Why training young people is so important.

Recently we had the chance to partner with the PAC 7v7 league to deliver the Emerging Leaders Initiative for the second year in a row. First, this program is so much fun to facilitate! To have the opportunity to work with young athletes is always fun but this program is so much more than a class – it is upbeat and the athletes get to do what they love, compete and use their athleticism.

This program is about 20 years in the making. The co-founder of PAC 7v7 is my good friend Pisa Tinoisamoa. We first met on a football practice field in Vista, CA when we were Freshman in high school. Pisa went on to play in the NFL for almost a decade and had a lot of success with the St. Louis Rams and Chicago Bears. Along the way Pisa met another local guy, Brett Swain, who made it to the NFL and played for the Packers during their 2010 Super Bowl Championship run. When football ended for them they became coaches at local high schools here in North San Diego County. If you are around football or have any experience with offseason development, one of the most popular is the 7 on 7 leagues. These leagues focus on the skill players perfecting the passing game skills. Pisa and Brett founded the PAC 7v7 league and have several teams for different age groups – offering quality coaching to help athletes stay sharp through the offseason.

When Pisa and Brett first approached me last year about developing a leadership program for their young athletes, specifically middle school age, I was excited. We had a great meeting dreaming up a few scenarios, and I walked away feeling like this is going to be awesome. Then……it hit me…” How do you take leadership concepts and principals and package it in a way that would keep a Middle Schoolers attention?”. The Blanchard Institute showed me some insight when I was trained to deliver their Student Self Leadership Course. The Blanchard Institute has done a lot of great work developing a program that engages students without lulling them to sleep with classroom lecture or losing their very short attention span. Using these nuggets of knowledge, I managed to create a program workbook that focused on the core leadership principals that Pisa and Brett wanted their athletes to absorb, while weaving in activities that demonstrated these principals in live action. The great part about the finished product was that the athletes had fun and they were also challenged to think about their future and what type of leader they can become.

I believe this type of program is critical to the growth of our next generation. Our culture spends a lot of time and money training the “bad leadership habits” out of adults in the corporate world. Why do we wait? Many people who end up being leaders in the corporate world go a life time teaching themselves or get spotty teaching on how to be a leader. Leadership Development being the 14-billion-dollar business it is shows that there is a lot of re-writing of leadership behaviors going on. This is what excites me about programs like Emerging Leaders Initiative – let’s start teaching sound leadership principals that young people can apply to their day to day now. In my experience with teaching young people leadership principals, they get it……it’s worth it. If you have a program or team and you desire to provide the gift of leadership development, let us know. We can create a specific program that incorporates a fun and engaging environment while giving students the skills to be leaders now.  

Kenny Wood

Here goes nothin’

Well, I have always wanted to start my own thing, I certainly didn’t think it would be something like Leadership Development. But like most things – what gets you going is the same thing that frustrates the crap out of you. I have worked in a lot of places and experienced a lot of leadership – Unfortunately, bad leadership is far more common than good leadership. What is even weirder, there is some questionable leadership even in the world of leadership development. It's these experiences and a lot of talks with God that Leadercanon was born.

See, bad leadership makes me mad……. believe me I have stood up from my desk and headed out the door with no intention of ever coming back because of a bad leadership experience. But in the end, I would always remind myself that bad leadership is everywhere. That is exactly what got me thinking, what could I do about the bad leadership epidemic? I have recently read several articles about the thing that Leadership Development is missing or getting wrong – to tell you the truth, I don’t know if I agree with any of them. I guess this is where my opinion comes in – I have been a part of the Corporate Machine for so long, its hard to actually feel free to give my opinion.

Leadership Development is an arena flooded by widgets and gizmos, all promising to fix your culture and make all your people better leaders after one 16-hour class at a minimum of $10k. The truth is, I don’t think that is how you make better leaders, it is however, how you build a Leadership Development business. See with Leadercanon I am not trying to build some mega business, I just want to make a living doing what I love, developing people and helping them succeed. I am sure I could put my nose to the grind stone and create some newfangled gadget that is going to “revolutionize” the way we look at Leadership, but I would rather just get my hands dirty. I realize that there are several people in Leadership Development that never dreamed they would have giant firms so I don’t blame them. But, I am saying for the record, that the goal of Leadecanon is not to be a huge business. The reason why, you ask? Sure, I will tell you. Have you ever heard of A.T. Stewart? Chances are, probably not. But he is considered one of the 20 richest most successful men in American History. A.T. Stewart was one of the first department store owners and had business interests all over the world – he was worth about 90 billion dollars in today’s money.  This all brings me to my point – you can build an empire………. 100 years later nobody remembers or cares. I think there are too many people in Leadership Development that are pushing ideas that are never tested in the real world, all in the name of making the world a better place. After all, they have a business to build. I don’t mean that sarcastically – I mean it sincerely- business owners are in a difficult spot and it isn’t easy. Before they know it, a business can get so big and they have so many people depending on them, that they must focus on growth.

Back to why I started Leadercanon – because I want to help people get better. A coach helps an athlete get better by working with them and alongside them, not just spending a few hours and handing them a bunch of books regarding the subject. It is funny to me that corporations will spend hundreds of thousands on Executive level coaching, but never coaching for their managers. Instead managers get the once or twice a year concept class and told to execute – by the way most of the time deployed incorrectly after the class and often misinterpreted. That’s the aim of Leadercanon, take these gizmos and gadgets and put them through the sifter so we can let you know what works and what doesn’t. We want to teach you how to keep your people first and grow your organization at the same time. We want to help you find your true north. SO maybe you are frustrated with your Leadership Development experience so far or you don't know where to start – give us a try.