An Analysis of Leadership: Are Leaders Born or Made
Patrick Houston PADM 499 Senior Seminar University of LA Verne
Abstract
Leadership is a top priority in today’s organizations, highly valued for its power to inspire
achievement and translate vision into results. A famous quote holds that “leaders are not
born, they’re made,” and that is the basis of this paper. Leadership development, education
and training are among the most critical areas where organizations can make contributions
to maximize the value of their human assets. This paper discusses traditional ideas of
leadership, recent innovations and modern practices in leadership development and
training, in an effort to demonstrate that leaders can be developed through education.
The basic hypothesis of this paper is that leaders are made, not born. Unique, personal
experience is what gives individuals the power to lead. Not all people will bring together
the right mix of experience, knowledge, and insight to become successful leaders but those
who
commit to learning are is well-positioned to become leaders because they are already on
the fast- track learning curve, dynamically engaged with every core function and asset of
their job or industry. Every element of a successful organization will find that innovation
lies in the knowledge and understanding of its employees.
Chapter I: Introduction
―Leaders are made, they are not born. They are made by hard effort, which is the price
which all of us must pay to achieve any goal that is worthwhile (Lombardi, 2009). This ‖
statement by Vince Lombardi, hall fame football coach for two NFL teams, the Green Bay
Packers and the New York Giants, sparks an interesting discussion among coaches scholars
and business leaders. An effective leader is one who possesses both the innate talents of
one who will supervise with influence over others and the learned skills that come with
education, training and experience. (Zaccaro, 2003) This natural balance produces some
difficulty however in understanding how the effective leader should best be defined. The
question is to whether leadership is a role for which certain individuals are born or if
instead a largely pool of potential leadership candidates may be crafted through proper
training measures into effective and even exceptional leaders. (Gould, Hartley, Raftery,
Merola & Oleson, 2011)
Leadership is found in a broad array of endeavors, from business to culture, religion to
war, politics to technology, sports to education (Connelly and Rudnick, 2001). According
to Connelly and Rudnick (2001), ―It includes all manner of exercise — authoritative,
influential, moral, intellectual, energetic, and hands-on or passive, laid-back, strong, and
weak. It is manifest at all levels in all kinds of organizations and institutions. It is both
historical and contemporary, unchanging and dynamic. ‖
Perhaps because it encompasses all of these things, there is no general consensus about
whether leaders are born or made, whether leadership is a natural or learned ability
(Connelly and Rudnick, 2001). Perhaps the answer lies somewhere between the extremes
of nature and knowledge. When we look at sports leaders like Michael Jordan, it is clear
that he embodies the combination of those two extremes. He is one of the world’s most
extraordinary physical leaders
of all time. However, despite his talents, he could not lead his basketball team to its first
NBA title until he learned to help recruit, work with, and mold other key players into a
winning team. Over the course of six years, Jordan learned how to develop his team to its
greatest achievement
— a league championship in 1990.
This example demonstrates two important lesson (Connelly and Rudnick, 2001): 1. It takes
teamwork to win; and 2 being a leader is helping team members to levels they could not
achieve on their own. An important observation is that Jordan’s teammates have not truly
excelled after they or Jordan retired from the Chicago Bulls.
The ability to learn and apply life’s lessons, whether learned through an academic process
or real-world experience, is crucial to becoming a successful leader (Connelly and
Rudnick,
2001). Many leaders of recent years have either failed to learn or failed to apply what they
have learned and have thus failed in their leadership. The U.S. auto industry of the 1970s
and 1980s, for instance, ignored lessons about service, quality, and performance, which it
could have learned from its foreign competitors. Chrysler, especially, had to be bailed out
by the federal government, only to be sold three decades later to a foreign company.
Similarly, Motorola successfully transformed itself from a car-radio company to a world
leader in wireless communications and semiconductors under innovative, visionary and
motivated leadership.
In today’s world, where things are changing at a rapid pace, those who can internalize the
lessons around them, who can envision the importance of those insights on their
endeveours, and who can motivate and influence others to act on those insights, are the
best leaders for today‘s modern times (Connelly and Rudnick, 2001).
When most people think of good leaders, words such as ‘smart,” “creative” and
‘strategic” are high on the list of associated traits (CIO Insight, 2003). However, according
to the
more than 750 senior IT executives who participated in a 2010 research survey by CIO
Insight magazine, the really critical issues are “relationship building,” “communications
skills” and “inspiration.” Therefore, it is apparent that leadership ability is a combination of
personal traits and acquired skills. In fact, one of the top characteristics that respondents
viewed as a trait of a good leader was integrity. (Neumann, Gerlach, Moldauer, Finch &
Olson, 2004)
Still, as important as integrity and personal ethics are seen in shaping leaders, the survey
respondents also place a high value on leadership-development training programs (CIO
Insight,
2003). More than 80 percent of participants said that leadership can be taught, and a strong
majority of them have participated in leadership-development programs at some point in
their career. But even though our readers think highly of leadership programs, even more
participate in less-formal methods to improve their leadership skills.
The results of the study are as follows (CIO Insight, 2003):
81% Of CIOs Believe Leadership Can Be Taught
68% Say Their Companies’ Overall Quality of Leadership is High
74% Of CIOs are on their companies’ executive committees
81% Cite IT/business liaison as the most critical leadership experience
47% Have participated in leadership development programs in their current company
Purpose
The main purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that, if an individual has the desire and
willpower, he or she can become an effective leader. Effective leaders develop through an
endless process of self-study, education, training, and experience.
While some people may be ―born leaders , this paper is designed to show that even ‖
natural leadership characteristics can be improved. Even leaders that come from family
lines of leadership must learn how to inspire their followers (Clark, 1997). To inspire
people into higher levels of teamwork, there are certain things that leaders must be, know,
and, do. These often do not come naturally. Instead, they must be acquired through
continual work and study. The best leaders are constantly working and studying to
improve their leadership skills.
One of the main challenges of this paper was defining leadership. Leadership is not an
easy concept to define (Clark, 1997). It is a complex process by which a person influences
others to accomplish a mission, task, or objective and directs an organization in a way that
makes it more cohesive and coherent. A person carries out this process by using his or her
leadership attributes (belief, values, ethics, character, knowledge, and skills). Although an
individual‘s position as a manager, supervisor, lead, etc. gives you the authority to
accomplish certain tasks and objectives in the organization, this power does not make him
a leader…it simply makes him the boss. Leadership makes people want to achieve high
goals and objectives, while bosses tell people to accomplish a task or objective. This is a
key difference.
Bass’ theory of leadership was useful in demonstrating that leaders are made. This theory
states that there are three basic ways that describe how people become leaders (Clark,
1997). The first two explain the leadership development for a small number of people.
These theories are: Some personality traits may lead people naturally into leadership roles.
This is the Trait Theory.
1. A crisis or important event may cause a person to rise to the occasion, which brings out
extraordinary leadership qualities in an ordinary person. This is the Great Events Theory.
2. People can choose to become leaders. People can learn leadership skills. This is the
Transformational Leadership Theory. It is the most widely accepted theory today and the
premise on which this report is based.
Hypothesis:
The basic hypothesis of this paper is that leaders are made, not born. Unique, personal
experience is what gives individuals the power to lead. Not all people will bring together
the right mix of experience, knowledge, and insight to become successful leaders but those
who commit to learning are is well-positioned to become leaders because they are already
on the fast-track learning curve, dynamically engaged with every core
