Leadership & Management MD4043: Are Leaders Born or Made Essay?

This essay delves into the age-old debate of whether leaders are born with innate qualities or developed through experience and learning. It examines personality traits, skillsets, and the influence of the environment on leadership development. The essay references various leadership theories and examples of both 'born' and 'made' leaders, concluding that leadership is primarily a learned skill, cultivated through training, practice, and experience. The author argues that while some individuals may possess natural inclinations toward leadership, anyone can develop leadership skills through dedication and a willingness to learn. Desklib offers a platform for students to access this and similar assignments for their academic needs.

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Leadership And Management
Essay
7/2/2018
Student Name

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Introduction
Leadership is the research area and applied skill which encompasses the ability of an
individual or organization to lead or guide other individuals, teams or the entire organization.
Leadership is exercising the influence over other people on behalf of the leaders’ purpose
aims and goals. Leadership is considered to be an art rather than science. Leadership is a set
of traits which are developed to generate the skills in their workings (LinkedIn, 2016).
Leadership is followed by the leaders. A leader is an individual whose work is to guide others
in achieving the common goal of the organization. A leader is a person who shows the other
by way of setting an example and creates an environment that makes the other members feel
involved in the whole process. There has been a long debate about whether the leaders are
born or not. This debate results in different traits and lines of thought as there are some
thoughts are of the opinion that leaders are born while others feel the contrary opinion
(Helgeson, 2016).
Personality
Some leaders are born with the talent that shows in their nature and behavior. Most of the
leaders are born by birth. Leadership in the individual comes in different sizes and forms.
There are several personality traits that depict the leadership in the person. The born leaders
are speaking with their mind, have the capacity to understand the feelings of their team
members and able to recognize the efforts made by the team member to complete the work on
time (Jin, Seo and Shapiro, 2016). The leaders are doing settle for the mediocrity. Natural
leaders want the best and only the best for their team, for their projects, for their outcomes.
Like Nelson Mandela is found to be the born leader in the society due to his personality trait.
Due to the complexity of the life faced by him and exposure to the adversities of life made
him have the leadership from the very starting. Some people are born with the leadership

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ability than others. These men and women hold the right position and traits in the society and
have a different point of view. Reflecting on the styles and personality of each born leaders,
it’s easy to see that each person is different from each other whether it was Bill Gates, Henry
Ford, and Mahatma Gandhi. Their leadership style was a natural extension of clear purpose,
their personal experience and life story (One green planet, 2018).
But some leaders are not born but are made by their own personality and behaviour traits.
Leaders are made by their own skills and creativity. Behavioural theories believe that persons
can develop leaders through the procedure of education, learning and observations.
Leadership is a set of skills that can be educated, practice, insight and practice over time.
Good leaders seek the growth chances that will benefit the individuals to learn the new
things. Learning the leadership is the life process which can be learned by anyone. Like as the
passion which is found inborn leaders can also be there in the made leader. They also have
the similar capacity or more than that other possess in them. Leadership is a set of skills that
can be taught through training, practice and experiencing it again and again (George Ambler,
2017).
Skillset
Born leaders are born to impress the individual as they have got it in their heredity. Born
leaders have the attractive feature in themselves which make their identity different and
unique from others. Born leaders are found with the attractive communication skills which
convince and influence their followers to do the work (McArthur, 2013). This influencing
power in leaders in the organization makes the simple to achieve the organizational goals.
Born leaders are self-motivated and they do not require any training and development in
learning the skills of leadership. Born leaders have the skills of communication, sense of

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responsibility, positivity and trustworthiness, a delegation of power and authority from the
initial stage. These qualities include a passion for life to achieve something big which others
are not able to think and do in their lives (Burgoyne, 2016).
On the other hand, there are the leaders which have learned all these skills from the principles
and rules given the management gurus which include Peter Drucker. Initially, person does not
have any linguistic leadership skills set but after they are guided with the principles and other
members and they are in a position to generate skills (Fesler, 2016). By giving proper training
and learning session, an individual can develop the skills. For example, the CEO of the
Apple trained their personnel and transfers them the skills of having the leadership in the
business. Tim Cook after the Steve Jobs has handled all the affairs of leadership in their
business. Leadership is an art which gets improve day by day when practice by the
individual. It is similar to the ragas used in the music. All have learned the same ragas and
principles but the way to apply that principle is the creativity of the individual which makes
different from other. In leadership also all the person teaches the same principles and theories
but to apply that in the real life is different by all the individual and it will depend on the
creativity and skills of an individual (DePrizio, 2016).
Environment
Born leaders are taken into consideration all the environmental factors. The view of the
leaders is found to be protecting the environment from the harmful activities and doing the
social responsibilities with due respect. The born leaders have the prospective view on the
environment in which they think for the future development of the environment and forget
the development that has to be done in the present so that the resources can be utilized and
optimization of the resources can be done. From this view and opinion by the born leaders
attract the individual and give chance to follow these leaders. Thinking for the future makes

