Leadership, nurture or nature?

Can someone be trained to be a leader or is it something that they naturally have?  This is a question that is regularly asked and debated by many.  However the answer is very clearly Yes!  Like with any talent or skill some people are natural leaders and other have to work harder at it.  Leadership is a skill like any other and can be learnt with the right teacher and sufficient effort.  In sport the most talented individuals don’t necessarily make it to the top of the game.  It’s the ones that work hardest to improve their skills that make it to the top.  Clearly someone with natural talent has the advantage on someone who is not so naturally gifted but thisdoes not mean thatthey will make a better leader in the end.  In fact it could be said that if someone has to work harder for it they willlearnmore and may develop a greater range of skills.

To develop great leadership potential you first need to identify those that have the greatest desire to succeed as you know that they will be the most resilient and put in the hard graft to get there.  Don’t write of the talented individuals either as they may find it easy but it doesn’t mean they want it any less!  The ideal mix is of course someone with talent and desire but desire is the key ingredient here asskills can be learnt, desire can’t!

Many companies have a technical bias to their products so their leadership team need to have a strong technical background.   It is often difficult for these companies to identify leadership potential within their technical discipline.  A strong leadership training and development plan along with ongoing coaching and support for potential and current leaders is a great way to nurture and develop the organisations talent. 

Leadership and management can very easily be confused, whist Managers manage resource Leaders inspire people.  This two separate disciplines need to be identified and separated so that skill gaps can be identified and training and development plans can be developed.  Both disciplines are very important, Leaders can rarely be effective without strong management skills but Managers can be effective without strong leadership skill.  Leadership is about getting other to do the right thing for the organisation and its clients because they want to.  Management is about making sure the job is done properly.  One is heavily organisational skills biased and one is heavily people skills biased. Both have abalance of both skill sets but a clear bias towards one.

Helpful questions to ask yourself:

•       Is it a Leadership or Management role?
•       Does the person have a desire to succeed in this role?
•       What makes a good Leader/Manager in your organisation?
•       What are the skills gap between the individual and the skills required?
•       What is the training and development plan to fill this gap?