Discussion on Leaders Are Born

*Leaders are born. A leader has his or her own* traits and these cannot be changed. Critically examine this statement focusing on the role of leadership theory to develop leaders within organisation.

The concept of leadership is increasingly contested by different schools of thoughts from the types of styles for effective leadership to differentiating behaviors that culminate in good and bad leadership. There have also been mixed opinions on the nature versus nurture debate of the leader persona. Some argue that leaders are born and their distinguishing traits cannot be modified while others are in favour of the alternative that leaders can be made. This paper seeks to address this contention using the trait and behavioural style approaches (Washbush & Clements, 1994), on the premise that a leader’s innate traits are complemented by the development of necessary skills required to helm an organisation.

It was widely perceived back in the early 20th century that abilities and leadership characteristics were inherited.

The Trait Approach is a mean of measuring the strength of leadership qualities, and facilitating the isolation of critical characteristics of accomplished leaders is associated with a guarantee of good leadership by default of selection, hence its popularity among masses. (Linstead, Fulop & Lilley, 2004). Often enough, this is a provisional guideline in the military on identifying potential candidates to be selected, recruited and installed into leadership positions (Bolden, Gosling, Marturano & Dennison, 2003).

3. Leaders are made

It is known as the behavioural style approach, based on the concept that leadership processes are not exclusively anchored in a person but could be ascribed to influences in the individual’s environment (McKenna, 2006). This approach entails categorisation of different patterns of behaviours observed into various leadership styles (Linstead, Fulop & Lilley, 2004).

In other words, ‘leaders develop by...