Are leaders born or made?

ARE LEADERS BORN OR MADE?

Do you still believe that you cannot be a good leader because you were not born a leader?  Do you know that there are so many people who at first they believed that they do not have a talent of leadership and ultimately they became very good leaders? What do you believe now! Are leaders born or made?

“We must live the change we want to see” I real like this quotation by Mahatma Gandhi, it means a lot to different people but for me it also mean we are leaders of any change we need in our life, so by this logic it means everyone can be a leader, even those who think they are not born leaders but my question continues; do you think leaders are born or made? Keep on reading we must get an answer right here.

To start with defining leadership as a foundation of our discussion, it is a process whereby an individual influences a group of individuals to achieve a common goal. Do you think on your own you can influence a group of individuals to achieve something you have agreed together? Of course you can, why not? It is a matter of having knowledge on it and skills on how you take a process through or apply to.

Just imagine that you know what you are supposed to do so as to lead others on your common goal i.e. you have leadership knowledge and skills to use on leading, will you fail to lead others? Of course not, you will successful lead. Therefore leaders carry out this process by applying their leadership knowledge and skills (this is known as process leadership). What do you think now; are leaders born or made?

Of course we all know that we have traits or attributes in our personalities which can influence our actions and to make us good leaders this is known as (trait leadership) for instance; self intelligence, self belief, convincing power by speaking (extroversion), character, values, ethics etc. this is what made us believe that leaders are born and not made but this is not working as it is now days, it was the truth of old school and false in our modern schools.

Keep this in mind, trait leadership never last in changing situations, it can fit in a certain situation but when the situation changes it loses its stability because it mostly doesn’t involve knowledge and skills of leadership which can make a leader flexible according to a prevailing situation. For instance, a certain president has a good character of interacting with people, smiling and generally he is an extrovert which made him accepted by the majority during the election campaigns and immediate after he won the election as a president. When the situation changes as the national economy declined later on, he failed to convince people accept him by his extroversion character he has, he was before meeting people in public but now he is hiding himself with a lot of security defense, very hard to access him.

Try to imagine if this president could add the leadership knowledge and skills on top of his personal attributes/ traits then he could be a unique leader. Therefore this mean that when you mix your learned leadership knowledge plus skills and then your traits then what you will get is a very unique leader you are. What do you think now are leaders born or made? Of course the truth is a true and lasting good leaders are made, the old school trait leaders can get hard to survive in this complex world and societies of today, you need to learn the knowledge about leadership and have skills to apply then use your in born traits to influence your actions which are shaped by your leadership knowledge and skills.

Good leaders in 21^st century leadership are made, I hope you are now agreeing with me, that is why those who we thought can’t be leaders they are succeeding in their leadership after learning and they run their organizations and businesses in an amazing way. You can real be a great leader you never expected. The important tip is that take time to learn and know who you are, what you know and what do you think you can do then start leading.

Be a leader of anything you want to change, just take time to learn and have leadership knowledge and skills then identify who you are, what traits you do have which you will combine with the knowledge and skills you have to make yourself a unique and everlasting leader.

“If you think you can not be a leader because you were not born a leader in your life then you are very wrong you can learn leadership knowledge and skills and make yourself a good leader and also a unique one if you will add up your personal traits. Take a step to learn to day.”

Good luck as you are enjoying making yourself a great leader!

By Erick Chrispin