• You can modify your style of influencing a bit, but not totally. A quietly persuasive leader will have difficulty ever being charismatic - some in-born traits here.
• It's also hard to shift your inclination to rebel or challenge the status quo very much if you are strongly cautious, conservative or motivated to be accepted by others rather than risk rejection.
• We are either born with a strong rebellious streak or acquire it early in life.
• The same is true of intelligence.
• Earlier theories of leadership rejected the idea that leaders are born because they identified leadership with the personality and skills to influence followers, noting rightly that there are widely differing styles of influence and that people can improve their influencing skills.
• But the critical leadership trait is the courage to stand up and be counted, rebelliousness - it's a bit like creativity, you might have it in a small amount, rather than large doses, but you either have it or you don't.
• Leaders are rebels who focus their rebelliousness on challenging the status quo and improving the world around them.
• Strictly speaking, no one is born a leader, just as no one is born a talented artist. But you can be born with the underlying traits that make you a potential artist given the right stimulus and environment. Similarly, exploratory, rebellious characters could become criminals rather than leaders depending on circumstances, so it is the potential you are born with, not full scale leadership. Mozart was not born a musician after all - just with the creative potential to become one.
• This view has huge implications for leadership development - it means we can develop managers or executives or influencing skills, but not the fundamental drive to be a leader.
• We live in a more biological age. Throughout the latter half of the 20th century we believed that everyone could become anything with the right environment and support. This view is not so widely held in the 21st century.
• Even the conventional definition of leadership which focuses on the drive to dominate people, to be the top dog, is a trait that some people acquire early in life and have more than others. Here, however, this definition of leadership is rejected. The real meaning of leadership has nothing to do with occupying a position of power.
• Should we focus on selecting leaders then rather than developing them? No, this misses the point - it's not about appointing people to positions. The key is to create the conditions for leadership to emerge informally and spontaneously throughout the organization.
• Keep in mind that leadership, as portrayed here, is about innovating or championing new directions. It is not about managing people - otherwise how could innovative knowledge workers show leadership upwards - to people they do not manage? Of course, management skills can be learned. Still, some people are more naturally suited to management than others.
• EVERYONE can show some leadership - you don't have to be an out and out rebel. Anyone with suggestions to make to improve things can show leadership at least on a small, local scale. We all have good ideas for doing things better. It's just a matter of speaking up and persisting until you win support for your views. You don't have to be a manager to be a leader.

All pages written by Mitch McCrimmon, Ph.D. and copyright © Self Renewal Group 1996-2009