We are all exposed to leadership lessons throughout our lives, yet most of the time we don't even realise it.
As children, adults were the authority figures and we simply accepted that they were in charge. In sport, perhaps we became team captain or perhaps we didn't, but we weren't analysing what successful leadership actually meant. At university, we may have taken responsibility for a club or activity without consciously thinking about the intricacies of leading people.
Then we enter the workforce and everything changes.
Suddenly there are hierarchies, different levels of responsibility and designated leadership positions. Eventually we may be promoted into one of them.
The interesting question is: who actually taught us how to lead?
For many leaders, the answer is nobody.
Why are so many people promoted into leadership without being taught how to lead?
Organisations frequently promote people because they are successful at their existing jobs, then expect them to work out leadership for themselves. The responsibilities change dramatically, but structured leadership development doesn't necessarily arrive with the promotion.
We enter companies at junior levels and gradually accumulate experience and successes. Eventually we are trusted with a project, then perhaps a small team and later a whole section.
Suddenly we are responsible for other people's performance.
Yet we may never have received any leadership training.
We are somehow expected to know how to motivate people, communicate expectations, delegate work, handle mistakes, make decisions and develop team members simply because somebody changed our job title.
That is quite an assumption.
Being technically good at your job and being good at leading other people are completely different skill sets.
Do now: Before promoting someone into leadership, ask what specific preparation they have received for actually leading people.
Where do new leaders learn their leadership behaviours?
Most new leaders unconsciously assemble their leadership style from people they have observed throughout their lives. Parents, teachers, sports coaches, classmates and previous bosses all become part of an informal leadership education.
The problem is that we probably weren't consciously studying these people.
We simply absorbed their behaviour.
A boss who micromanaged everything may have taught us that leaders should control people closely. Another boss may have demonstrated trust and delegation. A sports coach may have taught us about discipline, while a teacher showed us encouragement.
Eventually we cobble these influences together into our own disparate, idiosyncratic form of leadership.
There may be some excellent components in there.
There may also be some terrible ones.
Most importantly, there is no guarantee that our collection of inherited leadership behaviours contains everything we actually need.
Do now: Examine where your assumptions about leadership came from and decide which behaviours deserve to be retained, changed or discarded.
When does a manager become a serious student of leadership?
The turning point comes when leaders realise that trial and error isn't enough and consciously decide to study leadership as a professional discipline. This creates a major dividing line between leaders.
Some simply keep going.
They rely on experience, instinct and whatever leadership behaviours they have accumulated. They make mistakes, adjust and try again. Their organisation may reinforce this approach by refusing to invest in leadership development and expecting managers to work everything out themselves.
Others eventually realise there is much more to leadership than they originally imagined.
They start searching.
They read books. They watch videos. They listen to podcasts. They study successful leaders and begin looking for structured approaches to the challenges they encounter.
That change in mindset is critical.
The leader stops thinking, "I should already know this," and starts asking, "What do I still need to learn?"
Do now: Treat leadership development as an ongoing professional responsibility rather than something you were supposed to magically acquire when you were promoted.
Can leaders teach themselves using books, podcasts and online content?
Today's leaders have extraordinary access to leadership knowledge, so there is little excuse for relying entirely on trial and error. Books, podcasts, videos, articles and online resources make leadership ideas more accessible than at any previous point.
I am part of that content creator army myself. I produce podcasts, articles, social media content and books on business, selling and leading in Japan.
The broader point is that aspiring leaders can now access enormous amounts of leadership information.
The challenge is no longer finding information.
It is selecting useful information and then actually applying it.
Reading twenty books on delegation doesn't automatically make you good at delegating. Listening to a podcast on coaching doesn't mean you can conduct an effective coaching conversation tomorrow morning.
Self-study is valuable, but knowledge has to be converted into behaviour.
Do now: Build leadership learning into your routine, but always ask how you will apply each useful idea to a real situation with your team.
