Are Leaders BORN or MADE

There’s always this question roaming around whenever people mention leadership “Are leaders born or made” Well Vince Lombardi quote “Leaders are not born they are made”. I would give a like for this quote on the account of that everyone single human being are ought to be a leader in some part of their life and they aren’t necessarily born with a bed of roses.

Leaders are not all about demonstrating people what to do but the ability to plant the right idea in doing the right thing. In every situation whether as a student or employees it’s all about go beyond the boundaries and comfort zone so that you will be fit enough to become leaders. If you are not convinced that leaders are made, let’s see what Harvard Business Review say about it. According to Harvard Business (2016), approximately 90% of the surveyed companies revealed that they have leadership development programming throughout organisation. Billions dollars of investment are allocated to leadership development, it says something about  leadership can be cultivated, if not they are not going to spend such amount of money.

These are the skillsets and trait which one should equip in order to become an effective leader even though you might think that you have no traits and skillsets it only takes a couple of steps forward and pushing the boundaries you have created, right there and then you can transform to be a leader. I bet everyone is aware of the traits of being a leader, common thing such as the communication skills, dominance trait, strategic thinking or even trustworthiness (Achua and Lussier, 2010). These are all skills that most leaders don't have when they started to be chosen as a leader.

It develops over time and a person doesn't have to be perfect in every single traits to be a successful leader, because if everyone is perfect you can’t point someone for any mistake and that’s not good. I think everyone does that in some point of their life but a leader doesn't point or blame someone of any occurrence in making a mistakes. Even Tim Cook said he develop a thick skin and it got thicker in being the shield of the company, not only the praises but the heat as well. All I’m saying is that trustworthiness is crucial not only for the followers to be able to trust the leaders but vice versa. The leaders should trust all his followers in being able to do the task or taking the responsibilities, because Franklin Roosevelt quote “It is a terrible thing to look over your shoulder when you are trying to lead — and find no one there ”.

If you think the person who wrote this is a natural born leader, guess what you are wrong. I’ve tried to be a leader for several group coursework and none of that is me wanting to be one. If you say so I’m a natural born follower. I used to follow around leaders order, doing what I’m told to do and I’m good at it. But the experience of being a leader is worth every single thing and I've learn a lot while being one and guess what leadership is not about the position, you can even lead without a title as long as you have the confidence in doing so but the only one thing that people don’t mention about leadership is that by being yourself.

References

1. Achua, C. and Lussier, R. (2010) Effective Leadership, 4th Edition. Canada: Cengage Learning.
2. Harvard Business (2016). The State of Leadership Development. www.harvardbusiness.org. [online] Available at: https://www.harvardbusiness.org/sites/default/files/19770_CL_StateOfLeadership_Report_July2016.pdf [Accessed 19 Jun. 2017].

By: Linda Raj, BBM1541