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the utilization of thoughts and ideas in future only (Amanchukwu, Stanley and Ololube,
2015).
Leadership behaviors like any other social practice are a mixture of inherited and
environmental factors. Research suggests that 30% - 60% of the people develop the skills of
leadership in themselves over a period of time. Leaders which develop their skills are done
with the struggle, hardships and which they do not share with anyone. One of the leaders
William McDonough is focusing on the developing the sustainable environment and design.
He is working on the concept to remove the waste from every aspect of human life and
focusing on giving a solution to the environmental crisis while promoting the economic
growth. For understanding the needs of the environment, training is required which is lacking
to the born leaders (LinkedIn, 2018). The environment training institutions and also the
situations will help them to gain the knowledge and experience to be a successful leader.
Everyone can become the leader but the society i9s the one who gives him the right position
in the environment (Reichard and Walker, 2016).
Conclusion
From the above discussion, it can be concluded that some leaders are finding with the natural
or born leadership whereas some have developed the skills of leadership. The debate whether
the; leaders are born or made concludes that leaders are not born, they are made. The person
can learn, grow and develop into the leaders using the same principles and theories which
were given in the management. The leaders are born is found to be the myth and consider to
be the dangerous leadership. Not every doctor child is a doctor, similarly not every leader
will have a leader in their home. The entire person has a different aspect to think and percept.
The leaders are generated with the traits and behaviour followed by them in society. To have
the leadership skills in the individual, the individual desire is considered to learn the skills

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and understand the qualities the leaders must possess in them. Leadership in a person can be
judged on the basis of the personality and trait followed by them, skills they possess in
themselves to convince and influence their followers and lastly responsibility fulfilled by
them in the society. All this quality can be learned by the individual. It is not necessary that
all will lies in the person from its birth. So the leaders are made not born.

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References
Amanchukwu, R.N., Stanley, G.J. and Ololube, N.P. (2015) A review of leadership theories,
principles and styles and their relevance to educational management. Management, 5(1),
pp.6-14.
Burgoyne, J. (2016) Crafting a Leadership and Management Development Strategy I.
In Gower Handbook of Leadership and Management Development (pp. 67-82). Oxon:
Routledge.
DePrizio, J. (2016) Making the Case for Transforming Training. Journal of Museum
Education, 41(1), pp.3-9.
Fesler, J.W. (2016) Leadership and Its Context. Administrative Leadership in the Public
Sector, 20(2), p.9.
George Ambler. (2017) Leaders Are Not Born, They’re Made. Leadership Develops [Online]
Available from: https://www.georgeambler.com/leaders-are-not-born-theyre-made-
leadership-develops/ [Accessed on: 30th June 2018]
Helgeson, V. (2016) Psychology of gender. Oxon: Routledge.
Jin, S., Seo, M.G. and Shapiro, D.L. (2016) Do happy leaders lead better? Affective and
attitudinal antecedents of transformational leadership. The Leadership Quarterly, 27(1),
pp.64-84.
LinkedIn. (2016) 7 Characteristics of a Natural Born Leader [Online] Available from:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/7-characteristics-natural-born-leader-ye-jung-kim [Accessed
on: 30th June 2018]

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LinkedIn. (2018) Are Leaders Born or Made? A True Story [Online] Available from:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20141026042807-150905450-are-leaders-born-or-made-a-
true-story [Accessed on: 30th June 2018]
McArthur, J.W. (2013) Own the goals: What the Millennium Development Goals have
accomplished. Foreign Affairs, 92(2), pp.152-162.
One green planet. (2018) 10 Environmental Leaders We Can All Learn From [Online]
Available from: https://www.onegreenplanet.org/animalsandnature/10-environmental-
leaders-we-can-all-learn-from/ [Accessed on: 30th June 2018]
Reichard, R.J. and Walker, D.O. (2016) In pursuit: Mastering leadership through leader
developmental readiness. New directions for student leadership, (149), pp.15-25.