Promoting and Advancing Leadership through Education: Few guidelines
Author: M. A. Akkas, Bangladesh
Abstract: People throughout the world are highly concerned with lacking in the right kind of leadership to resolve the social, economic, political, and environmental challenges that we are encountering. World leaders could not address many serious problems effectively. There is a leadership crisis all over the world. Some countries, for instance, Canada, Switzerland, South Korea, and Norway, are going ahead because of having effective leadership, while others (Bangladesh, Myanmar, Ghana, Iraq) are lagging behind. It is leadership that makes a big difference. It is claimed that managers are inferior to leaders in terms of personality, risk taking behavior, attitude and goal orientation. Many poor countries have transformed into mid-level income countries, for example, Korea, Malaysia, Brazil because of effective and efficient political leadership and economic diplomacy. This indicates that leadership is key to success and prosperity of a country or organization. Thus, we need more leaders than managers. Leadership is distinct skill. There are many managers who run their organizations without adequate leadership qualities and eventually organizations make huge losses. They probably use the wrong criteria to select leaders by focusing on technical rather than leadership skills. Questions are often raised, why is leadership so hard? Can leadership skill be acquired through education and experience? Why is leader’s superior to managers? Becoming a great leader in the workplace is a not an easy job. There is an age old debate about whether or not leaders can be made, or if you have to be born that way. There are plenty of arguments for and against this debate. Many theories so far have been formulated and developed in support of this debate. It is believed that leadership qualities can be advanced and promoted through education. The literature reveals that great leaders are made, not born. People are not born to be great leaders. The review of the literature confirmed that appropriate education and experience can make people great leaders. This paper is an attempt to highlight the role of education or educational institutes in promoting and advancing leadership in business, political and social arena. This paper also addresses the major differences between a leader and a manager. Leadership is a distinct skill and this skill can be attained through proper education at the school, college and university levels.