While many leaders can have natural leadership abilities and in ante skills, leaders are without a doubt made As legendary American football coach Vince Lombardi once said: “Leaders aren’t born, they are made. And they are made just like anything else, through hard work.”
The job of leading an organization, military unit, or nation, and doing so effectively, is fantastically complex. To expect that a person would be born with all of the tools needed to lead just doesn’t make sense based on what we know about the complexity of social groups and processes.
Research suggests, for example, that extraversion is consistently associated with obtaining leadership positions and leader effectiveness. There is also some evidence that being bold, assertive, or risk-taking can be advantageous for leaders. Leaders also need to be able to analyze situations and figure out courses of action, and so intelligence is associated with leadership, although perhaps not general IQ but social intelligence — an understanding of social situations and processes — is the component most important for leadership. Finally, some sort of empathy, or ability to know one’s followers, is also advantageous for leaders, although much of this is learned. As leadership scholar Bernard Bass noted, “The leader must be able to know what followers want, when they want it, and what prevents them from getting what they want.”
Does this mean that introverts, persons of average social intelligence, or those of us who are not particularly empathic will not make good leaders? Certainly not. Remember: Most of leadership is made, not born. So if you aspire to positions of leadership, the best course is to embark on a leader self-development plan.
Fortunately, there is tremendous interest in leadership and in leader development, and there has lately been a strong emphasis on self-development for leaders. Rather than getting leadership development from a costly program or your employer (development/training budgets have been cut deeply), you can embark on your own development program. Below are some resources for self-development, as well as references/links to the research on leaders born vs. made. (Learn more here.)
Analytical Mind 