Leadership training proposal at Cliffside Holding Company

Cliffside Holding Company

Briefly, the issue at hand is with respect to the arguments for and against the proposal to send promising young managers to leadership training. There are costs and benefits to the training, but the discussion surrounding the issue veers away from such rational analysis. The purpose of this report will be to critically analyze the issue and the different arguments, in order to help make a decision with respect to the leadership training. Browne and Keeley (2010) have proposed a series of questions that will help to perform this critical analysis in a structured manner.

What are the issues and the conclusions?

At issue here is a yes/no decision about whether to send junior executives to leadership training. The cost is a concern for some, as it will cost about $100,000 outright, and it is estimated that a further $100,000 in lost productivity will also accrue. The nature of leadership is a major subject of the pro/con debate, as well as the issue of financial priorities. Those engaged in the discussion at present are viewing the question of the leadership training as a yes/no issue. There are other potential options, however. The current proposal is just one of many leadership training options. It can be rejected and the company can still pursue leadership training. A compromise version (e.g. fewer junior executives or a shorter course) can be adopted instead of the current proposal. In that sense, the argument for or against this particular training has become a sideshow, where people are debating the nature of leadership as opposed to the different leadership development options that the company is faced with. Many people, it seems, are not even sure of what the issue is here. The issue is how to develop the next generation of leaders. The current discussion is just one element of that, but the proposal may have simply put the cart before the horse, and we need to have a rational discussion about the nature of leadership before even examining the different leadership development options. So the conclusions on the table, the antagonist's "yes" and the author's "no," represent a false dichotomy, which is a common logical fallacy. There is no dichotomy at all, but a multitude of different options. A precursor to deciding about any of those options is to come to some agreement on the nature of leadership and how best to pursue leadership development.

What are the reasons?

The author has concluded that this leadership training is not needed. There are several bases for this claim. The first basis is that the primary proponent of the plan, Ms. Forsythe, "has a personal agenda to discredit me." This has been stated by the author, but the author has not offered any case. The basic elements of a case, including motivation, are lacking in this claim. This claim actually appears to have some other unstated, underlying basis, some conflict between these individuals or insecurity on the part of the author.

The second basis is that the author claims leaders are born, not made. The author offers up several points of evidence for this. The author notes that there is a narrative about leaders being tall. The author notes that there is a trait theory of leadership, and mentions two academic journals that have published articles about it. The author also touches on the fact that the current leaders did not undergo leadership training. This is in support of the idea that leaders are born, which is a restatement of trait theory -- basically that you are either a leader or you are not. Both of these supports are offered for the conclusion that leadership training is a waste of time and money.

Which words or phrases are ambiguous?

There are points of ambiguity in the letter that are worth discussing. One is the phrase " There exists an entire school of leadership theory which holds that leaders have certain traits in common." This is true, but the phrasing tells the reader that there are probably other schools of thought about leadership as well. The author is committing a sin of omission here, only discussing the one school of thought that supports his argument. But most of the words use are, at the very least, poorly defined. The author claims that leadership has been "successful and effective," but without any context those terms of meaningless at worse, and ambiguous at best.

More conceptual ambiguity comes later. "traits as ambition, self-confidence and intelligence" are highlighted as key traits of leaders by the author. The problem is that, again, there is some omission here. These traits are common of people who are not leaders, too, and are probably in common with all of the young executives who are targeted for the leadership training. The other not only tries to project these attributes as unique to leaders, but as the only things that matter in leadership. There is no evidence that says "the course teaches X, and our executives already know that." The author is trying to find that phrasing perhaps, but fails. Even the attribute "tall" is ambiguous -- and comical when the author notes the only one who is not tall is a woman. It's true, most women are not over six feet. That does not mean she isn't tall. The author basically is sloppy conceptually, and seeks to build his case around omitting things that might contradict his argument.

Are there any fallacies in the reasoning?

There are many fallacies in the reasoning, several of which have already been noted. Logical fallacies are commonly studied in the behavior of decision-making, because they play such an important role (Fantino, Fantino & Navarro, 2003). There's a lot of kettle logic, as the author is using two or three arguments to build his case in the hopes that one will stick. The biggest one is from the outset, that this is a binary choice. Thus, this is a false dichotomy or false dilemma. That is the first fallacy. The author is also engaging in red herring. The author is talking about one thing (the nature of leadership) rather than evaluating the proposal on its merits. While the debate about the nature of leadership has merit, as noted above no matter what conclusion is reached about the nature of leadership, there is no conclusion about whether leadership training has value or not. The specific point -- the proposal in question -- is not addressed with any degree of specificity by the author. Really, there should not even be discussion of the points the author is making, as they are all part of the same red herring.

