I had the great pleasure of serving as a guest lecturer on Leadership yesterday to a class of college seniors (business majors), and I was struck by the remarkably mature perspective and intuitive feel that they have for the subject.  After my opening comments on how you can’t possibly learn to be a leader from a book or a class, we launched into a series of discussions and exercises that Wowed me with the clear thinking and great ideas about effective leadership and great leaders, as well as the opposite.  I’m definitely growing more excited about the potential of this generation of early career professionals!

Another highlight: the class is "Management at the Movies" and we had
the opportunity to compare and contrast my content on developing as a
leader and effective leadership practices with the on-screen portrayal
of leaders in "Dead Poet’s Society" and "White Squall."  While never having had the good fortune to take such an interesting elective, and having just a little bit of cynicism about how well it would work, work, I now declare myself a convert.  Instead of stale corporate stories that this audience had no ability to relate to, the students were able to apply the universal leadership concepts that I was presenting to the very powerful good and bad examples of leadership and management that occurred in the movies.  It certainly provided some depth and richness to a lonely, out of context bullet on a powerpoint slide. I suspect that my days of watching movies for entertainment may be over.  I’ll be busy looking for the styles and habits of leaders good and bad.

I close the session with some heart-felt practical lessons learned from many years of practice and a fair number of lumps along the way.  I stress the importance of "leadership as a profession,‘ and the need to approach any role of this type with an understanding of The True Role of A Leader.  I implore the students to seek out leadership opportunities, formal and informal and develop a feel for the realities and rewards in this type of a role.  Finally, I encouraged them as they move into the workforce to take a close look at the leadership development habits and practices of their prospective employers.  I offer that this might even be an important factor in signing on with an organization.  After all, thanks to many market factors including the confluence of demographic changes and the poor job that most organizations continue to do in talent development, this generation will enjoy a Seller’s market for their leadership talent during their careers.  What a great opportunity for aspiring leaders to change the world!