PERSONAL GROWTH TRAINING - SNAKE OIL OR PATHWAY TO LEADERSHIP

Outdoor adventures are part of the curriculum, as are exercises that p ut participants 'in touch with their emotions.'' Popularly called ''pe rsonal growth training,'' this approach is being enthusiastically embr aced as the ''latest'' in leadership development. As an outgrowth of t he humanist psychology movement of the 1960s and 1970s, the basic obje ctive is to empower participants to assume greater personal responsibi lity for their lives and (ultimately) greater responsibility as leader s of their organizations. Yet, amid all the enthusiasm for this method ology, no one seems to be taking an objective look at its effectivenes s. In this article, Jay Conger challenges both the assumptions on whic h personal growth is based, as well as the relevance of the learning e xperience to corporate leadership. The ability to be ''emotionally hon est'' with oneself, for example, may well improve the quality of an in dividual's personal life-but there is no objective evidence to link em otional candor with better leadership. An outdoor adventure may engend er the courage to take greater risks, but this type of risk taking see ms much different from the risks one faces in daily corporate life. Co nger raises a question sure to ignite controversy: ''Have we fallen fo r the medicine man's snake-oil?''