Kazira

When I was in my graduate school, I always had the debate with my friends and fellow graduate school buddies about "Are leadership skills inborn or can these skills be taught or instilled over time??" Sometimes those debates were over a drink, and sometimes in more formal settings; in presence of graduate school professors, research associates, and team leads. The point is, during those days, I argued with anyone or everyone except probably with the janitor. On the subject of leadership, my arguments loomed around mammoth managers such as Lee Iacocca, great leaders such as Bill Clinton, and major entrepreneurs such as Steve Jobs. The arguments against that ranged from – A person can do anything that they put their heads to? Or my favorite – Everyone is a leader in some domain or the other? Obviously, we were arguing about leading more than a bunch of "dead-beat" graduate students.

I still struggle with this question though now I am with peace with myself knowing that I personally do not have the potential to become a TRUE leader. Let me explain by stating that a TRUE leader has following qualities –

• Has a vision for the folks that he or she wishes to lead. The vision then transpires into strategies.

• Unyielding belief in their tenets (no matter how irrational they sound).

• Uncompromising passion for pursuit of their belief.

As you can see, most of these qualities could be used to describe a deranged sociopath. There are numerous examples of true leaders being teased as such. As you can see, a TRUE leader is hard to come by. Hence, I personally believe that there is no process to teach these necessary and essential skills to people to be a leader. Boy, I know I'll get a lot of push back from a lot of folks on this one – but I have an open mind and am ready to be convinced.

So, what do you think they teach you at B-schools? In essence, the business school only teaches you how to become a good manager (let me define what makes a good manager – A good manager is a good problem solver; best suited to optimize the working conditions and working processes to obtain maximum results).

Enough on this topic for now but before I go, let me tell you what else I plan on delving upon in the coming weeks/months on the necessary pre-requisites to lead (or shall I say, manage) people effectively -

1. Do I need an MBA?

2. Art of influencing

3. Power – Learn to use to wisely

4. BLINK and decision making

5. Ethics and Business

Update on Thursday, January 17, 2008 at 05:29PM by Navin Mathur

I recently came across a business week opinion column (dated January 21, 2008) – This is where Jack and Suzy Welch disseminate their collective wisdom in the form of Q&A’s. So, in this opinion column (called ‘The Welch Way’) someone asked about the “difference between leading and managing?” – The answer was short and succinct – “We don’t know?” However they chose to answer a different question – “Are leaders born or made?” – The answer to that question is – “Both” – A definite crowd pleaser but avoids answering the question. Anyway, I still stand behind with my previous opinion on the subject – I hope I get some feedback from you to make me think otherwise!!!