“I don’t believe leadership can be taught online.”
I understand the sentiment, but I think the statement contains a faulty assumption. It appears to assume that leadership is learned when someone stands at the front of a room, speaks to a group of people, and delivers a live presentation. If that is the premise, then I think we need to examine it.
A speaker standing in front of a room is a delivery method. It is not a learning outcome.
The same is true of a book, an article, a conversation, a coaching session, and an online course. They are all methods of delivering information and creating learning opportunities. The important question is not whether the instructor is physically present. The important question is whether the learner acquires knowledge, understands the concepts, develops the ability to use them, and ultimately applies what has been learned.
I am not arguing that online leadership training is better than live, face-to-face training. I make no such claim. My argument is much narrower: an appropriately designed online leadership program can be equally effective as an appropriately designed live program. The fact that the instructor is physically present in one and physically absent in the other does not, by itself, establish that one produces learning while the other does not.
I’ve spent much of my professional life thinking about what it means to teach leadership. I’ve written 10 books about what I call the Purposeful Adult, along with scores of articles built around the same concept. I don’t believe leadership is magic, and I don’t believe someone becomes a leader simply because an organization gives that person a title. (Click here for my short article on the topic: “The Great Leadership Lie … “)
I believe leadership is largely about being a Purposeful Adult. A Purposeful Adult accepts responsibility, thinks about the consequences of decisions, communicates with other people, establishes expectations, deals with problems rather than avoiding them, follows through on commitments, and understands that our decisions affect other people. When that person accepts responsibility for leading others, those qualities become the foundation of leadership.
Those are things people can learn.
And if we accept the proposition that people can learn about leadership, then we have to be careful about declaring that one particular delivery method is the only legitimate way to teach it.
Consider the book.
People have been writing books about leadership for generations. Millions of copies of leadership books have been sold, read, and discussed. Some people read a leadership book and change the way they think about their responsibilities. Others read one and disagree with it. Still others read one and put an idea into practice.
I am not suggesting that the sale of a leadership book proves that the reader became a better leader. It doesn’t. But the existence of an enormous body of leadership literature does demonstrate something important: we do not generally assume that learning about leadership requires the author to be physically standing in front of the reader.
Why should an online course be held to a different standard?
My 40-hour Leadership Academy is online and self-paced, but it isn’t simply 40 hours of somebody talking at a camera. Each module presents specific leadership concepts, and at the conclusion of each module, the participant must answer questions designed to test comprehension. The participant must complete the assessment before moving to the next module.
That doesn’t make the Academy a magic leadership machine. Nor would I ever claim that passing a test makes someone a leader.
What it does is establish a learning process.
The participant is introduced to an idea, required to consider it, required to demonstrate comprehension, and then permitted to proceed. What happens after that is where leadership development becomes real. The participant has to take what was learned into the workplace and use it when dealing with an employee who isn’t performing, when accountability is required, when a difficult decision has to be made, when people disagree, or when taking responsibility is more difficult than avoiding it.
That is true of live classroom training as well.
A person can sit in a room for eight hours while a highly accomplished speaker delivers an outstanding presentation and walk out knowing very little. Another person can read a book on an airplane and have an idea that changes the way he or she leads people for the next 20 years.
The location didn’t create the learning. The learner did.
There is research behind the broader proposition that leadership development can produce measurable learning and workplace effects. A 2017 meta-analysis examined 335 independent samples of leadership training and found positive effects for learning, transfer of learning to the workplace, and organizational results. The researchers also found that the effectiveness of training varied according to design, delivery, and implementation characteristics. In other words, how training is designed and delivered matters.
That is important because it does not support the argument that simply putting a speaker in front of a room guarantees effective leadership development. It supports a more reasonable conclusion: the design of the learning experience matters.
There is also research that speaks directly to the question of online versus face-to-face learning. A 2022 second-order meta-analysis examined 19 previous meta-analyses involving 841 primary studies and compared distance learning with face-to-face learning across cognitive, affective, and behavioral outcomes. The researchers found a statistically significant overall effect for distance learning compared with face-to-face learning.
That finding does not mean that online training is inherently better than face-to-face training. It doesn’t mean that every online course is effective. It certainly doesn’t mean that every live instructor is ineffective.
It means something much simpler.
The physical presence of the instructor is not a prerequisite for learning.
