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Leadership

Are people born great leaders or must they develop certain traits to fill the description of great leader? Although one person may be better equipped with certain qualities right from birth it does not necessarily mean that person will be the better leader later on in life. The circumstances each person faces throughout their respective lives will be essential in the making of their leadership abilities. However, the most important factor in developing someone into a great leader is the type of support and motivation that person receives during each situation in their life. Great leaders are moulded through their experiences, their way of interpreting those experiences and what they learn throughout their lives. No one is born experienced. To help prove that great leaders are made and not born, reference must be made to the great Martin Luther King Jr.’s life and leadership qualities.

People who believe that leaders are born and not made would argue that a true leader must be born with certain qualities to become a leader later on in life. However, someone may be born with all the perfect leadership qualities and never become a leader if such a person were to choose never to use his talents. Also, these qualities could be developed and/or lost as one who does not use his qualities would end up losing them just as someone who is not born with these qualities could be constantly put into a position which requires such qualities and he could learn them as he continues to improve at such a position. Also, to become a great leader you must have certain values and beliefs to become truly passionate about your leadership role. As people are not born with values and beliefs, these must be learnt from other people and from personal experiences to shape how a person thinks and what decisions he believes need to be made in a certain situation. It could also be argued that values and beliefs play a more substantial role than qualities and skills in determining whether a leader is a great leader or just simply a leader. However, if leaders are made then something has to make them. That’s where circumstance and experience come into play.

Circumstance plays a major role in developing a great leader. Not in a sense that if someone is put in a leadership position they are a good leader. More as in, if someone is put in a position that makes them realize something needs to be done and someone needs to step up then they will take charge and put themselves in their own position to lead. People would realize these things by learning from their past experiences. Circumstances that they went through in their past would determine what each individual would take out of a certain situation and if those past events lead them to believe that the situation presented an opportunity for them to show their leadership skills than that person would rise to the occasion. Martin Luther King Jr. was not put into a position of leadership by his peers; instead he saw the abuse and oppression of his race in America and realized that the situation was in dire need of a leader. He decided he was the person for the job because of the values his parents taught him, the beliefs he was brought up on, his developed integrity and the people who protected, surrounded, supported and motivated him at the time of his leadership and previous to it. “I am not interested in power for power's sake, but I'm interested in power that is moral, that is right and that is good.”-Martin Luther King Jr.

The greatest factor in developing a leader is the people that surround them, what they tell them and how they support them. This begins right from early childhood with the values their parents instil in them as well as the support and motivation parents nurture them with. Furthermore, this aspect of the building of great leaders does not stop in their childhood in fact, it never ceases. A leader’s support system must continue to grow and evolve throughout their lives. Each person that a leader decides to surround himself with will have an effect on his abilities and values and each ability or value that is changed in the leader will cause a variation in the leader’s way of thinking and their way of perceiving a situation. However, it is not only the people that are close to someone that can create great leaders; role models, competitors and oppressors may also have vast influences in the creation of leadership qualities, values and actions in a person. A role model will affect a person’s views on everything by the way he lives his life and what he stands for, as well as what he will not stand for. Competitors and oppressors influence a person in the opposite way, by providing motivation or even a circumstance which makes them realize they need to take a stand and be the leader. For the great Martin Luther King Jr. these influences would’ve come mostly from great role models such as Mahatma Ghandi and Abraham Lincoln but the greatest influence must have been his oppressors in the American government and society.

There are numerous assets that factor into the creation of a great leader; each of them can be manufactured by various situations, thoughts, experiences, people and advice. Being born with an advantage in leadership may not end up proving to help you become an effective leader after you mature as your personal circumstances may not show an opportunity to use your talents or you may not develop the appropriate values upon which you would be able to realize when to utilize your skills. People are not born great leaders; they become great leaders through experience and influence. “Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.”-John f. Kennedy

By: CAZ