Teaching Leadership: Is It Really a Thing?

Some people are born with leadership skills, but that doesn't necessarily mean others can't learn. Dr. James T. Brown packs an impressive 16 years of increasingly responsible leadership positions at NASA and later worked as a consultant and trainer in leadership, project management and decision making before becoming a faculty member at the UCF College of Business. Dr. Brown is simply an expert in leadership training and project management. But does teaching someone what makes a leader mean they can become a leader themselves?

Featured Guests:

James T. Brown - Lecturer, Integrated Business, UCF College of Business

Episode Transcription:

Paul Jarley:                         It's not uncommon to hear people say, "You can't teach leadership. Leaders are born, not made." It's a fair argument. Quality of leadership isn't always something that can be measured. And you just can't expect to become a leader by reading stuff out of a book. After all, you don't become a chef by studying a cookbook. You have to cook. But that doesn't mean theory from the classroom can't be put into practice.

Paul Jarley:                         This show is all about separating hype from fundamental change. I'm Paul Jarley, Dean of the College of Business, here at UCF. I've got lots of questions. To get answers, I'm talking to people with interesting insights into the future of business. Have you ever wondered, "Is this really a thing?" On to our show.

Paul Jarley:                         This episode features one out our Integrated Business faculty. Dr. James T. Brown, is an engineer at heart. He spent more than 15 years at NASA. He later used this experience to offer consulting and training services on leadership, project management, and decision making, to companies both small and large. Every month, we pick one of our faculty members to address a crowd of local business partners and alumni at an event we call The Dean's Speaker Series. This time, we invited Dr. Brown to talk about what makes a good leader, some of the worst pitfalls he's ever seen, and how to avoid some of these missteps. Naturally, we pulled out the best parts, and turned it into a podcast. I hope you enjoy.

James T. Brown:               Project management is an art. That is why everybody can't do it. I don't care how much process you have, doesn't make a difference. Project management is an art. Just like art, it has principles. Every artist knows what happens when you mix red and yellow. `The principles are there, but the actual application of it is an art. It's very difficult.

James T. Brown:               There's a little girl. You may have heard of her before. She shows up at the three bears' house. And she says, "Too hot. Too cold. Too hard. Too soft." What is she looking for?

Crowd:                                 [crosstalk 00:02:06]

James T. Brown:               Just right. This is what we're looking for with process. Just right. Can you give me the just right amount of process? And good process is born out of leadership. You get the leadership right, the process will be right. You can't take process and be successful in the absence of leadership.

James T. Brown:               The reason I wrote a book on program management and not project management is this. Most project failure isn't caused by the project manager. It's caused by the people above them. The people above them are the ones that put the project managers in a position that makes it difficult for them to be successful. So a lot of what I talked about today with leadership, it applies to project managers, but it also applies to those people that are above them.

James T. Brown:               So this is our, our breakfast menu today. The one that's underlined there,