Leaders Are Made, Not Born Overnight

Leaders Are Made, Not Born Overnight

A leader is an individual which can influence others, keep them in their best spirits and someone who has managerial authority. The behavior one exerts when one takes on responsibilities for his or her actions and is prepared for the consequences is a form of leadership. It's the challenge one faces when he or she has the responsibility for guiding others. Leadership is something which separates the doers from those who simply sit back and wait. Difference between success and failure can also be defined as leadership. Environment factors, morale of the employee and the behavior in the organization and leadership styles are major factors which help transforming people into leaders.

A person may be born with the traits of a leader. Some people, even in there childhood enjoy taking the authority, responsibility and being a dominant part of a group. However, leaders who are born with these qualities can lose direction in their lives when faced with hard circumstances that they cannot deal with. Leadership qualities can be nurtured and developed in a person. One doesn't always have to be born with the qualities and traits of a leader. These leadership qualities become better as the person gets more experience.

My personal opinion is that leaders are mostly made. An example to support this statement would be a job of leading an organization, a military unit, or a nation, and doing so effectively. This is an extremely complicated task. To expect that a person would be born with all of the tools needed to lead is not possible based on what we know about the complexity of social groups and the tasks associated with these jobs. There is only the possibility that an individual is born with some raw material, some inborn characteristics, that predispose them to become leaders. But as I previously stated, it does not guarantee they will grow to be great leaders. The opposite approach to my theory is the trait approach, which attempts to identify physiological, demographic, personality traits, intellective traits, and social characteristics with leader capability and effectiveness.

Successful leaders definitely have interests, abilities, and personality traits that are different from those of the less effective leaders. Through many researches conducted in the last three decades of the 20th century, a set of core traits of successful leaders have been identified. These traits are not responsible solely to identify whether a person will be a successful leader or not, but they are essentially seen as preconditions that give people leadership potential. Some basic traits of a leader are achievement drive,

leadership motivation, honesty and integrity, self-confidence, cognitive ability, emotional maturity (Draft 2011).

Research suggests that extraversion is consistently associated with obtaining leadership positions