Leaders Are Made

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“Leaders are made, not born” TABLE OF CONTENTS Page 1 INTRODUCTION 1 2 LEADER DEVELOPMENT 1 3 CONCLUSION 2 4 REFERENCES 3 1 INTRODUCTION Effective leadership and management are of utmost importance for success in today’s highly competitive and fast paced business environment. Throughout history several great leaders were studied and analysed to determine the factors that contributed to their success and what is needed to provide good leadership. The question for many people however still remains: “Are great leaders born or made?” I believe that leaders are not born with special genes that make them ideal leaders but that they can be made. The success of a person as a leader is much dependant on the needs, motivation and desires of an individual person. 2 LEADER DEVELOPMENT Many companies are conducting research into the topic of leadership relating to the statement above and millions are spent per annum on executive development programmes, yielding positive results. It is a fact that good leaders are needed to provide effective leadership through the ever changing times that we are facing in everyday life, to become better at what we do in the social and business environment. The future and success of the entire human race is dependent on good leadership. Many people that are in leadership positions think that they don’t have what it takes to be a good leader and that they were not born to portray that role. They convince themselves that there are born leaders to fulfil the role. It is because of this perception that their desires and motivation are focussed away from taking on the role as a leader. According to Zenger and Folkman (2004: 1) there are always a group of people that are identified by others as “good leaders”, “natural born leaders” and “the perfect role model”. These people are however not
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