I absolutely agree that there is a difference between “leader training” and “leader development.” A former CALDOL friend of mine defined these two “categories” as leader development (i.e. skills development) and leadership development (developing your actual ability to lead). I also agree with most of the discussions here that many units spend significantly more time if not all of their “LPD”-time on leader development, while neglecting leadership development.

Since being in command, three leadership development topics that I’ve learned about that I wish I could have developed with my subordinate leaders include:

1. Discussions on how to affect change – think Kotter model.

2. Discussions on decision-making and exercises to develop intuition and judgement.

3. Discussions on the different influencing techniques.

Great discussion topic!

-Gary