Why do leaders need practical training as well as executive education?
Strategic executive education and practical leadership training solve different problems, and effective leaders need both perspectives. One helps you fly the plane at 30,000 feet; the other helps you deal with the mud and the blood of everyday leadership.
I have been fortunate to attend executive courses at Harvard, Stanford and INSEAD business schools. These were great experiences and valuable opportunities to examine business and leadership from a broad strategic perspective.
But leaders also need immediately implementable skills.
How do you encourage innovation?
How do you communicate effectively?
How do you plan?
How do you handle mistakes?
How do you delegate?
How do you make decisions?
How do you conduct performance reviews?
How do you coach and develop people?
These are not abstract leadership concepts. They are the nuts and bolts of the job.
Do now: Balance high-level strategic development with practical training that improves what you actually do with your people every day.
Why is practical leadership training so valuable?
Practical leadership training is powerful because participants apply broad structures to their own real-world challenges rather than merely analysing somebody else's case study.
University and business school case studies can be fascinating. They expose us to complex situations and force us to analyse how other organisations and leaders responded.
The difficulty is translating somebody else's case into your daily reality.
Practical leadership programmes can reverse the process. Instead of giving everyone the same case, they provide frameworks and structures and ask participants to apply them to their own situations.
Two leaders from the same company and industry may therefore produce completely different answers because each is dealing with a different leadership reality.
There is another benefit: your classmates.
Their successes, failures and experiences provide ideas you may never have considered. Leadership development becomes a shared learning process rather than an isolated intellectual exercise.
Do now: Choose leadership development that forces you to apply concepts immediately to the actual people and situations you are responsible for leading.
The Best Leaders Never Stop Being Leadership Students
Leadership isn't automatically bestowed on us when we receive a new title.
The promotion may give us authority. It may give us a larger salary, a bigger office or a more impressive business card.
None of those things guarantees we know how to lead.
Most of us begin with an improvised leadership model assembled from the people we have observed throughout our lives. We then add our own successes, mistakes and experiences.
That can take us some distance.
But modern business is too complex to rely indefinitely on trial and error.
At some point, every serious leader has to become a serious student of leadership.
Read the books. Listen to the podcasts. Watch the videos. Study other leaders. Learn from colleagues. Seek out teachers. Take practical courses. Examine your own behaviour and constantly ask what you could be doing better.
And don't restrict your development to theory.
Learn how to communicate, delegate, innovate, coach, plan, make decisions, conduct performance reviews, handle mistakes and develop people.
These are the daily realities of leadership.
The title "leader" may have been given to you by the organisation.
Actually becoming one is your responsibility.
When the leadership student is ready, the teacher appears.
Author Bio
Dr. Greg Story, Ph.D. in Japanese Decision-Making, is President of Dale Carnegie Tokyo Training and Adjunct Professor at Griffith University. He is a two-time winner of the Dale Carnegie "One Carnegie Award" (2018, 2021) and recipient of the Griffith University Business School Outstanding Alumnus Award (2012). As a Dale Carnegie Master Trainer, Greg is certified to deliver globally across leadership, communication, sales and presentation programmes, including Leadership Training for Results.
He has written several books, including three best-sellers — Japan Business Mastery, Japan Sales Mastery, and Japan Presentations Mastery — along with Japan Leadership Mastery and How to Stop Wasting Money on Training. His works have been translated into Japanese, including Za Eigyō (ザ営業), Purezen no Tatsujin (プレゼンの達人), Torēningu de Okane o Muda ni Suru no wa Yamemashō (トレーニングでお金を無駄にするのはやめましょう), and Gendaiban "Hito o Ugokasu" Rīdā (現代版「人を動かす」リーダー).
Greg also publishes daily business insights on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, and hosts six weekly podcasts. On YouTube, he produces The Cutting Edge Japan Business Show, Japan Business Mastery, and Japan's Top Business Interviews, which are widely followed by executives seeking success strategies in Japan.
