Born or Made?

Plato was one of the first to write about the importance of leaders and leadership [suggesting] that ‘some natures which are fitted for the task … and others who are not born to be [leaders] and are meant to be followers’. ¹

Executives who believe that leaders are born, give less attention both to their own personal development as well as the development of those they lead. They are focused on selecting leaders with the ‘right stuff,’ and expect that those leaders’ natural abilities will mean organizational success. But nothing could be further from the truth. ²

It is a fact that some men possess an inbred superiority, which gives them a dominating influence over their contemporaries, and marks them out unmistakeably for leadership … ³

The majority of researchers today believe that the origins of leadership go beyond genes and family to other sources … current research suggests that experiences on the job play an important catalytic role in unlocking leader behavior. ⁴

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