Brad Pitt & Leadership Development

One of my fav movies is Money Ball, a 2011 movie starring Brad Pitt as the Oakland A’s general manager, Billy Beane.  Based on a true story, the A’s lacked money to go after great talent, so Beane tapped the idea of building a team on statistical analysis.  The manager, commentators, and sports analysts grilled Beane for his decisions at the start.  But eventually, the results proved themselves, giving the A's playoff bids in 2002 and 2003.  The paradigm shift in strategy became a new standard for creating winning baseball teams.

I think about the way leaders emerge in society, much the same they have throughout history.  We wait to see what alpha personalities elevate, letting them lead us up or down, ethically or unethically, effectively or ineffectively.  Then, more times than not, we complain about the results.  But intentionally identifying and developing young leaders is a approach, a Billy Beane strategy of thinking differently about how we play the leadership game.  As we launch into 2014, I’m convinced now more than ever that we need to revolutionize our approach to societal change, which begins at how we develop leaders.  www.kidlead.com