“Are leaders born?”
This is an interesting question that I am often asked in the leadership development programs we run at 5.12 Solutions.
We believe that leadership isn’t about being charismatic and it’s not about some magical qualities that are bestowed upon you at birth. And you don’t have to go through special forces training as a rite of passage.
Leadership is about employing key skills and behaviors on a consistent basis.
And those skills and behaviors can be learned.
In other words, we can develop our competencies as leaders (learned skills). These are things such as learning how to relate to others, create a shared vision, and establish performance goals. Other skills might include learning how to provide performance feedback, utilize a positive discipline process, reward and recognize people, and delegate effectively.
But there is also an aspect of leadership development that involves our internal capacities. These are our internal beliefs and assumptions about ourselves that drive much of our behavior. They are ingrained in who we are and born out of what we learned to survive and be successful at a young age.
And, our capacities have a significant impact on our leadership effectiveness.
Interested in learning more? Great. Stay tuned for our next post where we’ll explore the levels of leadership agility to better understand how our internal capacities impact our development.