AVON — Leadership is a skill you can learn, so you should learn it from the best.

A Leadership Excellence Boot Camp will be taught by West Point instructors and graduates Lester W. Knotts, Ph.D., and Stephen Ingalls, and is sponsored by the Boy Scout’s Western Colorado Council.

Leadership Excellence Boot Camp is a one-day version of the LGL Leadership’s leadership training program.

LGL Leadership, Inc., was founded and is operated by West Point graduates and former U.S. military officers, most with combat experience.

The Boy Scouts have partnered with LGL Leadership to help teach leadership around Western Colorado. Their target market are business and community leaders, or emerging leaders in Eagle, Summit and Garfield counties, said Chris John, president of the Boy Scouts of America’s Western Colorado Council.

“We’re in the leadership development business,” John said.

A bit about Boot Camp

“It’s good for me because I’m a helper,” Knotts said. “When people see themselves as capable leaders they behave differently, and all the people working with them begin to behave differently and see themselves differently.”

You don’t get everything in one day.

“We can give them a touch. They are inspired to train themselves, and that’s what we’re after,” Knotts said. “We’re working on culture change. The ones who are serious about it and say they want more, we have more.”

In Leadership Excellence Boot Camp, participants work with LGL Leadership instructors to understand leaders and leadership, and to get to know themselves as leaders, Knott said.

The program is an adaptation of the West Point Developmental Process, and it based on LGL’s core tenets of character, empathy, trust and accountability.

“They will be introduced to methods that can be employed immediately to look inside both themselves and their organizations,” Knott said. “They will also begin to appreciate that leadership truly is a team sport.”

About the instructors

Knotts was a leader in the U.S. Army Infantry for 27 years on five continents. His last assignment was as an associate professor at West Point, New York, where he graduated in 1982. He earned four advanced degrees, including a doctoral degree from Pennsylvania State University. His has led divisions and was president of his West Point class.

Knotts helped found LGL Leadership.

Before you can lead others, you must know how to lead yourself, Knott said.

“The first responsibility of a leader is to know and lead himself or herself. No one can make a person lead — this is a personal decision,” Knott said.

Ingalls has been developing leaders for more than 30 years. He holds two masters degrees, was an assistant professor at West Point and an Instructor at the Army Command and General Staff College.

Ingalls was the first U.S. Army Aviation officer to help lead a 4,400 combat brigade to a major training deployment at the National Training Center in Fort Irwin, California.

Staff Writer Randy Wyrick can be reached at 970-748-2935 and rwyrick@vaildaily.com.