Leaders Are Made, Not Born

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LEADERS ARE MADE, NOT BORN. DISCUSS. Many of us have heard the famous quote from the U.S. writer and sociologist Peter Drucker, “Management is doing things right, leadership is doing the right things.” And more of us use the term of leader, which finds application in many situations of everyday life. Whether in movies, in sports or at work, the word leader gets often used. Its definition seems natural, well understood by everyone. For many, leadership is an ability to have, innate in people who practice it. It seems however that this definition is obsolete (Stanford, 2005). Undoubtedly, the concept of leadership carries out its lot of interrogations. It is therefore interesting, through examples and more theoretical concepts, to provide an overall picture of the different ways of exercising leadership. The aim here is to present the conceptual characteristics of leadership, and see whether leaders are born or made. We will thus at first outline a rational definition of leadership. Then, in a second step, we will see how leadership differs from the management approach. We will also study the different behaviours and characteristics of the leader. Finally, we will conclude this essay with an analysis of relations between the leader and his group. Northouse (2007) defines leadership as comprising all activities by which an individual influences a group in order to achieve common goals. Moorhead & Griffin (1998), in turn, define the term leadership more accurately as “both a process and a property”. It is a process of influencing, motivating, and making others able to contribute to the effectiveness and success of organizations they are part of. More specifically, the term defines the ability (or property) of an individual to successfully perform such an influence. Hence, we say of this individual that he is a leader who demonstrates some

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