In my position, I am pitched to fairly frequently by all kinds of entities wanting my attention. Often academic, but I am just as regularly sought out by management consultants, success coaches, and others in similar fields who build their business on what essentially is shoring up morale and motivation through inspiration.
There's an art to leadership that I feel MSU has developed into a nearly scientific level of components. Art is, after all, expression that combines talent and experience into something new and engaging, so it's not a stretch to me to suggest that true leaders are artists...their canvas is just the human potential available to them in any given setting.
The challenge comes to us when we reconcile success coaching with the art of learning – and teaching – leadership. Are they on a separate playing field completely, relevant only because they too desire to increase common goals such as the liquidity and subsequent growth of an organization?
Often the consultants and coaches do not have the educational background that would enable them to teach for a university. And many are well-versed in marketing, and it shows. But in the end, we all are after the same result, which is fundamentally to accomplish change in effective ways, and I can't help think that even the non-academic people out there selling leadership tools are not ineffective as part of the art of leadership—even if they may not share the academic understanding of the discipline that we value.
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