“Are Leaders born or are they made”.

Prepared by:

Ashan Silva

AFNI (UK), CMILT (UK), ACIM (UK),

Ex. MSc (Strategic Marketing), Ex. MBA, MBA, Reading for DBA

Executive Summery

“Are leaders born or are they made”. Examples like mahatma Gandhi , martin luther king are some great examples to show against leaders with born talent. Such leaders have that leadership qualities from their genes.

Same time leaders can be made through proper training. This will be much easier if the leader is having born talent with leadership qualities. Otherwise, the person must learn it and practice it with his day-to-day operations. Same time he will learn through his mistakes and experience with time.

Leadership development is a process not an event. Leadership is developed over the long term in day-to-day interactions.

Even a person who is having this leadership qualities through his genes will polish his leadership qualities furthermore with continuous training and experience. Such training will open gates to all leaders to update his/her knowledge about the latest trend (development of technology, stress levels where employees are going through, rules and regulation, cultural barriers, effective communication methods, tc. ) to control their staff more effectively and efficiently.

Using power and authority to influence the subordinates criticized by using three leadership theories, such as

· Transformational

Subordinates will respect their leader’s expertise and knowledge. This will create an influence towards their subordinates to follow their leader with confidence. So, it’s discouraging leaders to use their power and authority to drive their subordinates towards their desired target through this leadership theory.

· Behavioral

In this leader, will use their power in two different ways, such as people and product orientation.

When leaders use their power and authority levels to help and safeguard their subordinates in return subordinates will respect such leader and will build up a good relationship among them. So, such leaders can easily influence their subordinates towards their desired targets rather using any power or authority to push them towards the target (product orientation). Again, through behavioral leadership also showing it’s a failure to use leaders’ power and authority towards their subordinates only to stress them towards the targets.

· Situational theories.

Leaders should use leadership style to control the situations. When their subordinates are confident about the leader’s decision making power, it will influence their subordinates to follow their advice/guidance to control the situation to get the maximum benefit towards the organization. Leaders should build their trust among their subordinates by showing their competence and expertise within their subject. So, it’s clearly showing only power and authority will not be a good tool to influence subordinates under situational leadership theory.

“Are leaders born or are they made?”

The leadership is not an easy task in this competitive world. This is mainly due to globalization and in that competition, it’s really difficult to maintain a competitive advantage.

So, in that leader will create a significant value to lead and drive your organization to set targets according to your vision and mission.

Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality.

Therefore, leadership will create a great value to your organization and for that following main leadership qualities will help your leaders to create that value.

1. Honesty and integrity

2. Inspire others

3. Communication

4. Decision making capabilities

5. Delegation

6. Accountability

7. Creativity and innovation

8. Empathy

9. Commitment

10. Confidence

Out of above some leadership qualities will come out from your genes. Through various theories and articles, we can understand, to be a great leader he must have various characteristics. As an example, treat theory will focus on different type of personalities.

Ref: - International Journal of Personality Psychology 2017, Vol. 3, No. 1, 13-16

In defence of (some) trait theories: Commentary on Hogan and Foster (2016)

Colin G. DeYoung, University of Minnesota, Treat theory mainly covering

Characteristics such as competent, inspiration, honest, bravery, will always amalgamate with personality. So, traits are always linked with effective leadership. This will always highlight when leaders facing different type of situation and the way they lead their teams. Specially in panic situations most of the leaders forget their leadership abilities where they have trained, but leaders with born with certain leadership traits (situational leadership) will handle those very effectively and efficiently.

At the latter stages of leadership studies Mr. Galton (Oliver et al 2008) a psychologist spearheaded this trite theory and according to him these includes influence, responsibility, achievement, motivation, drive, self-confidence, cognitive ability, honesty, etc, are as some of the key traits which will helpful to create a great leader.

In different levels, most of the above qualities will come as a genetical transfer to the human body which will lead to create another successful leader.

The titanic disaster is one of the great examples we can give in the reason past about how important leadership mind set and skills to execute their actions fast and well in a crisis. Well experienced Capt. Edward J. Smith took his own time to evaluate the situation and release abandon ship signal to passengers to evacuate the vessel on time. Captains over confidence and late decision lead to lost so many life’s.

Ref:- 3 LEADERSHIP LESSONS FROM THE TITANIC

Excerpt from e-book, “Leadership Failures Sink Unsinkable Ship: Business Lessons from the Titanic,” by Jocelyn R. Davis.

Posted: April 17, 2012

Ref:-https://www.futureworkiq.com/post/2016/05/24/leadership-lessons-from-captain-edward-j-smith-1

So, above is showing very clearly even with enough experience in his bag captain Smith’s decision making power was not up to required standard to minimize the damage.

