Are You Born with It or Not?

Are you born with it or not?

To me leadership is mapping out a route for an organization (vision), creating a consensus that this is where we need to go and positively influencing the members of the organization to achieve its goals. It is my experience and belief that leaders can be natural born, situational and learned or any combination of these.

Inherited traits of leadership can be seen early in life. I remember when my son started preschool and the teacher said he was the little leader of the class. He would decide what games they would play, who would be on what team and got all kids excited about the games. This type of behavior can be tracked throughout life. During my high school years, I did not think of the members of student government as leaders but as I look back now I guess they were. As a regular “joe” you sort of looked up to them. They either were good students or excelled in some type of sport. It seemed that these students got along with everyone (very sociable) and where never involved in any conflicts. They had charisma and exceptional communication skills.

Situational leadership exists when a person’s knowledge, experience, and/or reactions to emergencies makes him/her the most suitable to lead a group. There is a saying that “in the land of the blind a one eyed man is king.” The more specialized you are in a particular field the more likely the group will look to you for direction in this field. An important part of leadership is transmitting confidence. The more confident you are about a particular field the more credible you appear to the rest. Towards the beginning of the year we participated in a survivor type team building exercise in our Organizational Behavior Course. The event was made up of different tasks such as the groups dancing like natives, a canoe race, and catching and cooking a fish. Even though a leader was chosen at the beginning of the event, different leaders emerged during the different tasks because of their knowledge of the task at hand. Experience and age also influence the leadership role. Second lieutenant fresh out of officer candidate school has rank superiority they tend to