Leadership: Born vs. Made - Exploring Leadership Theories and Concepts

This essay delves into the classic nature versus nurture debate as it applies to leadership, exploring the question of whether good leaders are born with innate qualities or are developed through experience and learning. It begins by defining leadership and differentiating it from management, th...Read More

No. of words - 507
‘GOOD LEADERS ARE BORN NOT MADE’
There are a lot of questions that can be debated upon like which came
first the chicken or the egg? How much is TOO much? Nature or
nurture? Well, like all nature vs. nurture topics, it’s a little bit of both
and nobody really knows, and out of such few topics we have the
question of whether “Good leaders are born or made?”
According to R. M. Stogdill’s Handbook of Leadership, “There are
almost as many different definitions of leadership as there are persons
who have attempted to define the concept.” And the way we perceive
the leaders completely depends on the way we think about leadership.
Leadership in its most basic form can be defined as a process through
which a person influences others to get involved in accomplishment
of a particular task. And as we look back in history we have had many
great leaders like Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela who had traits
that helped them to change ideologies and thinking in nations. But
were they born this way or they developed it?
A lot of theories have been developed to evaluate this leadership
concept and for a better understanding of these theories one should
keep in mind that leadership is way more than management.
Distinctions have been made between 'leadership' and 'management'.
Kotter (1990) describes a leader as one who provides direction,
institutes change, and inspires and motivates people; whilst a manager
is one who performs organisational functions such as planning,
budgeting, organising and controlling.
One of the early theories of leadership, Great Man theory and Trait
theories believe that there are specific personality traits that
distinguish leaders from non-leaders and leaders inherit these qualities
and traits by birth rather than being developed through learning. It
believes that an individual is more important than the situation and
behaviour of leaders are consistent in different situations because of
the traits they posses. Born leaders have originality of thoughts;
thoughts that create and translate inter benefits for society, thoughts
that inspire others, thoughts that prompt others to rethink issues. It is

not that leaders communicate more, but the quality of their
communication is higher. But at the same time it can be seen that trait
theories do not take into consideration situational factors and not
everyone posses all the traits. To overcome the flaws of trait theory
we shifted to Behavioural approach. It believes that leaders are made
not born and leadership can be learned over time by practice and
experience.
Do you really think (Brigette hyacinth, 2014) one can imbue these
qualities by enrolling for a program and makes someone a leader upon
completion? There are possibilities that these can be passed down
genetically and if taught, people can only learn content but not
implant them. BUT if this is so that leaders are solely born then why
do we even study leadership? ‘Leadership skills’ can be learnt but an
awful lot of leadership cannot be taught. People can learn skills to
become a good manager but indeed a good leader is born.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
- Donald Gary Goff, 2003. A STUDY IN LEADERSHIP TRAIT AND BEHAVIORAL
THEORY. Available at- https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED476456.pdf (Accessed -
5 november,2019)
- O R G Module unit:6 LEADERSHIP Available at-
https://www.le.ac.uk/oerresources/psychology/organising/page_21.htm
(Accessed- 5 November, 2019)
- Stogdill RM. Handbook of Leadership: A Survey of Theory and Research. New York,
NY Available at- https://www.ajpe.org/doi/full/10.5688/ajpe81358 (Accessed - 5
november,2019)
- Andrew M Johnson, Philip A Vernon, Julie M McCarthy, Mindy Molson, Julie A
Harris1 and Kerry L Jang. Nature vs. nurture: Are leaders born or made? A
behaviour genetic investigation of leadership style Available at-
https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/
05E47835FD7D5800ACE58BB27017A084/S1369052300000465a.pdf/
nature_vs_nurture_are_leaders_born_or_made_a_behavior_genetic_investigation_of_
leadership_style.pdf (Accessed at- 6 november,2019)
- Kotterman James, 2006. Leadership Versus Management: What's the Difference?
Available at- https://search.proquest.com/docview/219091679?pq-origsite=gscholar
(Accessed at- 6 november,2019)