Send to KindleDo You Have What It Takes To Be A Leader?
Few people have what it takes to be leaders. 
Do you believe that? It’s a statement I read recently from a supposed leadership expert. Though I don’t understand the thought process that led to this statement, I suspect he’s in that unfortunately large group of people who think leadership is an innate skill that is bestowed only upon a blessed few. This mistaken view tends to emerge from experience in organizations that pick workers because of technical skill and expect them to magically morph into great leaders with little or no training in or development of the finer points of the art.
When the poor victim fails to measure up, he’s tossed aside like a corpse in a crime movie. The more senior leaders hold a brief and private eulogy stating something like, “He just didn’t have what it takes.”
To be sure, this mode of operation produces leaders. Sometimes it actually produces good leaders, though such success is entirely by accident. More often, the ones who survive this sort of process can be placed in two categories.
One is the middle manager who keeps her head down and doesn’t rock the boat. She does exactly what the boss says with no original thought of her own. Since the boss probably has narcissistic tendencies, she has learned to stroke his ego. This leads to success to a point, but eventually, she’ll become the scapegoat for the boss’s failure and get tossed overboard to feed the sharks.
The other is the leader with the naturally outgoing personality. This person is called the charismatic leader. This leader compensates for ignorance with bluster. He usually has an outgoing, energetic personality and gets his way by cajoling and even bullying subordinates who tolerate him because they have to. The charismatic personality that earned him promotions also protects him from being shark bait; at least for a while. Alas as he moves ever higher up the food chain, he learns that those timid middle managers make great chum and keeps the sharks away from him. He may get away with this for some time, though most likely he’ll fall victim to a larger charismatic leader for whom those middle-managers are only a snack.
Back to the original question. Are there only a few people who really have what it takes to be leaders? In fact, there are few people who do not have what it takes to be successful leaders. The problem is there are too few organizations willing to invest in helping those people develop the capabilities necessary to be good leaders.
It really is an investment, not an expense. Think about the return on that investment if you’re company has capable leaders who have been trained in the necessary skills instead of the clowns I only slightly exaggerated. How much better will the company run when leaders strive to do what’s good for the company rather than having to protect themselves from their own leadership incompetence?
Take a look around. Are you burning up leaders like firewood, or do you understand that there are many who can be good leaders when properly developed?
