Leadership isn t mystical and mysterious. It has nothing to do with having charisma or other exotic personality traits. Most U.S. corporations today are over managed and under led. They need to develop their capacity to exercise leadership.
Successful corporations don t wait for leaders to come along.
They actively seek out people with leadership potential and expose them to career experiences designed to develop that potential. I was fortunate enough to be a part of such a leadership development program. I could have had a lifetime of writing code, putting bugs in, then taking them out. It would have been safe and comfortable, and I knew how to do it. So after 10 years of programming, I decided to take the management career path and participate in a leadership development program.