Which comes first…the chicken or the egg? This is one of the first riddles that many of us learned. There is a similar question that has puzzling humanity for millennia. Are leaders born or are they made? The nature or nurture debate over leadership has been occurring for ages. Most people fall into one camp or the other. The people who believe that leaders are born view leadership as a gift given by God, and Romans 12:8 is used as evidence. For them you are either born or endowed with the gift of leadership or you are not. Those that believe that leaders are made believe that leadership is a skill that can be taught, a learned behavior vital to organizational success. I believe that there is a third option that is rarely explored. I believe that the most plausible notion is that leadership cannot be boiled down to an either/or proposition. Leadership is a both/and matter. There are leadership traits that a person can, some may say must, be born with. The vast majority of skills needed for effective leadership, however, are learned.
Even the most gifted child needs to have her natural gifts and skills developed.
Natural gifts versus nurtured skills
What are the gifts that are a part of a person’s nature? What are the things that leaders are born with? The biggest attribute that is inherent to leadership is charisma. Charisma can be thought of as a person’s natural ability to relate to or draw other persons to him. While it is possible to develop skills that may mimic charisma, charisma is a natural trait. You can see children who are naturally charismatic. Not having charisma, however, is not a death knell for a leader. There are leaders who lead exceedingly well without being charismatic. These leaders depend upon what is often considered another trait that leaders are born with.
Vision is another trait that some believe a leader must be born with. Vision is the ability to see a future state and articulate it to a group of people. I am undecided on this point. I have had the pleasure of serving with people who were extremely gifted visionaries. I have also watched people develop the skill and become highly proficient at casting vision for a group. This leads to the crux of the question, and more importantly my belief that it is both nature and nurture that make good leaders.
Even the most gifted child needs to have her natural gifts and skills developed. That is why gifted athletes, artists, writers, preachers, and the like train at their chosen craft. It isn’t enough, they recognize, to be naturally gifted. The roadside to personal and professional success is littered with men and women who squandered God’s gifts and depended upon natural ability alone. The opposite is also true. History has shown time and again that those who may not start with the most innate natural abilities, can through determination and development of skill climb to heights that others would have doubted they could attain.
Leadership development is about growing a person’s ability to use the innate gifts they possess to lead a group toward achieving a common mark.
Implications for leadership development
What are the implications of this for those of us who have been charged to lead churches or organizations that depend upon the development of others to lead? First, we cannot discount anyone as a potential leader based simply upon a first blush glance at natural ability. We, in our human frailty, are often too enamored with outward appearances. We rush to the taller, muscular, better dressed representations of the human condition, assuming that the shorter, skinnier versions lack the same capacity for success. This isn’t always the case, and the Bible is replete with examples of how outward appearances can fail us.
Saul was a head taller than all who were around him, yet he failed as king of Israel. David was described as ruddy. He was forgotten among Jesse’s sons when time came to anoint the new king, yet he is called a man after God’s own heart. In denying the kingship to Jesse’s older, taller, more handsome sons, God proclaims to Samuel that man looks on the outward appearance while he sees the heart. In our desire to select the proper women and men to become leaders we must allow for the chance that there is more than initially meets the eye. We must at least allow for the possibility that our human eye can be flawed.
Leadership development is about growing a person’s ability to use the innate gifts they possess to lead a group toward achieving a common mark. Nature and nurture. I believe that everyone has a level of charisma. Everyone has a level of vision. All of us are born with a level of discernment. Effective leadership development nurtures these natural traits in those who are willing to be taught or developed. This doesn’t mean that every person who yields to leadership development will become super charismatic, or that they will become awesome visionaries. We must still allow that there will be aspects of leadership that each person will excel in, and there will be areas of leadership where they will always need help. That is why there is always a need to develop more leaders.
What are your thoughts? Where do you fall in the debate about leaders being born or made? Have you been a part of effective leadership development in the local church or another organization? Did that process seem to stand firmly in one camp or the other (born or made)? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.