Is Leadership Really a Profession?

Readers were quick to agree that understanding leadership theory was important to the professional discipline of leadership after my last post. However, is leadership truly a profession? When I reviewed articles on the web the top posts were related to NeverWinter Nights, an online role-playing game! False positives from companies providing leadership and professional development services abounded. I could not identify a clear trend. In academia a different story appeared. Once false positives were accounted for, the discussion of leadership as a profession enjoyed as much discussion as transformational leadership for several years.

So, should we consider leadership a profession? Scholars such as Elena Antonacopoulo have argued that the combination of practice and ethics require us to consider leadership differently than we do today. On the other hand, Jeff Schmidt argued in his book Disciplined Minds that the way we develop professionals curbs their creativity, diversity of opinion, and leads to the resistance to change. Dave Snowden of Cognitive Edge argued that professional best practices and expert mindset is appropriate leadership practices in some circumstances, but not when navigating the complexity of human dynamics and change. There is also unsettling news related to how we develop leaders. MBA programs were found to have the highest levels of academic misconduct of all academic programs. When tested graduating MBAs were rated as less ethical than when they had started the program. While this was hardly a firm foundation for leadership, there has been some good news. There is an increasing focus on increased leadership training and ethics in many MBA programs. Students are more interested in ethically responsible work as well. However, the picture is not entirely rosy. Some business schools have opted out of the Aspen Institute’s ethical ranking of their programs. Business journals and papers have been challenging MBA schools to increase their emphasis on practical leadership, experience, and ethical decision makings skills. The scholarship bears this out; ethical leadership is as current and dynamic a topic as that of strategy and leadership.

It appears that there are both benefits and dangers to considering leadership a profession. Structured programs may limit a leader’s openness to change. While there have been improvements the argument remains; a greater emphasis on the development of practical leadership skills and the ability to make ethical decisions is still required in programs that develop leaders.

What do you think?