“Are you serious,” the pastor responded, “train and develop my church volunteers to be better principled leaders?  Provide team leadership training?  I can’t even get them to say ‘hi’ to one another each week!”

This question remains prevalent in the non-profit and even for-profit circles.  Is Online Training a reality?  Can Christian Seminars really occur online?  Especially in the church world where there tends to be a pull constantly back to traditional processes and methods, training others via the World Wide Web can seem quite ridiculous.

Training, a key word utilized in so many organizations today.  ‘Development’ tends to follow right behind.  These words make up a significant percentage of “Leader Talk”, but a very small percentage of “Leader Action”.  Nobody would argue that training, whether it’s the latest team leadership training, leadership skill training, or leadership development training is critical for the success of both the organization and the individual.  But the amount of time that leaders spend truly training their followers, teams, subordinates, staff, and others probably makes up less than 5% of their time. 

Organizations today either succeed or fail based on how the leader effectively leads his or her team of people towards a common goal.  At the United States Military Academy at WestPoint, the highly regarded university of the United States Military, the recruits are taught the four principles to being a leader of principle.  The four principles are:

1. Standards Principle
2. Training Principle
3.  Leadership Principle
4. Individual Principle

The 80/20 rule, 20% of the people do 80% of the work.  It is every organization’s mission and intention to prove the 80/20 rule wrong.  Every leader comes to the table believing that their leadership will inspire greatness out of people, catapulting them over the 80/20 reality. 

In very recent history, there was a powerful collision between government and business.  A powerful tool was handed over from the government to business; project management.  The government had utilized project management principles for years, especially for military operations.  Businesses identified that a tool from one industry may actually benefit them in another.  Thus was created business project management, a process/tool/system that thousands of businesses rely heavily on throughout the world today.

Believe it or not, the ball game has changed its rules.  Not only that, but the way to win the game, the strategy and skills, may have changed as well.  What? You may ask.  The new generations of X and Y, or the E-Commerce generations define “exceptional leader” in a whole new way.