Future of Leadership in the Twenty-First Century

If humanity is to achieve its potential on Earth and beyond, then more people will have to exercise leadership to move us ahead. This is particularly true at this critical juncture of our species’ evolution as we go aloft to explore and discover new worlds. Some claim that leaders are born, while others maintain they can be developed. ⁴⁶ As biologists research the field of management, it is evident our genes do account for differences in individuals, and variances in their performance, so that some lead others. But behavioral scientists like myself still believe that some leadership is largely situational, and that people can also learn to be leaders. Thus, it is interesting that in 2008 the US Congress passed the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act banning the use of DNA information in job recruitment.