Are Leaders born or made?
The debate of whether leaders are born or made dates back many centuries. In todays
modern society, we are seeing a rapid decline of heredity leadership and a significant rise
in role models being business or political leaders. Daniel Goleman argued in Social
Intelligence on the topic (chapter 10) and points out that the debate turns out to be
pointless, as it assumes that our genes and our environment are independent of each other.
For business leaders, its a question worthy of exploration. When we ask whether someone
can be “brought up,” as a leader is fundamentally questioning whether we can train people
to be leaders, regardless of their personal attributes. The very idea of “developing” leaders
suggests that there is a skill set to be developed. Furthermore, it is the right mix of
experience, traits, skills and the organizational environment that makes great leaders.
Identifying those characteristics that can and cannot be developed is clearly important as
organizations endeavor to inhabit their talent pools for critical leadership positions.
We have seen many great leaders in the twentieth century. The names that come to mind
are Margaret Thatcher, Abraham Lincoln, Golda Meir, Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela,
Martin Luther King, Adolf Hitler just to name a few. Researchers have tried to analyze
cases and the debate still goes on. In my personal opinion, I believe that a leader is born
with certain qualities, which, when honed through nurture brings about his/her success.
Successful leaders have the intrinsic ability to have others in a group to accept and follow
their directives or command. This ability takes a strong, dominant extrovert personality
and oodles of charisma. Studies have shown that these are psychological and character
traits that the person who emerges into adulthood from adolescence will demonstrate for
the rest of their life. Technical knowledge is acquired through schooling, training and
experience and is thus developed. Of course, intelligence sets the stage and influences the
extent, retention and ability to leverage learning. The more complicated the learning
material, the greater the level of intelligence needed to master and retain the material.
While intelligence is generally thought to be inborn, its characterization and dimensions
have been subjects of great debates. Overlooking the arguments about whether intelligence
is culturally defined, successful leaders do not need to be geniuses. What they need to
possess are strong enough skills in critical thinking, judgment and verbal reasoning to
develop and leverage the body of knowledge that is required for their particular area.
