You Can Lead a Horse to Water...but That Doesn't Make it a Leader

Egads, companies all across America are obsessed with "Leadership Training."  Every employee from the bathroom janitor to the CEO are spending hours and days in classes hearing canned PowerPoint presentations from perky presenters touting the latest 12-step program that will transform anyone and everyone into the next Steve Jobs.  Over my nearly 60 decades I have read dozens of books on leadership and sat through lectures, presentations and training on finding and developing the leader within me.  Well, guess what?  There ain't one in there.  So let me give you my curbside consultation on what I have learned and believe about all of this.
I postulate that within the corporate hierarchy there are basically four categories.  You can call them by different names, but essentially most companies are comprised of one or two (if they are lucky enough to still have one) Leaders, a small batch of Managers, Supervisors and then Workers. It is my belief that people are born with, or without the tendency to fall into one of those categories.  It is pretty much genetically dictated.  My uncle was born with musical talent.  He took violin lessons when he was very young and quickly mastered that instrument.  One day he sat down and started playing the piano.  He didn't need sheet music, he would just hear something on the radio and start playing it and would transpose it into another key on the fly.  I wanted to play the piano but was not born with the innate talent.  I took lessons for years, fighting and struggling.  I can pick out the notes off of the page, but I don't make music.  My uncle made music.  He was a musician.  I, with all my years of lessons still could not claim to be a musician. While you can tweak and develop and improve the skills within your particular category I don't believe that there is much movement of an individual from one category to another.  Wanting to become a Leader and attending all of these myriad leadership classes does not make you a Leader any more than standing in a garage makes you a car.  If you're not born to be a Leader, you're probably not going to be one.  Or a Manager or Supervisor either for that matter.  And just because your company anoints you as a Leader or Manager or Supervisor and sends you to class doesn't make it so either.  They may just be setting you up to fail.  Leadership training companies rake in billions every year telling rooms full of chickens to 'fly, you're an eagle!'  Well, chickens are not eagles and they're not going to become eagles.  There are very few eagles.  And we needs chickens, there's nothing wrong with being a chicken.  But the allure to be a Leader is very intoxicating.  In my opinion, there are very few leaders in government or business, but a lot of wannabes.
Leaders cast the vision for the product, service and company.  They were probably the founder(s) of that particular enterprise.  The original Leader many not even be around any more.  Sadly, after the founding Leader is gone, many companies never really have another Leader and wallow around until they go bust.  They try to hire another Leader or promote a Manager into leadership, but usually with disastrous results.  Leaders are big idea people, not detail.  They think outside of the box, come up with new, novel ideas and sometimes come off as a bit quirky, eccentric and impractical.  The words 'no' and 'impossible' are not in their vocabulary.  The fact that something has never been done before excites them while it scares Managers.  The are oriented to the future.  Once they have put an idea for a product or service in motion and handed it off to the Managers, they are pretty much done with that one and off dreaming up the next big deal.
Managers may go by many names:  CEO, President, Vice-President, COO, CFO, Manager, General Manager, Superintendent.  These people are responsible for taking the Leader's visions, manifested as a product, service or company and make it happen. They break the vision down into its component projects and steps and then manage the necessary resources, budgets, personnel, policies, legal and regulatory demands and timetables and deadlines. They hire the Supervisors who will oversee the workers who will ultimately do the work of the vision.  Managers are more oriented to the details of the vision, relieving the Leader of that burden.
Supervisors oversee the Workers who are doing the day-to-day grunt work of bringing the Leader's vision to fruition.  They hire and fire them, make sure they have the necessary tools and training, make sure the work is done safely and strive to meet the deadlines and budgets given them by their Manager for their particular project. 
Workers have very specific skills for very specific jobs.  These are comprised of the industrial trades, skilled and unskilled workers.  They perform the daily heavy lifting (many times literally) of accomplishing the vision.  They perform repetitive tasks on a very specific part of a step or aspect of a project making up the vision. Without them, nothing much would happen.
It is my premise that Workers rarely if ever make good Supervisors, Supervisors rarely if ever make good Managers, and Managers rarely if ever make good Leaders.  Thus the problem with promoting up the chain from within an organization.  People really do tend to rise to their level of incompetency, unfortunately that is usually the point where they are promoted from one of these categories up to the next one.  They were doing a great job in the position for which they are best suited, and this is probably why there were singled out for promotion.  That, and the fact that someone has been around for a long time and now it's their turn.  Eeeek!  Formula for epic fail.  Rather than leaving that successful person in their best-suited job and trying to help them be the best they can be there, the company out of the goodness of their heart promotes them up to the next category where they flounder and founder for years, while attending multiple seminars on how to be a success in that job, but secretly knowing they never will.  Surprise, I am not a big proponent of promoting from within.  If a company needs a Leader (or Manager or Supervisor or Worker) they should look everywhere for the best person with those particular skills, inside and outside the company and hire the best person for job.  It is more important that the candidate have the requisite skill set for the particular category of job rather than know the product, service or company inside out.  Someone from outside with the right skills can learn the company, product and service quickly.  But remember, it's the skills you are really after, not company knowledge.  Someone with all of the company knowledge and experience in the world will still fail if promoted beyond their God-given skill set. 
I believe that companies should stop sending everyone to leadership training classes and spend their money and resources identifying employees' innate skills, matching that to the right job and then investing in helping them improve those preexisting skills to the highest level within the job and category that best suits them.  If a position needs to be filled, fill it with someone from inside or outside the company that already has the right skills for that category, then train them in that position.