Leadership: Born or Made? A Comprehensive Report on Theories

This report delves into the age-old debate of whether leaders are born with innate qualities or are developed through experience and training. The report analyzes the 'born vs. made' leadership discussion and presents key arguments supporting both perspectives. It discusses leadership theories, including trait theory and the great man theory, highlighting the importance of inherent traits and learned skills. The report summarizes the main points, emphasizing that leadership is more than just management skills and requires the ability to share a vision. It further explores the evolution of leadership qualities over time, the role of charisma, integrity, and communication. The report refers to research by Afrianty (2020) and Damian et.al., (2019) to support the arguments. It concludes that leadership is a blend of innate characteristics and developed skills and suggests quantifying leaders, rather than qualifying them. The report emphasizes that leadership is an art, not a science and its development is a continuous process.

ASSESSMENT
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TASK 1
a. Leaders are born not made while other management skills can be taught:
Various theories of leadership like trait theory and great man theory believe that people may
inherit particular traits or qualities that make them more suited for leadership. If leaders do
not come to the world with such skills, then it can be assumed that all the people enter the
world with equal competencies, talents and abilities. Some business experts believe in this
theory and it simply infers that people cannot be taught leadership skills (Afrianty, 2020). A
leader has the ability to influence other people in a way that they work towards a common
goal with zeal, become more committed and motivated and even increase their productivity
and vision. The debate of whether a leader is born or made is going on for decades and can
only be proved through experimentation. As per a recently concluded study by Damian and
et.al., (2019), a group of scientists started an experiment in the 1960s where the participants
were 16 years of age and participated in a series of questions in context to a personality test
and in 2010 the participants were given similar questions. The response from both periods
were compared and analysed and the participants that stated they have leadership qualities in
were still confident regarding their abilities after 50 years and stayed affirm on their opinion
in spite of the situations they faced. So, it can be inferred that there is a string possibility that
classical theories of leadership may state valid points and leaders are born with unique
qualities (Damian and et.al., 2019).
b. Summary of the points outlined in the article:
It can be summarized from the article that leaders are born and not made due to the three
main points, that are management skills can be taught but it is not easy to impart leadership
skills as the ability to share a vision with people takes a lot more. Firstly, leadership can be
defined as more of an art than science and comprises of innate traits and characteristics that
are perfected and ingrained over a period of time with training, education and most
importantly experience (Afrianty, 2020). The second concept is that leaders tend to be stern
regarding their view points and abilities and they don’t change over a period of time and stick
to their qualities of charisma, integrity, inspiring others, being a visionary, positive,
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confident, decisive, dynamic, foresighted, encouraging, communication, coordination,
intelligence, effective team builder and management. Thirdly all such skills and attributes
have contributed to the overall personality, skill, competency and character and emotional
intelligence which are cultivated and developed over a period of time through life
experiences and skills in communication is enhanced and infers to the argument that a leader
is born and then developed and instead of qualifying leaders, they should be quantified
(Haraida and Blass, 2019).
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REFERENCES
Books and journals
Afrianty, T.W., 2020. Are Leaders Born Or Made?: A Point Of View. Jurnal Penelitian
IPTEKS, 5(1), pp.17-23.
Damian, R.I., and et.al., 2019. Sixteen going on sixty-six: A longitudinal study of personality
stability and change across 50 years. Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 117(3), p.674.
Haraida, B. and Blass, E., 2019. Recognising‗ True ‘Leadership: The Theory of Natural Born
Leadership. International Journal of Business and Social Science, 10(4).
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