Hello, all! I was re-reading this topic and noticed the parallels being drawn between teaching and leadership; I thought I'd weigh in with my own two pennies.
Teaching and leadership are not the same. They're skills cut from the same cloth, but they are nevertheless very different, and require different training. It is of course entirely posiible to be both, and the best leaders and instructors are good at both skills; a student or subordinate would be very lucky indeed to have a person like this to learn from. but the skills are separate.
I'll give ya two examples: My Dad, and my first section commander, 'way back when I first joined the Army. Dad's a great teacher; he taught Printing and Pre-press for twenty years in college; he taught me how to work with film and page design. I learned to be a hard teacher from him; he was VERY tough on his students, there was very little room for sliding or messing around in his class. His attitude in labs was 'Do it right, or fail. your choice.' Sounds like a nightmare, and I suppose he was, but he was fun too - his classes were ALWAYS jam-packed with students; his dropout rate was virtually nil and of the school's job placement program, the vast majority of successful placements were his students. BUT - he wouldn't know how to lead a horse to water. Not even a thirsty one. He could run a class like the master he was, but lead people? No way; he's far too introverted for that; he'd have trouble running a shop floor - he never learned the skills required to be a good leader.
On the other side of the coin was my first Section Commander, Sergeant Whitehall. The meanest, toughest, soft-hearted old fraud you ever saw. We were scared to death of him, hated him, and just loved him to pieces. When he said 'jump' (correction - he never 'said' anything - he either hollered or growled it), we jumped because we wanted to make him happy - which he never was - and also because if we didn't, we'd be digging trenches 'till the cows came home. He was tough, but he was brilliant; a masterful tactician and instinctive leader. I am quite willing to say that I am alive today because of him; just enough of his superb example and canny knowledge rubbed off on me to save me in more than one bad situation. (literally - I have scars that show what would've happened if Id've been a tenth of a second slower.) BUT - Never ask him to teach a class; give the guy a lesson plan and stand him at the front of a class, he couldn't do it - he'd mumble away, reading out of the book, obviously wishing he were anyplace better - like a burning building.
(RIP, Sarge; take it easy on the angels, will ya?)
Anyway, I waxed lyrical again, I tend to when talking about two of my personal heroes. The point was to show how teaching and leadership differ; sorry if I rambled on.
Dave