What do we actually know about effective leadership? One hundred years of research on the topic has led to some clear answers.

First, are leaders born or made? The answer is both, but more made than born. Leadership is a complex and sophisticated social role. Although certain qualities do predispose some people to attain leadership positions and be better at leading, effective leaders actually hone their skills through experience, conscious self-development, education, and training.

Second, does leadership training work? Relatively recent analyses of over 100 years of leadership training and development efforts suggests that most programs do indeed lead to some positive change. Is the change dramatic? Sometimes. Certain crucible, or trigger, events can lead to substantial improvement in leadership ability. For the most part, however, leadership development is a long-term and incremental process.

Third, are there certain elements that all (or most) great leaders share? We are quite sure that the theory of transformational leadership represents the very best elements of leadership. Effective leaders tend to be inspirational, visionary, and serve as positive role models for their followers. But the very best leaders also care sincerely about their followers, their well-being and their personal development. Great leaders also empower followers and encourage them to be creative and to take initiative.

Fourth, is leadership situation specific? In other words, if you are a successful leader in one area, such as at work, will you also be a successful leader in the community, or in a different company? Although this question has not been thoroughly researched, it is likely that the same transformational qualities and skills will transfer to other settings. The limitation, of course, is that knowledge of the particular setting, and understanding of its “culture” is required. So, a period of adjustment and learning is needed to allow the leader to use transformational abilities in the new environment.

Finally, how early in life does leadership begin to develop? This is a fascinating question, and one that our current research program is exploring. There has been little longitudinal research on the early “roots” of leadership, but our initial results suggest that the foundation of leadership begins at a very early age. Encouragement from parents and teachers likely plays a very important part, as well as early exposure to a variety of social situations, and novel experiences.

What are the implications for personal leadership development? Leadership is complex, but it can be developed. We know the building blocks of leadership success, and it is clear that devoting time and energy to your personal development pays off.

When I was growing up there was a couple on my block. She was heavy and he was thin.

My mother who never failed to notice anything, particularly weight, would comment: She is heavy, but he is thin. Periodically, we would run into them and my mother would repeat "she is heavy and he is thin." Appearances had great meaning to my mother, but she would never permit herself to say anything beyond that.

As I got older I began to wonder about that couple. Did she want him to be thin and smaller than her? Did he want her to be heavy? If she died and he married someone else, would the next woman also be heavy? If he died, would she again choose a man smaller in frame than she?

Apparently, neither of them minded and they have as far as I know, lived out their lives with the normal happinesses and miseries known to people who live in this part of the country. And yet the question still intrigues: was he thin because she was fat? Was she fat because he was thin?

Recently, an obese man I know confided in me that part of his obesity is his identification with his mother. We were eating at a social function and he said with a degree of shame that when he gets overweight as he is, he begins to have breasts.

Naturally, the thought made me very sad. There must be better, less hazardous ways of identifying with his mother. Why was he stuck in that way? That was a question that would have to wait for another day, but apparently, in order to deal with his dangerous weight issue, one would probably have to explore his relationship to his mother.

The funny thing is that we tend to think of our bodies as belonging to ourselves and they do of course, but they seem to develop in relation to somebody or something. For example, in past decades pediatric studies have revealed that the onset of puberty in young girls is getting earlier. Some studies have shown that in households where the father is absent, the girls tend to mature earlier.

Our bodies seem to react to people and to things. We know that people age under stress, they shrink, expand with sadness and happiness. Many people I know are trying to lose the same 10-15 lbs for years. Freud noted that people tend to play with objects, they might throw them or damage them or maintain them because they are representatives of people, usually important people in their lives. People they have strong feelings about.

When we overeat, or under-eat, exercise, work out or not work out, lose weight or gain weight, in addition to strong environmental factors, we might also consider that we are sending messages to people. The idea that we are always in profound communication to somebody might help some of us make progress.

My last column was mostly about two emotions, grief and fear. This column will concern two other emotions, shame and anger, and also another kind of stress, bodily tension such as illness and fatigue. Emotions and feelings are at core physical, rather than only mental. Sadness is the feeling we get when bodily preparations to cry are not carried out. In this view, crying is the orgasm of a state of bodily arousal: grief. The habit of controlling emotions by ignoring them turns out to be a huge problem. Over the long haul, unresolved emotional arousals can build up to the point of continuous painful feelings and/or tension.

