Every other year for the past ten years, I have served as the lead trainer at the Mid-Career Academic Leadership Institute sponsored by the Dannon Institute. Every time I teach it, I love it even more.
Targeted at food and nutrition professionals, this four-day intensive training program was created to provide an opportunity for participants to determine if a leadership role in their field might just be a perfect fit .
I give event participants these four solid reasons to invest in leadership courses:
Four reasons leadership courses are necessary
- Because leadership is a good thing and it’s in short supply.
- Because leaders are not born; they are made. [attributed to Vince Lombardi]
- Because leadership is central to the success of any organization.
- And finally, because leadership is not the same in academe as it is in business.
Leadership is no different than most any other kind of human activity. It is informed and improved by learning. In academe, we don’t have the time or space to stumble through our challenges. We need effective actors to act now.
Whatever any of us might have done to become a successful and accomplished academic or professor will not be the same skills needed for us to become a good leader. Most of our academic leaders today have learned by trial and error.
Yet, experience alone is a hard and often costly taskmaster. It might not even produce half of what is needed.
Instruction, coaching, reading, role modeling, reflecting and observing are skills learned through leadership courses that can save time, pain and failure.
Educational workshops or seminars on leadership are key because they can provide the help that you need to build a support system, leverage your own and others’ experiences, give you a jump start, and soften the hard knocks.
I encourage you all to join me in participating in as many leadership opportunities as you can to develop your own skill set.