Traditional ideas about leadership

Leaders are born......

When people first started to think about leadership as something which could be important within the business context, they started to come up with ideas about what makes a good leader. These approaches started in the 1920s and continued until the 1970s and 1980s. After that people started to come up with new ways of defining and understanding leadership.

Sometimes known as the 'great man' theory of leadership, this early approach to leadership focussed on the specific characteristics and physical attributes a leader has - as being something one is born with rather than something which can be learnt. The nature versus nurture debate rears its head. There is a whole psychological argument which rages concerning how much of what we are is learned and how much of it is innate to us - we were born with it.

Whilst the physical attributes of a good leader have been dismissed largely, research has indicated that there are certain personality traits that are consistently determinants of leadership success. These are:

• Emotional stability and composure - Remaining calm, confident and predictable, particularly when under stress.
• Willingness to admit errors - Owning the mistakes rather than covering up.
• Interpersonal skills - The ability to communicate and motivate others without resorting to negative tactics.
• Intellectual breadth - Ability to understand a wide range of areas rather than having narrow expertise.

But this does not mean you have to be BORN with them. More recently inherited traits have been dismissed and learned and situational factors are now considered to be a far more useful way of understanding how people become leaders. Which means that you do not need to have been born a leader, but can become one.