Great man theory is another theory which is supporting leadership is a born talent.

Historian Thomas Carlyle also stimulate this theory in various ways and according to him leadership qualities are gifted with divine inspiration and the right characteristics.

Ref:- The Great Man Theory of Leadership By Kendra Cherry

https://www.verywellmind.com/the-great-man-theory-of-leadership-2795311

Great man developed over the years and they were naturally skilled and in some instances philosophers like Carlyle, Spencer declared great man are the product of the society and social conditions.

Such as Mahatma Gandhi, Martin luther king, Abrahim Lincoln,etc.

Are leaders born or made?

Justin V Di Giulio

FCILTA, AFAIM, CPMgr

Parcel Locker 10012 59584 Docklands, Victoria, 3008

Email for correspondence: justin.digiulio@griffithuni.edu.au

Are leaders born or made?

Justin V Di Giulio

FCILTA, AFAIM, CPMgr

Parcel Locker 10012 59584 Docklands, Victoria, 3008

Email for correspondence: justin.digiulio@griffithuni.edu.au

Ref:- Justin V Di Giulio

PSM310 Leadership and Business Acumen

Are leaders born or made?

PSM310 Leadership and Business Acumen Are leaders born or made?

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/270684591_Are_leaders_born_or_made

Same time this has been proved by Dr Jan-Emmanuel De Neve (UCL School of Public Policy) and his team by using a large twin sample. They identified genotype called rs4950 seems to be leadership ability passing through generations. So, even though predictably the leadership is a skill but identified through various experiments like above it is also a part of genetic trait.

Ref: - https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2013/jan/born-lead-leadership-can-be-inherited-trait-study-finds

But according to 20^th century philosophy it’s became a mix of both. Even though Some leadership qualities will come through genes, most of the other leadership qualities and made with proper training and practice.

Leaders can develop with time and hard work. Same time people should have interest to learn through their own experience and examples.

Leaders can develop through behavioral leadership theory. Black and Mouton’s Managerial Grid (1964). This is explaining different leadership styles and behavior of the leader which will influence to their staff and its success ratio to measure the leadership successes.

Ref:- Behavioral Theories of Leadership

https://www.leadership-central.com/behavioral-theories.html

In the IVEY BUSINESS JOURNAL under article

ARE LEADERS BORN OR MADE?

by: Carol Stephenson, O.C.Issues: November / December 2004. Tags: The Organization. Categories: From the Dean and Leadership.

Professor Gerard H. Seijts explains how important effective communication and interpersonal skills to be an effective leader. Especially when they have to face any crisis situation specially in this type of competitive and complex environment. Interpersonal relationships and effective communication will help effective leaders to control the situations and keep his/her team with them and control the situation with minimal surprises.

Even recent wall street journal also highlighted the importance of this leadership skills such as communication and interpersonal relationship. They are also recommending to all business schools to focus more about such trainings through their leadership training courses to increase the professionalism of the future leaders those who are passing out through their institutes.

Therefore, according to above journal the best leaders learn to lead.

Ref:- https://iveybusinessjournal.com/publication/are-leaders-born-or-made/

With all above I think someone should have instinct to become a great leader. This is just a characteristic within him until he identifies that talent clearly and polish it through some training and practicing.

So, leadership training will come into play at this point and there are so many identified as leadership qualities to become a great leader. Among them some important qualities such as

Honesty and integrity, inspire others, Communication, Decision making capabilities, Delegation, Accountability, Creativity and innovation, Empathy, Commitment, Confidence, etc.

Therefore, people can learn and practice above to be a great leader. Great leaders will never stop their learning. They will do this learning and practicing throughout.

Hence, to conclude leaders are born with their own leadership characteristics where they must identify that trait and fine tune those with the other leadership qualities through proper training and practise to made a proper leader to the society.

So, to create a good leader the process cannot be single sided as berth or made, it should be a combination of both berth and made.

Hence the time duration of a person to act as a good leader depends with the percentage of the above two main criteria’s. It’s easy to mould a good leader if he or she is gifted with a born talent/quality with some of the above-mentioned qualities which he or she has to have to be a good leader. If so the training and experience is required only to polish those qualities to amalgamate with the environment.

Visa versa, to those who have less born talent about leadership qualities will take much more time to polish them comparing to the one who is gifted it as a born talent from their genes. But they will also achieve the same level with time.

The only concern is while being going through this training and experience cycle, they should make sure to mitigate their mistakes to maintain their respect among the fellow staff without being in the rotten basket which might be a resistant to climb their planned ladder.

