Can anyone be a great leader? In the movie Alexander, Alexander the great is told by his father that leaders are not born but made . This is a subject that is not widely discussed yet is very important in knowing whether people can be successful in certain fields. Does everyone have the capacity to be CEO of a major corporation? Were those teachers and parents who told everyone that they could be president if they put their minds to it truthful? It is not realistic to believe that everyone has the skills or the ability to develop the traits necessary to be successful in the leadership arena. Of course there are many different aspects that factor into whether someone can improve their skills to become the best leaders possible.
Any kind of leadership that is to be developed can not be done quickly. Presidents of the United States can not even be considered if not at least 35 years of age. There is an extremely numerous amount of seminars that are given on leadership and how to improve the abilities needed to empower people to follow. Most of these seminars last less than a day, but sometimes as long as three days.
This is not a time period long enough to get the experience needed to be a good leader. In team sports it is often important to have people that they call “Veterans” on their team to help instill what they know to the younger players. This knowledge can be anything from how to deal with the media to what kind of work ethic is demanded to be a great player. Often these players are highly regarded as a remarkable source of information and guidance even if they are not the best players on the team. Many of these players go on to be managers and coaches of teams where their skills can continue to be utilized to the fullest possible extent.
Conversely, many of the players that they mentored, while being some of the best professionals in their respective sports, will not have the capability of attaining the rank of a professional sports manager or coach.
In addition, in John C. Maxwell's book, The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, his third law is actually the “Law of Process”. This is explained as a series of experiences that must be progressed through, yet not a universal set of experiences for every leadership position . It can not be said that everyone will be capable of discovering the paths that they will need to follow in order to become the leader that is possible for them. Much effort can be put into finding these experiences, however there are a great many obstacles to get through to find them, starting at birth. Some people are born into broken homes where the guidance that is needed to prevent them from making decisions that will be detrimental to their path is simply not there.
On top of this particular obstacle, many of these homes may not just stand in the way of the path that is needed but also steer the person in the wrong direction from the very start. Moreover, it is a common occurrence that when a home is not very fit to bring a new child into the world emotionally and mentally, it also has the material problems of inadequate means by way of finances.
Many people have all of the odds against them from birth and it could be said that they don't have a chance, yet many of these people that are brought up under horrible circumstances go on to be the very success stories that movies are made of.
Equally interesting is the person that has the best chances to be a great leader. Another child is born into a home that is caring, nurturing, and loving with the means to go to the best schools in the world.
Nevertheless there are scores of these people that end up in positions where there is no leading being done just like the people that had the poorer circumstances.
There is not a book on the market or a seminar that can be attended that will not stress the importance of communication in leadership. This website states that “People in organizations typically spend over 75% of their time in an interpersonal situation; thus it is no surprise to find that at the root of a large number of organizational problems is poor communications.”
The people that are being led must know where they are supposed to be going. If someone does not know the goals that are set for them there is no place to go but stand still. Even if a person is expected to do nothing it has to be recognized by that person that doing nothing is what is expected of them. There are countless obstacles to communication that can be fixed yet there are many that do not have a solution. Everybody has the ability to overcome concerns such as speaking different languages, stereotypes, prejudices, and even disabilities such as dyslexia, deafness, and blindness.
