You will walk into a room as the designated leader….You will need to gain the trust of a group that includes members with whom you may have little in common. Someone may ask what makes you think you can lead. Do not resent them for it….Whatever you may have done before, what matters most is what you will do next. That day you may remember a leadership course that honored fair scrutiny and did not circumvent the question of trust.

Mel’s hand went up precipitously and unexpectedly, like thunder on a clear day. I had barely begun introducing the leadership course I would be teaching over the coming weeks. “I have a question, Professor.” I gave him the floor.

“What makes you think you can teach us to lead?”

I looked around. A roomful of puzzled managers silently stared back. Five minutes into our first class, my students were already questioning leadership. Mine

Mel had looked me up on the web and learned that I had spent one decade training as a medical doctor and psychiatrist and another working in business schools. I have researched leadership, taught and coached thousands of MBAs and executives, consulted and directed leadership programs for global organizations. None of it had escaped Google’s microscope, revealing an issue that Mel wanted me to own: I am an academic.

Engaged as I am with private and public organizations, I have never started, owned, or managed a business. No share price ever soared, no product went to market, no enterprise downsized under (alongside, or despite) my stewardship. This made me — in Mel’s eyes — dubiously qualified to teach leadership.

Mel is fictional — none of my students have ever asked that question so openly, so clearly, so early. But by the end of each course, many admit to wondering the same thing. My background, my profession, the skills and accomplishments I am proud of — for the Mel in my classes, eager to climb corporate heights — are like sins I slowly atone for.

As managers flock to courses that promise to transform them into leaders, Mel’s question lingers in many business school classrooms and corporate auditoria. Some teachers pre-empt it by emphasizing their corporate experience or casually dropping names of CEOs they have met. Others by pointing out that it is not their job to teach anyone to lead. Rather it is to provide opportunities for students to learn it themselves. Many find solace in the fact that the question will likely remain unspoken, tiptoed around like the proverbial elephant in the room.

That is a pity. Who can teach, or help us learn, to lead is an important question. One that deserves tackling head-on because it offers an opportunity to dispel two problematic assumptions and uncover a fundamental truth about learning to lead.

The first assumption is that leading means occupying a senior managerial position. The fallacy of this equation is apparent if you look back to executives you have met. Were they all leaders? Were they all leaders who could teach, and that you would eagerly learn from? Chances are, some were and some weren’t.

The second assumption is that leading is learned by the transmission of advice or personal examples from those who have led to those who are yet to lead. There is value in yielding to the lessons of role models. Emulation alone, however, a leader does not make. Neither do theories, as much as they help.

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