A leadership question that I’ve been confronted with on many occasions is whether great leaders are born leaders, or whether leadership can be learned?
My answer is both. Born leaders, I doubt very much that it’s genetic, rather the impact of those early years of childhood. Those first 6 or 7 years when we are just absorbing from the environment without any conscience to decide good or bad.
Learned leadership is a process of unlearning habits that are not conducive to interpersonal relationships and engaging with habits that create effective relationships.
My observation of great leaders is that they have a balance of high courage and high empathy. High courage with high consideration originates out of values and principles and not wealth, position, title, power etc.
Empathy is vital, but without courage you don’t drive performance, you run a high risk to create a culture of comfort.
Think Bigg-r 