When the official L.E.T. program first came onto the scene in 1977*, it was often described as “soft,” too “employee-centered.”
Critics were skeptical about managers holding so many group meetings and “sharing their authority” with their group members.
L.E.T. was seen as a totally different paradigm of leadership, which many critics felt put too much faith in the “wisdom of the group,” “employee self motivation,” “distributing leadership functions to group members.”
Even L.E.T.’s emphasis on using Active Listening was frequently viewed as bringing psychotherapy and “touchy-feely” behaviors into the workplace.
L.E.T. was also criticized for stressing employee “happiness” and for putting too much faith in employee participation in problem-solving and personal goal setting. (Oh yeah, that’s just nuts…*cough*)
However, forty-eight years later, we continue to teach the program to people in the program all over the world, at all levels in all industries. We also continue to see the transformation in organizations and the role of the leaders, with some exceptions of course.
It is now more widely accepted that the key to leaders’ effectiveness is their capability in building a competent team and working in partnership with managers and teams in other departments of their organization.
Leaders need to learn the interpersonal skills that are necessary to create and build a team in which the full involvement and participation of each person is valued, expected and needed.
Literally hundreds of articles, blogs and books have confirmed the need for the new breed of leaders to be trained in the interpersonal skills specified in L.E.T., such as:
■ Developing and leading participative group meetings
■ Practicing empathic Active Listening
■ Using non-threatening confrontation, a non-power way to influence others to change unacceptable behavior (I-Messages)
■ Resolving conflicts so neither person loses and both get their needs met
■ Recognizing and avoiding the Roadblocks in person-to-person communication
So call it what you want, but L.E.T. is a program that teaches people how to get along better and that just makes good business sense. Period.
*In 1955, Dr. Gordon published his first book on leadership, which included the foundations of L.E.T., and it was called “Group-Centered Leadership”. It was too academic, too radical and so it didn’t quite make it to the best-seller list.