Leaders Born or Made - Can Leadership Be Learnt?

Welsh leadership specialist Professor Brian Morgan  addressed  members and guests of the Institute of Directors Wales on 1st February 2012.

The director of the Cardiff School of Management’s Creative Leadership and Enterprise Centre talked about the recent Wales Leadership Survey, which saw 55% of those questioned say that leaders were born not made.

Prof Morgan said: “Some research in this area suggests that effective leaders have certain genes in common – up to 40 per cent in fact – but this would suggest that at least 60 per cent of leadership skills need to be nurtured and developed."

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. He says "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.”

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 development page.