Leadership Case

There have been debates on whether leaders are made or born since century ago. For my part, I think that leaders are combination of BOTH (one-third born and two-third made). I'm pretty sure that every one of us would want a charismatic leader. Someone with physical attractiveness, intelligence and extraversion are traits that we look for in a leader. These people gather followers through personality and charm as well as by showing great confidence in their followers to win their loyalty. They had won the trust of their followers to such an extent that the followers believed in every word, action and deed of their leader. Well, these are traits that we could not make in developing a leader. It is the personal traits that are inherited from the parents or ancestors that attract followers. Just like Mahatma Gandhi, he uses his charisma to inspire people to protest peacefully against British and Martin Luther King who fought for the civil rights and equal treatment of African Americans. They were the individuals that seemed to just have that "it" factor. However, these natural leaders that acquired the natural ability will not bring them any further if they do not take the effort to enhance or develop new skills as they will eventually be overtaken by new born leaders who possess better charismatic traits and others who have the burning desire to be a leader. There are also some leaders who are born into power. Prince William is one example of leader who is born into power. Regardless of their personality or characteristics, these people were born into positions of leadership. They are exposed to various leadership situations, causing them to be influential and in their own rights.

Moving on, we also know individuals who are not naturally gifted leaders but eventually developed into well known leaders. Everyone is born with unique set of skills that gives us an opportunity to develop into leader but it does not happen automatically or in a fortnight. It requires hard work, determination, effort and never ending process of self study, education, training and experience. President Obama Barack started off as a community organizer and later on became the leader of United States. In fact, Obama had to go through many years of hard work before he can become the President of United States. No one is born a leader but we are all born with the potential to be a successful leader given the right chances or opportunity. Even if a person is born with good charisma, he or she will never be a leader if they are not given chance to lead. As much as we would like to believe, everyone can be a leader as everyone has the ability to influence and impact at least one other person and for most of us we can influence and impact dozens, hundreds and in some cases even thousand. Therefore, if a person is able to influence others, he is also capable to lead them. Their leadership can be developed through focus effort and developmental process that enable them to grow in their confidence and skills to become more effective in their leadership skills. Most important of all, leaders are made through experience, failures and also mistakes. Going through all this, leadership skills are then developed and they later on apply it in their own way during a crisis.

As a conclusion, it is not whether a leader is born or made that matter most. It is the desire, determination and continuous effort that matter most for a person to become a successful leader. To me, everyone is a leader in their own way. Not necessary that they must lead the whole organization, country or world to be a leader. Someone who leads the family or takes in charge of a crisis or situation is also a leader. As what Ronald Reagan says "The greatest leader is not necessarily the one who does the greatest things. He is the one that gets the people to do the greatest things."

Next, we will discuss the four basic leadership styles and in which condition each style is suited best. First, we have the autocratic style. Autocratic style is where the leaders have complete power over their people. Autocratic leaders typically make choices based on their own ideas and judgments and rarely accept advice from followers. They would want to make all the decisions and have the final say. No one challenges the decisions of the autocratic leaders. The communication is very one way in this style. Autocratic leadership can be beneficial in some situations, such as during a crisis where decisions need to be made quickly without dissent or consulting others. Moving on is the democratic leadership style. Democratic leadership is also known as participative leadership.