The issue that the author apparently has with Ms. Forsythe is also tangential to this discussion. The author is engaging in ad hominem attack here -- attacking Ms. Forsythe, and also attacking her motive, as a means of discrediting her case. The problem with ad hominem is that whether or not this proposal should be adopted has nothing to do with Ms. Forsythe's character or her motivations for proposing it. Likewise, the weird defensiveness demonstrated in the letter is irrelevant to the issue of whether or not the proposal should be rejected.

There is also, in the conclusion, an example of circular logic. It is such poor reasoning that it is basically a throwaway sentence: " Leadership development programs are wasteful because the money is not well-spent." Not spending money well and wasting it are the same thing -- something cannot be defined by itself. There is also a moral high ground fallacy in the conclusion as well: "I speak for truth and common sense," whereby the author is seeking to position himself as superior to the opposition in order to make his position seem better. In short, there are multiple fallacies in the argument.

How good is the evidence?

The short answer is that the evidence is not good. The author cites trait theory, claiming that it has been written about in a couple of journals. This is an appeal to the perceived credibility of academic journals, and goodness knows trait theory has been discussed in more than two of them. But ultimately, the author does not say what was in those journals -- the articles in question may have been blistering screeds against trait theory. Moreover, trait theory is very old, and has been left for dead by most scholars on the subject of leadership. So the author has offered insufficient evidence in support of trait theory, or why trait theory rejects the training. No evidence was provided for that contention. More cherry-picked examples come in the chart of leader heights -- this is such bad evidence it was immediately set aside. The author also offers up the opinions of the other leaders -- not unbiased sources, not scholars of leadership, and therefore reliable sources. The author offers no evidence to support his arguments against Ms. Forsythe, but that line of reasoning is so bad it offers nothing. Likewise, there is no point getting into the argument about the validity of Wikipedia -- it's not inherently wrong just because it's on Wikipedia. It's hardly an airtight source, but the claim isn't worth enough to the argument to explore further. Overall, the evidence is very poor in this argument.

Are there rival causes?

As noted, there are many rival causes here. There are many other leadership theories that could offer suggestions as to the best way to train leaders. The course in Colorado could be garbage for all we know -- a starting point to the discussion would be to analyze leadership theories and seek to understand what the full range of alternatives for developing leadership are. Both propositions here could be rejected, if rival causes are found. As of yet, rival causes have not entered into the argument, which is my point about this being a false dichotomy. There are several explanations for the nature of leadership that have not been analyzed yet, and a decision should incorporate those other causes.

Are the statistics deceptive?

There are no legitimate statistics produced in this argument. The height chart thingy is not even worthy of being considered an attempt at statistics. So it is not that there are deceptive statistics, it is that there are none. This is acceptable -- leadership seems a subject better suited for qualitative research, but qualitative research was also not presented. If statistics are used, they should be of the following nature. First, the statistics should illustrate the nature of leadership. In the event this is not possible (there is no consensus among scholars about the nature of leadership, which means there are probably no firm numbers on the subject), there should at least be numbers that support the financial decision at hand. Usually this would be a net present value calculation, and it funds are scarce then other, mutually exclusive, alternatives should be presented, with their NPVs as well. Both Forsythe and the author should make a financial case here, but the author clearly has not rejected this proposal on financial grounds, and does not make that a basis for his case.

What significant information is omitted?

Since much of the argument is a red herring, a lot has been omitted. The steps for making this determination should have been as follows. First, there needs to be an understanding of the nature of leadership, in order to support the idea that leadership training will be beneficial to the company. The second step should be to evaluate the different options for their cost-benefit (the NPV analysis). These two steps allow the company to understand what it is they hope to achieve with the leadership training, whether leadership training delivers that, and whether this value that the leadership training delivers is sufficient to cover its cost. The third step is to examine the NPV of this alternative, versus other initiatives that are mutually exclusive due to financial constraints. So all of this information needs to be gathered. It was all omitted, and the information that was presented only touched on the first part of the discussion, partially, and omitted all of the other required data entirely.

What reasonable conclusions are possible?

There are several possible conclusions. The proposal can be accepted. The proposal can be rejected. The proposal can also be modified -- an acceptance that some leadership training is needed, but not this particular course. There may be other courses from the same company, for example, that prove to offer a higher NPV. The proposal can also be replaced. This is technically a rejection of the proposal, but since at issue is the notion that leaders can be developed, and evidence on that has yet to be presented, an alternative set of proposals that reflect what is learned about the ways leaders develop might yield other programs (mentorship, etc.), or other training courses. So the conclusion can cut several ways, but at this point there is scant evidence to support a rejection, and the evidence in favor of the proposal has not yet been evaluated.