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Cox School of Business, we offered an eight-week "Seminar for Emerging Leaders," taught by Roger Enrico, former CEO and chairman of PepsiCo. The seminar was adapted forMBA students from his "change leadership" seminars used to train select, senior managers at PepsiCo. During his time with the compa- ny, Enrico learned that whenever PepsiCo experienced difficulty mov- ing to a new growth platform, it was often not because there weren't good strategies in place to implement change. The problem was that the strategies never got adequate traction or implementation—and the more difficult the change, the more diffi- cult it was to get traction. He began analyzing the process he could not first inspire confidence and respect among his employees? Probably not. Enrico himself didn't begin teaching leadership techniques until the twilight of his career, after he not only had established himself as a proven leader, but also had dis- covered the character traits a leader requires. When Enrico came to Cox, he wanted to handpick a select group of students and teach them advanced leadership principles through in-depth, one-on-one ses- sions. With the help of our faculty and staff, he identified nine out- standing Cox students with high leadership potential. of change leadership. He learned how to generate enthusiasm and pas- sion about a new course of action for an enterprise or a new organization. At the end of the day, leadership is about the ability to create change— to make people see things in a differ- ent light. From this, he developed the process for leading change he now teaches in his seminars. But could Enrico create change if all students, many of them might have been overwhelmed, frustrated, or even bored as they tried to learn skills for which they weren't suited. However, because Enrico targeted students who possessed leadership traits, the course was a success and one our students will never forget. It takes work and diligence to If he had aimed his seminars at invest in leadership training. Unfortunately, too many business schools provide students with only the basic tool kit and basic leader- ship courses. Others teach leadership skills but do so indiscriminately, IT TAKES WORK AND DILIGENCE TO INVEST IN LEADERSHIP TRAINING. UNFORTUNATELY, TOO MANY BUSINESS SCHOOLS PROVIDE STUDENTS WITH ONLY THE BASIC TOOL KIT AND BASIC LEADERSHIP COURSES. without differentiating between those students with leadership potential and those without. In either case, business schools often aren't training leaders. Rather, the schools are merely teaching followers skills they'll never use. At Cox, we take pains to pinpoint the leaders in our ranks. We require all of our students to complete 30 hours of training in our Business Leadership Center. After that, we offer specialized courses in leader- ship training—and it's in these courses that the natural leaders emerge. We don't use our traditional faculty when teaching leadership, because so few professors have led companies—most have only studied them. Instead, we utilize more than 40 executives like Roger Enrico who have significant corporate leadership experience. As a result, they are first- class role models for our students to emulate and are eminently qualified to know true leadership skills when they see them. While there are certain innate characteristics that must be present for a great leader to emerge, those characteristics alone cannot sustain a leader. Effective leaders must con- tinue to learn. I am in my 22nd year as a dean of a business school, and I've been at SMU Cox a little more than six years. Yet, I've learned more in the last six years about leadership by watching great people and establishing mentors than in the rest of my career. My advice to any- one, even if they are in the twilight of their careers, is that it is never too late to learn. Even when we identify students with the optimism, drive, and pres- ence to be leaders, we must send the message that potential alone does not make a leader. Students must understand that, despite their tal- ents, they will fail as leaders if they do not continue to seek opportuni- ties to learn and improve their skills. They must know that they can always get better, at any stage of their careers, by learning skills from the leaders around them, those peo- ple everyone wants to follow. They must then examine leadership anoth- er way—by looking at those no one wants to follow and understanding why they don't. ■ z Al Niemi Jr. is dean of Southern Methodist University's Cox School of Business in Dallas, Texas. BizEd MAY/JUNE 2004 55