Deliberate Practice and World-Class Leaders

Bill Gates. Meryl Streep. Kobie Bryant. They're not like us, are they? Forgetting wealth and concentrating for a moment on talent, if you believe they came into the world genetically predisposed to become the world-class leaders in business, acting, and sports that they are now, you would find not one scintilla of evidence to back up your belief.

"But what about Mozart?" protests the musician in me. Well, according to recent research wherein was  discovered that the composer routinely and with some serious mental butt-kicking revised one manuscript after another. musicologists find that Wolfie was a mere mortal, not the demigod who but penned to paper the music he heard full-blown in his head as had been alleged for over two centuries. What, then, is the font of Mozart's ability?
 
As it turns out, the origin of extraordinary performance in music or any field is not as mysterious as we might like, or have been led, to believe. But neither is it just hard work.

According to Geoff Colvin, author of Talent Is Overated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else? while Kobie and Wolfie are not like us, had we trained in ways and under similar circumstances as they did, although we could not have been them, we may have been serious contenders to their crown.  

Students of Triangle Leadership Academy's workshop, Influencer©, know that improving any ability is a function of deliberate practice, that is, understanding the elements of ideal performance, designing strategies to reduce the gap between one's current and the ideal performance, and then deliberately practicing for mastery. For a program developer who earns his living in the belief that people can improve practice, that is great news.

I am thinking of an earlier conversation today with Matt Olhson, new assistant professor at North Carolina State University and coordinator of North East Leadership Academy (NELA). I am working under contract with North Carolina Principals and Assistant Principals Association to develop and deliver for NELA sessions of leadership training to its 21 aspiring leaders. The cohort is comprised of teachers in some of the least-wealthy counties in North Carolina. But they are hungry to learn.

Beyond motivated learners, the good news is that Matt and the NCSU recipients of this Race-to-the-Top funded program have assembled a team of developers, teachers, coaches, and mentors who understand the importance of deliberate practice. And frankly, we are aided and abetted by the new North Carolina Standards for School Executives which spells out the 83 practices about which we can be deliberate.

There is much to celebrate about NELA. So, too, when I read in the News and Observer last Sunday that TLA staff taught or otherwise worked with all 10 Wake County professionals currently nominated as Principal or Assistant Principal of the Year, I am profoundly gratified. I am also reminded that world-class school leaders like those nominees and the 26 recently-named Wake County principals are made, not born.

We know what the leadership ideal is. Whether you teach, coach, develop curricula, or support public education from another profession, let's bridge the performance gaps with deliberate practice.