Leaders: Myth and Reality

by General Stanley McChrystal

There are also considerable implications for those in the business of studying leadership and training leaders. Very few of the thirteen people we profiled were trained in any formal way as a leader. Well before the arrival of the modern leadership industry, leaders still found paths to lead in a great variety of contexts. Many simply fell into the role, or were pulled into it. For most, no one could have told them how to prepare for those roles. But just as this view doesn’t imply that leaders are unimportant, it also can’t be taken to mean that leaders shouldn’t be trained. Rather, it suggests that the training of leaders is still necessary and important, but how leaders are trained and developed should be revisited. In particular, leaders shouldn’t be given a checklist of attributes. Rather, they should be equipped with an understanding of leadership as a system, see themselves as the enablers of that system, and learn how to adjust their approach based on the needs of that system.