Are online courses really viable for leadership schools?

SSG, I concur that there are pronounced concerns about the current generation of service members capacity to interact with their peer group, supervisors and subordinates; and I'm equally convinced that it stems from inordinate amount of time they spent as children playing on the computer as opposed to playing with real friends.

That said, the online training arena is likely a double edged sword in today's world. Because the current generation has been inculcated to interact in the digital format, training in an asynchronous environment probably appeals more to them and is beneficial for learning technical skills. It also allows people to check in and out as their schedules permit, and saves the service money required for transportation/lodging involving offsite brick and mortar institutions.

The other side of the coin is that leadership relies heavily on interpersonal skills which CANNOT be fully developed in the online environment. Because of this, I don't think we will see a complete demise of actual classroom training particularly in the leadership arena, but we may see it scaled back or altered to make it easier to achieve and less costly. The Coast Guard has developed some hybrid leadership courses 

requiring students to complete portions of the training prior to reporting to the brick and mortar classroom. This may well be the way of the future for classes that need to have a physical interaction component.

We as leaders must remind those who plan our training what we need, and ensure that they deliver meaningful opportunities instead of just checking the blocks training.

Thoughtful post...;-)

I don't believe there is a high correlation between online courses and complaints about leadership, but I think there could be some.

I agree though that leadership courses should not be taught online.  You can teach a common core that is not directly leadership (i.e. history, doctrine, etc) and then have a resident phase to cover the leadership aspects.  You need to have that direct face-to-face interaction between the instructors and the students in my opinion, and more importantly the student-to-student interface.  What you learn from your peers generally outweighed what I learned from instructors, especially in something like leadership where it is more art than science.

You can substitute VTCs and online options (like Sametime), but it just isn't the same no matter how much money or time it saves.