Leadership Development - Nature versus Nurture

I've just been rereading Umesh Ramakrishnan book  "There’s No Elevator to the Top" (ISBN: 978-1-59184-225-5) and looking again at this issue of nature versus nurture for leadership development - are we born with leadership traits or can they be learnt.

Ramakrishnan comments on trait theory in this chapter. ” leadership skills can be acquired, according to many executives I interviewed. “Many people say you are a born leader or you are not a born leader,” Sanjiv Ahuja of Orange said, but I think there are those people who you can observe as learning to become good leaders.” These views are shared by Russ Fradin of Hewitt who said that “Anyone can aspire to – and become- CEO material, as long as they have the right tools.”

This ties into the issue that at some point in their career of an executive they move from being a “tactical thinker to a strategic one.If one does not make this move or is not self-aware enough to recognise that he or she needs to make this move, they will forever be stuck in minutiae.”

As to contuniung professional development Aetna’s Ron Williams said “The way I think about it is, if you were trying to grow your earnings fifteen percet than what are you doing to actually make yourself a better executive… In fact for most people who get to the very top there is no option but to continue learning because as Bill Nuti, CEO of NCR Corporation, put it, “the skills that got you there are not the skills that will make you successful as a leader.” This is a good point in that most individuals are technically competent at their job but will not necessarily have had the skills required to move into management.

To read more of the book review click here. If you want to learn more about developing leadership skills then visit our Leadership Training Course page.

 

Comments

[Mark]

I agree entirely. The skills attained to get you to a leadership position are not the skills needed to make you a good or capable leader

[Dale Roach]

This is good article. Brief, to the point. Good insights. Thanks.