All entries for December 2008

15 years of debate

OK, here I'm again blogging for the second time this week, for me this represent a milestone in my blogging history hehe but I'm trying to make this an habit, as Paul recomended, but to be honest it hasn't been easy, dunno way.

Well straight to the point I want to share with you, this week we had another heated debate on whether a leader is born or made and, as you can expect we had several different opinions on the subject. In fact, there where so many that we struggled to come up with points in which all of us agreed, now I really understand the reason why there are more than 40.000 books published about leadership, because it's like a fingerprint it varies from person to person. Although I think there are common elements that mould and shape a person into an effective leader.

Some say this elements are inherent to the person, that means that there is a particular gene in our DNA in charge of our leadership skills, others say that is the way you were brought up and the experiences you lived wich are going to determine how effective a leader you are. For me is not one nor the other, it's a mix of both, in which exact proportion we'll never know, but I believe that the way you have lived your life has more weight than your genetic code. Who can tell that someone else is not genetically designed to be a leader?? Of course people born with traits an talents that can maximise their leadership skills but people born as well with the right to change who they are whenever they want. Like I said to one classmate before, I don't feel like a natural born leader as I lack of some inherent traits but if I work hard and put huge effort in settting up my company and I have success, many people will say in the end: ohh he is a natural leader!. How come??? Do you know what I mean??

In that sense, I strongly believe that everyone have the potential to become a leader but not the key to unlock it.

In the end,  for many people the question remains, do people born with this key or do they find it along the way???

Hope to have been coherent ;)

: 04 Dec 2008 11:42 |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Authority and effective leaders: do they need it???

This week we had a very interesting discussion about the importance of authority in leader's role. Everyone had different opinions about it, some said that it was important in time of crisis or when everything else in the leader's toolkit failed, others argued that effective leaders do not need to resort to authority as they will always find a way to make things happen without an "executive order".

In my opinion, I believe that authority needs to exist but just as a word not an action, like a deterrent to maintain order and control and prevent unwanted behaviors. Otherwise there will be chaos everywhere, because no matter how excellent a leader you are, without authority there will be always someone that will not think like you and do things in his own way. So yes, I think authority is a bit important but not crucial while being a leader, people awareness of it will help leaders to influence people without the need of using it.

In the end, effective leaders have a plethora of tools and mechanism to impact in people's mind, positively and negatively (very sad!), and is up to them (us?) to take the best use of these resources leaving the need of authority for extreme and rare cases.

: 03 Dec 2008 08:04 |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem