the board of directors, and the rank and file. They are told to empower, and given dictates to downsize. They are told to be innovative, but not given the skills required to lead. They are whispered buzz words like: TQM, empower, paradigm, team build, customer service, quality, vision, and mission, but they are ill-equipped to know how to implement these concepts. The unfair game is: figure it out, or you'll be the next to go. The flexible structures, functional teams, flattened organizations, modular networks, that can respond in a fast, focused, friendly, fun, and flexible way are words that Fortune, Business Week, and Newsweek write about, but are concepts not easily deployed by the traditional manager.
Perhaps we need to start where it all originates, with our children. Whitney Houston sang, "The children are our future. Treat them well...