Leadership development is your DNA

“It’s in our DNA.”

You can’t miss hearing or reading that statement. Advertising agencies tell you that creativity is in their DNA. Mercedes-Benz says that safety is in their DNA. In fact, organizations of all kinds use the phrase to claim some virtue. Stephen J. Gill just wrote a blog post titled: “10 Principles of Organizational Learning DNA.”

So, is leadership development in your DNA? Actually, that’s the wrong question.

Leadership development is different

To get at the role of leadership development, let’s start with a definition of what physical DNA actually is. Here’s what The National Human Genome Research Institute has to say.

“We all know that elephants only give birth to little elephants, giraffes to giraffes, dogs to dogs and so on for every type of living creature. But why is this so? The answer lies in a molecule called deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), which contains the biological instructions that make each species unique. DNA, along with the instructions it contains, is passed from adult organisms to their offspring during reproduction.”

Leadership development is your DNA

Leadership development is more than simply what you are today. It’s the conveyor of the values that will make you what you are tomorrow. The way you develop leaders determines what kind of organization you will become. It’s the living instructions that will make you competitive or not, successful or not.

Wally Bock

Wally Bock is a coach, a writer and President of Three Star Leadership.