Are Leadership Courses Going Downhill by Going Online?

rship courses are a fantastic way to gain newleadership courses, (while not exactly being cheap as
leadership knowledge - there's no doubt about that.chips) are far more affordable than hiring a Guru to
Leadership courses have been around for centuries,talk to your employees. The key winning factor
but however they have really taken off in a big way inhowever is that the course can be replicated across a
the 21st century.management team of 50 individuals for only a fraction
Large companies now invest $Xms per year inmore of the cost. This allows the leadership training
leadership development programmes for their seniorvendors to offer incentives for firms to involve as
managers and c-suite executive boards. This area ismany of their employees as possible in this internal,
big business, and high profile leadership 'gurus' andremote form of training.
other consultants have been generating very highThis may mean that 'grass root' employees that may
profits in the years leading up to 2008. However aonce have never had an opportunity to engage with
new entrant has appeared on the leadership coursesleadership training programmes, can now get their feet
scene - an entrant which won't make the executivewet and start to get involved. From a companies
coaches quite so nervous ... or will it?perspective, this can only help the rentention of those
The elephants in the room are 'Online Leadershiplow level staff who ordinarily face high levels of
Courses'. Despite the internet being around for aboutemployee turnover.
20 years now - only in the last 10 has it been reliable,There are other benefits of online courses too - they
quick and wide-reaching enough to supportcan easily be revisited and revised, which is perfect for
company-wide leadership development programmes.delivering the complicated (and often easily forgotten)
The question is, can a company 'really' outsource all ofleadership models/ leadership theory element of such
its leadership coaching needs to a leadership coursecourses. While sometimes being viewed as 'boring' or
online? Can an individual learning from a computer'not practical', I firmly believe that this theory has as
screen really learn as much as someone benefittingmuch a place in modern leadership training as practical
from one-on-one tuition?hands-on experience does.
The simple answer is no. The is as predictable andIn conclusion, I believe that the top level executives will
obvious as it was comforting for the consultants.still be given the large budgets to hire the best in the
The human touch, the individualism of coachingbusiness - the executive consultants that may run up a
courses, and the increased levels of memorymassive expenses bill, but at the same time will deliver
rentention and participation from the course membersa professional and practical course to your business
means that internet based courses will never be ratedleaders, however online leadership courses have now
as the '5 star' way of training employees.presented businesses with the ability to extend the
However this isn't to say that online leadership coursesopen and exciting attitude of personal development to
are a bad road to go down.their entire workforce, which I certainly welcome.
The bottom line is the bottom line. The costs of online