Last time I proposed that all emotions, both positive and negative, can be enjoyed. The challenge is to be able to experience them in a third way: neither 1. ignoring them, on the one hand, nor 2. getting lost in them, on the other. In drama theory this third state is called aesthetic distance. The audience is to identify with the characters to point of feeling their emotions, but at the same time remembering that they are NOT the characters.

Strong emotions can be enjoyed in a safe environment: theatre, film, books, songs, or telling one's experience to an empathic person, or even to one's self. Peter Levine (1997) described this state as pendulation, moving very quickly back and forth between painful feelings and the safe present. I once had an extraordinary fear experience in this mode: after an excruciatingly dangerous experience, my body took over, shaking and sweating til my clothes were drenched. It was not painful, and I felt completely relaxed when it was over. Shaking and sweating seems to be the orgasm of fear arousal.

Like many people, when angry I may get loud and mean. But I have had several anger experiences of a quite different kind. I told the culprit "I am angry at you because....." in an ordinary voice. Since this approach is so undramatic, I have had to repeat my complaint several times. Then two things happened: the other person started apologizing, and I felt hot. I realized that it was not the room that had gotten warm, but my body. Apparently catharsis doesn't involve yelling and fighting. It is rather an internal process: heat metabolizes the adrenaline of bodily preparation to fight. Could body heat signal the orgasm of anger?

Shame, embarrassment and humiliation: When I tell students to describe to the class their most embarrassing moment, many of them are convulsed with laughter telling the story. Laughter seems to be the orgasm of shame. However, it's often difficult to get to laughter, especially if one was deeply humiliated. What is often required are many repetitions of just talk about the incident, before one can find humor in it.

It also needs to be said that just as there is a good cry and a bad one, there is also a good laugh and a bad one. A good laugh turns out to be when one is laughing at one's self ("Silly me") or the universe, but not at other people. Laughing at others usually is ridicule, driven by anger: no help to either party.

One final comment on yawning. Even though most people think that yawing increases one's oxygen supply, there is no evidence. In my experience, I yawn when I am tired, not when I am sleepy, and when under intense physical pain. A trip to the dentist often results in a fit of yawning afterwards. In my most painful illness, I think that extraordinary fits of yawning made the pain bearable.

As you may have guessed by now, I am not saying that it's easy to enjoy your emotions, only that it is possible. With enough time and practice, I think that anyone can learn the art of distancing (pendulation) of one's emotions to make them less painful and to begin the long process of resolution. It may be that the future for human beings depends on everyone learning this lesson.

These comments on catharsis were brief. For further discussion, see #57 on my home page (http://www.soc.ucsb.edu/faculty/scheff), my 1979 book, or an edu-tainment backed up by two rock stars: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DM_MxBizcQk

My husband and threw a small party, a brunch, the other day. An introvert throwing a party? Yep. I'm not antisocial. I like seeing friends and offering hospitality. And in some ways, throwing a party is easier than attending someone else's. For one thing, when I need to check out of the chitchat, I can busy myself with hostess duties--refilling food or drinks, mopping up spills, general tidying. Plus, I usually know everyone at my own parties, which makes mingling less awkward for me.

Still, a party is a party and I anticipated this party with the usual combination of pleasure, high anxiety, and pre-emptive exhaustion. But this time, while I prepared the food, I also prepared myself, thinking about how I could manage my psychic energy.

Because I went into the party conscious of my energy, an interesting thing happened: I was talking to a guest, someone I didn't know well, and suddenly realized that my energy was shooting every which way. Some was going into my conversation, yes. But I also was conscious of other conversations around me. I was aware of my husband manning the barbecue. I was wondering about guests who hadn't arrived yet. Keeping an eye on the dog. Thinking about running back into the house for ... what? I didn't even know.

No wonder social events exhaust me! My poor brain, accustomed to the quiet focus of solitude, wasn't processing my environment efficiently. It was trying to absorb and interpret too much, giving me that familiar my-head-might-explode feeling.

But this time, as soon as I became aware of my scattered energy, I tried to gather it in and focus entirely on the conversation at hand.

Immediately, calm settled over me. I looked at the woman talking to me, who a moment earlier was irritating as a buzzing fly, and became interested in what she was saying. The rest of the party receded to the background and managed to function without me for the ten minutes I permitted myself to focus. And with my psychic energy ratcheted down, I was infinitely more relaxed than I had been a minute earlier.

Hm. That's a good trick: When suffering from sensory overload, focus on something manageable. One conversation. Another weapon in my arsenal of party-survival tactics.

