There are different kinds of leaders in different organization today.
These leaders have different
styles of leadership they use for them to succeed in a fast growing economy. These leaders have
certain skills and qualities as well as personalities that are quite common despite being different
in their ways of operations (Justine, 2014). What is leadership? Well, according to Northouse,
(2007,p3) leadership is defined as “a process where an individual influences a group of
individuals in a new way to achieve a common goal”. Further, from the definition of
leadership, we can clearly point out that a leader is one or that individual who is able to influence
others in a certain way to achieve a certain goal. Moreover, the question to ask for us interested
in leadership is “are leaders born or made?” Well, let’s find out.
According to Justine (2014), it is clear that a phrase “leaders are born” is a [Link], in his
article; he clearly said that “the most dangerous leadership myth is that leaders are born and that
there is a genetic factor to leadership” this is a myth that simply asserts that either people have a
charismatic qualities or not. Today, there are a lot of programs that have been developed just to
train leaders, why? .This is because the world has come to realize that leaders can be made
through leaning skills. According to Ben (2021), in his article said “Leadership is a set of skills
that can be learned by training, perception, practice and experience over time” if this is true, then
leadership learning should be a lifetime activity which is in fact making a lot of sense, why?
Because good leaders today seek out development opportunities that will help them learn new
skills.
On the other hand, is a natural born leader, ‘what does it mean to be a born leader?’ Ben (2014)
defined “Born leaders” as “people with an innate capacity to effectively manage and lead groups
of people to achieve collective goals”. Yes on this side of the coin, there are people who are like
this and for them, instead of learning to become an effective leader, they have the instinctive
ability to inspire others and encourage them to follow their vision. This is also supported by ‘trait
theory’ which naturally accords with the view that leaders are born not made(Justine
2014).The theory studies the individuals and cluster a core of attributes that include,
achievement, influence, responsibility , drive, motivation, self-confidence , cognitive ability,
honesty and integrity, and interpersonal skills . These are some of the key traits identified by
‘trait theory’ as being in some people who happen to be naturally born leaders. However, this
does not change the fact that leaders can be made through leaning leadership skills.
In conclusion, according to what I have researched and what I have written above, I personally
feel and think that leaders can be made through learning skills just like any other things we learn
and that leaders can be taught to lead in different ways .I can see from history that they’re
thousands of examples of people who become leaders through learning certain skills. According
to a basketball superstar Jordon, M. (n.d.) as written in Justine (2014) is quoted as saying
“Everybody has talent, but ability takes hard work.” I feel like this suggests that everyone
has ability, and that anyone can grow and develop into someone who is competent and
possibly even very good.
Reference
Are leaders born or made? [Link] retrieved from
[Link]
Justin-Di-Giulioare 2014leaders born or made-ResearchGate
[Link]