Are Leaders Born or Made Essay Example

the motivational ingredient that drove them to lead; the skills they learned along the way are what allowed them to lead people. Are leaders born or made?

Individual differences in personality traits have been found to be moderately to highly heritable, and so it follows that if there are reliable personality trait differences between leaders and non-leaders, then there may be a heritable component to these individual differences (Johnson, Vernon, McCarthy, Molson, Harris & Jang, 1998). Leaders can be made by watching other great leaders and imitating their leadership style. Putting in long hours and learning the job are signs of commitment and dedication. A person striving to be a great leader knows how to take constructive criticism and use it to his/her advantage.

People trying to be a great leader seeks out opportunities to learn. Learning is a never ending process, you can always learn by the people above you and even the people below you. A great leader learn from every failure, trials and tribulations. Leaders never give up. Learning from your past failures can help you in the future when this problem arise again. Affective leaders hold themselves accountable for their own actions and never step down, even in the worst situations. Being in the military forces you into leadership positions. But you can tell good leaders from the bad ones.

Leadership skills just come natural to a good leader. They know how to motivate people to want to get the job accomplished. Their goal becomes your goals. A good leader makes you want to go try to be like them. I believe some people have the personality to

be a leader; but they have to put the work in to reach their full potential. When some people come around, you just know things are about to happen in a positive way. They have to be able to learn from the people before them and wait their turn. It is a great opportunity to learn from a great leader.

I personally believe that everyone is not meant to be a leader or is capable to leader and that is okay. There are many people that have no desire to be a leader. They are happy concentrating on what they are good at and leaving the big decisions to someone else. This means that there are always people willing to follow a leader. (Pace, 2006, Book 2 Ch 3) Is a leader born or made? Again I believe a leader can be developed if the leader has the personality and charisma. They have to be able to accept their position until they are ready to be in charge.

If a person has the mindset and the will power, I believe they can transform themselves into a leader. But this is something that happens over time and is not something that is handed down. Just because you are in charge doesn’t make you a great leader. David McClelland (2005) says that, to be a successful leader, you need spadefuls of the drive to power. I believe that a strong leader is someone who respects others, who is willing to accept failure, is able to motivate others to be their best and someone who has integrity to lead others.