Yeah, I have a few party tricks up my sleeve, don't you? For example, admit it: At some point at a party, you've gone into the bathroom not because nature called, but for a moment of quiet solitude. Closing that bathroom door in that small, silent room ... ahhhhh. It's a whole different kind of relief. I know one woman who admits to shutting herself in the bathroom--at her own parties and others'--and reading.

Actually, I'm currently reading The Introvert Advantage and was tickled to find that author Marti Olsen Laney starts her chapter about socializing with an anecdote about a mid-party retreat to the bathroom.

Speaking of books, snooping in other people's bookcases is a good way to check out of the chitchat. (Snooping in other people's medicine cabinets, however, is not good form, no matter how much time you spend in the bathroom.) Sometimes I even just pretend to look at the books so I can turn my back on the party for a minute and give my brain a break.

If all else fails, I'll step outside for a moment of peace. Actually, in some ways it is my need for party escape that has prevented me from completely and entirely giving up the nasty cigarette habit. I'm still a smoking hobbyist because I like stepping out for a smoke during parties. It's dark and quiet outside there and at most, you might become part of a small (and ever-shrinking) party subset: the smokers/pariahs. I know, I know. Not a good reason to keep smoking but would someone please come up with an alternative?

I also have strategies for extended get-togethers, especially if I'm a house guest or have house guests. For example, one of my Thanksgiving traditions is a long morning walk. I do it not just for the exercise, but for some calm before the social storm. I always pack walking shoes for extended family visits because when I need alone time, I can cite my need for exercise and step out without risk of causing offense. I can buy a full hour of solitude that way and get a little exercise as well.

I've also found, oddly enough, that knitting helps keep some personal space in my brain during those family-just-sittin'-around times. I can remain cognizant of everything happening around me and participate, but the little task engages the wandering part of my mind and somehow approximates solitude in a crowd. I'm not exactly sure why this bit of voodoo works for me, but it does.

What are your party survival tactics? Now's the time to share them, as we careen into the festive season.

Photo by Buster Benson via Flickr (Creative Commons)

Nora Volkow and the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) insist, based on peering at MRIs, that addiction is a chronic brain disease. You know - you saw it on HBO, and your kids learn this in school.

But, as I point out to Nora, she's looking in the wrong place. If you examine actual human lives, addiction is an interaction between people and their worlds that changes with time.

Now the NIDA's sister organization - the NIAAA or National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (remember, Joe Biden wants to change the names of both organizations because he knows addiction is a disease) - agrees with me.

According to Dr. Mark Willenbring, director of treatment and recovery research at NIAAA, "We're on the cusp of some major advances in how we conceptualize alcoholism."

This discovery, which I have described for decades, is based on the most sophisticated study yet conducted of Americans' drinking histories. Called NESARC (National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions), the study questioned a random national sample of over 43,000 Americans about their lifetime and current drinking.

Of this group, almost 4,500 had been alcohol dependent (read alcoholic) at one point in their lives. And, although 70% had never been treated or gone to Alcoholics Anonymous, most had ceased their alcoholism - even though most had not stopped drinking!

About 30% of Americans had experienced some kind of alcohol disorder, including abuse along with dependence, but about 70% of those quit drinking or cut back to safe consumption patterns without treatment after four years or less.

Only a tiny minority (1%) fit the stereotypical image of someone with severe, recurring alcohol addiction that Alcoholics Anonymous, addiction disease proponents like Volkow, and American mythology consider typical. According to Willenbring, "It can be a chronic, relapsing disease. But it isn't usually that."

Take that, Nora!

According to the lead researcher on the project, Deborah Dawson, NESARC data show that alcohol use disorders are "less a mental disorder than a maladaptive pattern of behavior."

In a three-year follow-up of initial respondents, Dawson and her colleagues found that alcohol dependence was "strongly associated with changes in mental/psychological functioning." Alcohol dependence causes significant decreases in mental health and coping, but social functioning and mental health underwent "significant increases among those who achieved full and partial remission from dependence" (meaning alcoholics who continued drinking with either no, or reduced, problems).

Now comes the most amazing part. The increases in social functioning and mental health "were equally great for abstinent and nonabstinent remission from dependence, but improvements in bodily pain and general health were associated with nonabstinent remission only" (that means the alcoholics who reduced their drinking).

My Life Process Program is exclusively abstinence based - although we recognize the reality that lifetime abstinence rarely occurs. But government researchers - based on the best epidemiological research yet conducted - now inform us that people who recover without quitting drinking are healthier than those who quit altogether.

Go figure.