Lessons from Leadership Schools

As a West Point graduate I feel I received one of the best leadership trainings available to any college-age student. And it is not just leadership that is valuable in the military. It is leadership that is valuable in every day life.

But West Point is not available to everyone for numerous reasons. Yet there's another, some times maligned, leadership school that does an outstanding job: the scouting organizations, in the US the Boy Scouts of America and Girl Scouts of the USA. Both my children went through their programs, one becoming an Eagle Scout (Boy Scouts) and one receiving the Gold Award (Girl Scouts). I did a couple of years in the Dominican Republic Scouts (could not continue due to relocation) and have been actively involved as an adult with both organizations although the majority of the time has been with the Boy Scouts.

I've seen boys grow from ackward, clumsy youth to people who others notice when they walk in; people who take initiative and lead when needed. A great book about what Eagle Scouts have accomplished is Legacy of Honor: The Values and Influence of America's Eagle Scouts. Alvin Townley, the author, set out to travel the USA meeting with Eagle Scouts and getting their stories.

There is a lot we can learn from this great leadership schools. While some of us may be too old to be scouts, we can still join as adults to help (they have training for adults too!) develop young people. And if you don't have time to do that, consider grabbing this book at the library or at your local bookstore or at the link above take a read. It is an outstanding book.

Back to leadership

After some time away from leadership topics, doing mostly project and program management activities, I've come back to leadership. Not that I was totally absent from the leadership world: I taught some leadership classes at Cornell's Johnson Graduate School of Management over the last two years and have emphasized the importance of leadership in my PM blog http://www.pmlead.org and in my site http://www.pmlead.com.

So, why am I back here? Well, one of my current clients asked for some guidance on how to improve the performance of his team. I quickly came back to the leadership discipline, recommending to him that he read It's Your Ship, a book previously discussed here. I also gave him 25 guidelines on how to lead, which I'll discuss here later on.

But another story triggered the return. The May 25, 2009 issue of Business Week has an article on "Selling by Storytelling". The story, while marketing-focused, describes how Jeff Gomez has been successful at creating stories for companies such as Mattel and Disney. This story triggered a thought about a book I read in the last year of so about the importance of using storytelling to sell your ideas: The Springboard: How Storytelling Ignites Action in Knowledge-Era Organizations by Stephen Denning. The book relates the struggle that Mr. Denning had at the Wrold Bank, where he worked, in selling the concept of knowledge management and knowledge sharing. While he presented it as a business proposal, no one listened to him. He then ran into some situations where through stories people had been able to accomplish major successes and he started pulling stories into his effort, which turned it around. So, if you want to light a fire under the initiatives you are leading, consider what story you can tell to sell it. Get this book as a good primer.