Leadership is about Influence not the power with authority.

We can consider following as main leadership theories

1. Trait Theory

2. Behavioural Theory

3. Contingency Theory

4. Situational Theory

5. Transformational Theory

Psychologists John R.P. French and Bertram H. Raven stated about power through their studies.

According to them power can divide into five different categories where leaders can use the same for their success.

Said five different categories are as follows

· Coercive power

Using this power to Force someone to do something. It’s an unpopular management style which can lead to various problem within the organization. Kind of abusing of managerial power.

· Reward power

This is a type of power a leader is using to convince his/her staff what they will gain after they achieve the target which said leader has set. Eg. Bonus, promotions, leave, etc

· Legitimate power

This is purely coming from the designation. The authority levels which he/she is having where he/she will make his/her decisions. This will automatically show the power he/she is having and the staff will control accordingly.

· Referent power

This is power leaders are having to safeguard their subordinates and win them toward the said leader through that trust. This will help said leader to gain his/her subordinates respect and will create a path to control them with that trust and respect.

· Expert power

This is the type of power which a leader will gain with his/her knowledge and experience. This controlling power will gain mainly upon the confidence his /her staff will built up among them by thinking with their leader’s knowledge/experience they can get proper advice, guidance in time to achieve their given targets. It’s kind of a security they have in their hand to perform in their tasks confidently.

Ref:- http://www.ccl.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/roleOfPower.pdf

Burns Transformational Leadership Theory

This is showing how leader can lead by example and gain the respect of his followers where said leader can align his followers with their given task to optimize their performance. In this, leader is not using any of his powers or authorities to influence his subordinates.

According to Burns, being role model for his /her staff he or she can inspire their staff towards the required target and same time that type of leader can enhance staff moral and motivation.

Burns explained it under two parts as transforming and transactional leadership. But in 1985 Bernad M. Bass extended some additional explanation to Burns and made it as, In transformational there should be some ways to measure this. The amount of influence that a transformational leader can transform to his/her followers.

With such quality, transformational leaders can build their followers feel loyalty, admiration, trust, security. Their followers will go an extra mile to achieve their given mission and vision other than for their self-gain. Followers will gain much more recognition from such leaders which will stimulate their moral and motivation which will automatically push them to follow a particular cause of action where their leader is showing rather using their leaders power or authority.

As per above explained “expert power” will help broadly to be successes in transformational leadership. The leaders expertise and knowledge about the subject will motivate his/her subordinates to follow him without challenging their decisions.

Ref:- https://www.leadership-central.com/burns-transformational-leadership-theory.html

Behavioural Leadership Theory

This is the behavioural style of the leader. This has been elaborated in detail through various studies which has been carried through

· University of Michigan (1950’s)

· Leadership University study OHIO State (1940’s)

· Black & Mutton 1964 / Black & McCanse 1991

Through all above studies they have segregated behavioral leadership into main two sections as follows,

· Employee orientation

· Production orientation

So, leaders will use their power and authority differently in above.

Though employee orientation the leader will built and strengthen his relationship with all his subordinates and will use his powers to look after them. This type of leader is considering and prioritizing his team member’s needs, personal developments and their interests. It will boost his/her subordinate’s satisfaction levels, moral and motivation.

Product orientation is the stress coming through their leaders to achieve his/her technical and production targets such as Objectives, KPI’s, quality, quantity, cost, etc.

So, the leader can use his/her power and influence through their behavioral to control his/her subordinates towards the organizational benefit. But it should be balanced. Most of the leaders using their power and authority only towards product orientation. Which will stress down their staff badly and will create an unpleasant situation within the work environment. It’s like abusing his/her power to stress down their staff towards organization targets without considering any staff satisfaction.

Relationship is one of the most important factor in this regard. Identify right people and build up the relationship with them. Try and understand others better. Interact with others and identify their thoughts and share your honest feedback to them. Enhance your communication network and gather important information. Share the information you have with your subordinates. In this way, a leader will get to know their subordinates needs and thoughts. Then he can use his power and authority to meet those within his parameters. Then leader will follow the path of employee orientation. Same time he has to use his power and authority to cascade the importance of organization targets to his/her staff.

So, through above balance a leader can successfully use behavioral leadership style to achieve their targets. In this leader, should use their “legitimate and referent power” styles to gain their staff and boost their interest and moral towards organizational objectives.

Ref:- http://www.technofunc.com/index.php/leadership-skills-2/leadership-theories/item/behavioral-theories-of-leadership

Situational Leadership Theory

Above leaders should have four main core competencies to be a successful leader.

Those are as follows,

· Diagnose

Need to identify each and individual’s competence and performance levels to perform in that planned task.