Research specific to leadership interventions provides additional context. A 2009 meta-analysis examined 200 laboratory and field studies on leadership interventions and found that they produced positive effects across a range of outcomes.
Again, the research does not establish that one particular delivery method is always superior. It shows that interventions can influence leadership by developing or changing leadership-related knowledge, behaviors, and outcomes.
That distinction matters.
If someone wants to argue that a particular online leadership course is ineffective, that is a legitimate question. We can examine the curriculum. We can examine the instructional design. We can examine how learning is assessed. We can examine whether participants complete the program, whether they understand the material, and whether they apply what they have learned.
Those are reasonable questions.
But saying, “Leadership cannot be taught online,” is a different proposition.
That statement rejects the medium before examining the learning experience.
It is somewhat like saying that leadership cannot be learned from a book because the author isn’t standing beside the reader.
I don’t think we would accept that argument.
Nor should we accept the idea that a speaker standing in front of a room somehow possesses a special ability to transfer leadership knowledge simply because the speaker is physically present.
The speaker can explain.
The book can explain.
The online course can explain.
The learner still has to learn.
And ultimately, the learner has to apply what was learned.
That last part is especially important to me because leadership is not an academic exercise. A person can memorize leadership terminology and still be incapable of leading people. A person can pass an examination and still avoid accountability. A person can attend a hundred hours of classroom training and still blame everyone else when something goes wrong.
Leadership development does not end when the instruction ends.
The purpose of instruction is to give people knowledge, understanding and tools they can use when they return to the real world.
That is true whether the instruction came from a person standing six feet away, a book sitting on a desk or a computer screen.
I don’t claim that online leadership training is better.
I don’t need to.
I simply claim that a well-designed online leadership program can be equally effective as a well-designed live program.
The question should therefore not be, “Is the instructor standing in the room?”
The better question is, “Is the learner learning?”
And then there is an even more important question:
“Is the learner applying what was learned?”
Leadership isn’t magic.
I’ve spent decades teaching people how to think about leadership as purposeful adult behavior. Some of that teaching has occurred in rooms filled with people. Some has occurred through writing. Some has occurred through individual conversations. And some now occurs through online learning.
The delivery method changes.
The responsibility to learn and apply the learning does not.
A speaker standing in front of a room can teach leadership.
So can a book.
So can an online Academy.
But none of them creates the leader.
The Purposeful Adult does.
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Author’s Note: The content provided in this article is designed exclusively for educational and informational purposes, reflecting opinions shaped by decades of leadership training and organizational consulting experience. It should never be interpreted as formal professional advice. By reading or engaging with this material, you acknowledge that no professional-client relationship is established and that these insights do not substitute for tailored guidance from a qualified professional familiar with your specific circumstances. Consequently, readers are strongly advised to seek independent counsel from licensed legal, financial, medical, or other appropriate advisors before implementing any strategies or making decisions based on these perspectives. Ultimately, you assume full personal responsibility for any actions you choose to take or omit as a result of reading this material, releasing the author and publisher from any liability for outcomes arising from your reliance on the text.
Additional Reading
Avolio, B. J., Reichard, R. J., Hannah, S. T., Walumbwa, F. O., & Chan, A. (2009). “A Meta-Analytic Review of Leadership Impact Research: Experimental and Quasi-Experimental Studies.” The Leadership Quarterly, 20(5), 764–784. DOI: 10.1016/j.leaqua.2009.06.006.
Lacerenza, C. N., Reyes, D. L., Marlow, S. L., Joseph, D. L., & Salas, E. (2017). “Leadership Training Design, Delivery, and Implementation: A Meta-Analysis.” Journal of Applied Psychology, 102(12), 1686–1718. DOI: 10.1037/apl0000241.
Martin, F., Sun, T., Westine, C. D., & Ritzhaupt, A. D. (2022). “Examining Research on the Impact of Distance and Online Learning: A Second-Order Meta-Analysis Study.” Educational Research Review, 36, 100438. DOI: 10.1016/j.edurev.2022.100438.
Collins, D. B., & Holton, E. F. (2004). “The Effectiveness of Managerial Leadership Development Programs: A Meta-Analysis of Studies from 1982 to 2001.” Human Resource Development Quarterly, 15(2), 217–248. DOI: 10.1002/hrdq.1099.
