Handy believed leadership can be learned, not taught, by having opportunities to experiment, self-confidence, broad perspectives, and tolerating loneliness. Bennis and Nanus argued leadership can be both learned and taught through development courses. Kotter identified assessment centers, career planning, mentoring, and coaching as developmental practices. McCauley's research found "High Flyers" were more successful in challenging jobs than seniors and that developing networks, learning from failures and hardships, and self-development help cultivate leadership skills.

1. Can Leadership Be Taught?

2. Different Educationist Views
• There are many educationists who have their
own point of views about this topic. So we will
discuss different point of views of different
educationists.

3. Handy’s Point of View
• Handy in 1992 gave his point of view that leadership is a skill which
cannot be taught to anyone but it can be learned. And we can
develop this skill with the passage of time. He gave the following
four things which were necessary to develop the leadership skill:
• There must be a room to manoeuvre, where individual should have
opportunity to change things or experiment them.
•
• Individual should have self-confidence in him/her.
•
• Individual must have broad perspectives.
•
• They should have capacity to tolerate loneliness

4. Bennis And Nanus
• According to Bennis and Nanus in 1985
leadership is something that can be learned by
anyone, taught to everyone and denied to no
one. They say that in life only few will have ability
to lead nations but more will lead companies.
According to them leadership development
courses exists, where there is involvement is of so
called “High Flyers” probably referred to young
generation. Those young men and women who
have potential to be successful in life.

5. Kotter’s Point of View
• Kotter in 1988 identifies the following
developmental practices:
• Assessment/developmental centres.
• Career planning discussion with bosses.
• Mentoring and coaching.

6. The Research Findings
• McCauley in 1986 while her research on
educational leadership fails to distinguish
between managerial abilities and leadership
developmental. So she grouped the material
under the following heading:

7. Job Assignment
• In job assignment she took sample of 422 people.
Among them some were “High Flyers” referred to
young generation and some were only seniors.
Researchers predicted that young people may not be
able to clear this assessment and might fail. And senior
people may easily clear this assessment and will be
successful. But after the result, the prediction was
totally opposite. Among the “High Flyers” 61% were
successful because they had challenging job
experiences. And among seniors only 30% people were
able to be successful because they did not had
challenging job experiences.

8. Other People and Relationships
• It’s a fact that those people who are sitting on
high seats like managers, leaders or bosses
have high networks/links comparatively to
their sub-ordinates. When McCauley during
her research asked the reason from two
managers of same corporation of having this
seat or high links, both of them gave similar
answers. One was feed backing and other was
sharing information with bosses.

9. Hardships
• According to McCauley research, she says
that many individuals learns from their
failures. A person can never learn until or
unless he/she face hurdles in their lives. For
example if anyone is doing business and
his/her business fails to run in market. Maybe
they might learns from their shortcomings. Or
if anyone is on job and suddenly is fired from
their jobs, they might learn something and
would no repeat that mistake next time.

10. Training Programmes
• And when individuals fails in their practical
lives due to hurdles or hardships, there is a
conclusion to polish their hidden skills and
abilities. For example if anyone is losses
motivation, motivational developmental
programmes can be arranges. If anyone losses
to be aware of certain areas in job,
developmental skills programmes can be
arranged. So and so there are many ways to
feedback the hopeless individuals.

11. Self-Development
• For self-development we can give authentic
example of “High Flyers”. Like those who are keen
to acquire education and for that they can even
resign from their jobs. Those individuals who are
self-developed usually don’t need specific
training programmmes at all. Because they are
often self-motivated, self-confident and have
potential to do things right. These individuals
who are self-developed are very hard-working
and they deserve to be future leaders/managers.

12. Derailment
• Basically derailment means to run off the track. It
happens when the individuals are expected to do
many givens tasks and due to stress or any
personal matter they become un-capable to fulfill
the requirements of their seniors/bosses.
Derailment might occur due to the following
identities:
• Problem with personal relationships.
• Difficulty in moulding staff.
• Lack of concentration.

13. Conclusion For Derailment
• The researchers suggested the following ways to reduce the
derailments:
• Improve the level of staff.
• Create an environment of learning.
• Improve the ability of organization.
• Should not have personals grudges between the sub-
ordinates and boss.
• There can be many other ways as well to decrease the level
of derailment. Individuals should be provided support and
counseling. When managers are in critical situation of their
careers they should have moral support of their staff. On
the other side there can be other issues and problems too
in leadership of the individuals.

14. Reference
• Sadler, P. (2005), Leadership(2nd ed). New
Delhi : Kagan Page.