Discussion groups on LinkedIn are a rich resource and there are plenty of them available in the field of leadership – Harvard Business Review, Leadership Think Tank, Trends in Leadership and so on.  Three months ago, a woman called Roseline posted the question “Are leadership qualities something you are born with?  Or can they be learned?” on the Leadership Thank Tank and the discussion is still going strong.  I take a moment to offer the answer below – knowing that I may already have contributed – to this age old question:


Roseline, I wonder if the most significant issue is this: what is the impact of holding a belief either way?


If you believe that leadership qualities are innate, it seems to me that you are, on balance, less likely to invest in developing your own (or others’) leadership qualities. If you believe that leadership qualities can be developed, you are on balance more likely to seek to develop those qualities in yourself and in others who have aspirations to lead.


Personally, I see many examples of people who showed no leadership qualities and had no aspirations to lead until… For example, I see men and women who lose loved ones to a particular illness, or to crime (or… or… or…) who go on to show a certain type of leadership in raising the profile of a particular cause, raising money for research, setting up charities etc.


So I wonder, how would the world be different if we said to ourselves that we all have the capacity to lead (either because it’s innate or because it can be developed) and can call on this capacity when we want to?


And I wonder, what is your view on this age-old question?  I’d be delighted to see your comments in response to this posting.