· Adapt

How said leader will behave through his expertise when handling various situations.

· Communicate the situation

The level of communication using to influence their subordinates to accept/understand the same and control the situation.

· Advance through the situation

By controlling the situation and advance through that towards higher performance.

There are two main models of situational leadership. It’s as Daniel Goleman and Ken Blanchard. Both showing the importance of the follower’s readiness.

Blanchard and Hersay through their studies divided this into four styles within situational leadership. They have done it within their main two concept as leadership and development of followers.

· Telling leaders (guidance and close supervision)

· Selling (creating, explaining and encouraging)

· Participating (hand in hand decisions with followers)

· Delegating (with minimum guidance and advice but leaders are responsible)

Situational leadership is mainly about right leadership style at right place and for right people. Organization culture will influence a lot in this and the training of the staff to build their confidence and competency levels will directly impact on leaders to choose their leadership style.

Some of the style requirements are as follows,

· Trust (Followers should trust about your confidence and ability)

Leaders can use their Referent and expert power to build this.

· Flexibility (Leader should flexible to change his leadership style from situation to situation).

· Problem solving (should be able to solve any kind of problem to complete the job in style).

· Vision (leaders should be able to understand his/her followers requirements and change their management style to meet those criteria’s)

· Training (the leader should be able to evaluate followers’ strengths and weaknesses and select his right leadership strategy to enhance their competency levels).

When leaders have their liberty to choose the right style they should analyse the situation and his /her followers and change the management style as they see fit.

So, when we consider all above, using power and authority in situational leadership is common to control the situation towards the benefit of the organization. But leaders should use right kind of power to get the maximum benefit of it.

To cover above style requirements, leaders can use referent and expert powers, which will really be helpful to control their staff / situation and drive them towards their desired target.

Leaders should not use coercive power to their staff to control any situation.

Basically, leaders should not use their power and authority to control the situations which will pop up within their day to day operations. This will demoralize all his/her staff and can create a huge resistance against the management. This will complicate the situation and drag the whole process towards another tragedy which will expose about the usage of inappropriate leadership styles by their leaders.

Instead leaders should gain their subordinates trust by showing their competence and expertise about the subject to control such situations. If so subordinates will follow such leader’s advice/guidance/ orders without any hesitant.

Ref: - https://online.stu.edu/articles/education/what-is-situational-leadership.aspx

A good leader will lead their team with influence but not by using his /her power and control.

When the leader using his/her power to control the office it will be as follows,

1. Employees will not participate and unmotivated.

2. Creativity (thinking out of the box) and innovation will vanish from the office and employees will not come up with any of their suggestions.

3. Declining productivity levels will drop because of the pressure and stress.

4. Employee turnover will rise.

5. Employees will be stressed with over manage and micromanage.

6. Job insecurity ill built up among the employees.

7. Only boss will control everything and employees are there to follow (all the decisions, approvals, etc only through boss).

With above when leaders using power and control the spot light is always above the boss, he will highlight, noticed and recognize with the performance. The employees will work with fear, insecurity, anger, etc.

This power and control will create a one way dialog environment within the organization. Only boss will speak and extend orders all others will only listen and carry out what he says.

But with influence the leader is considering what is the best for their employees and organization.

Will encourage to have open dialogs and create an environment to have a collaborative conversation to come to an conclusion what will be the best decision, which can be achieve easily with influence leaders such as.

1. Those who can built trust and respect from his/her staff.

2. Whom will create a job security among their staff.

3. Who will encourage to perform as a team.

4. Who will reward and recognition and encourage innovation and creativity.

5. Whom can teach, advice and guide to enhance the performance and mitigate the mistakes.

6. Whom and lead by example.

With such influence, employees will feel security, inspired, appreciated, and empowered. Same time such leaders will inspire creativity, innovation among their staff.

This will help organizations with such leaders to enhance their staff retention percentage, staff satisfaction levels, productivity, etc.

Such leader will treat as employee’s mentor, teacher, guide, and catalyst.

“Leaders become great, not because of their power, but because of their ability to empower others.”

John Maxwell

Bibliography

Journal articles: –

· Ref: - International Journal of Personality Psychology 2017, Vol. 3, No. 1, 13-16 In defence of (some) trait theories: Commentary on Hogan and Foster (2016)

Colin G. DeYoung, University of Minnesota, Treat theory mainly covering

· Ref:- Justin V Di Giulio

PSM310 Leadership and Business Acumen

Are leaders born or made?

PSM310 Leadership and Business Acumen Are leaders born or made?

· In the IVEY BUSINESS JOURNAL under article