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Student Perspective
Are Leaders Born or Made?
By Asaf Rosenheim, Wharton MBA for Executives Program, WG'12
Wharton MBA for Executives students explore leadership styles as they visit the site of the U.S. Civil War Gettysburg Battle -- one of a number of leadership development opportunities.
There is a huge advantage to taking the leadership class in the Wharton MBA for Executives Program. My fellow students brought their own experience of good and bad leadership to class, from both the perspective of having led, being led, or being part of a team. More importantly, the classroom became a laboratory where lessons were taken out of the classroom to our jobs and lives and then these experiences were returned to class as results. But as the semester moved along, we discovered that although sharing our respective insights in class was an essential part of the learning, the limited classroom time meant we could only share a fraction of our collective experiences.
The solution we devised was to pose a simple question via a survey to 120 of tomorrow's leaders, our classmates: “In your opinion, what are the most important leadership skills or attributes?”
The results were fascinating. The responses included examples ranging from getting your driver's license at the DMV to lying down on a grenade (two of them, actually). Many of the examples of leadership took place on the battlefield or in time of great hardship -- evidence of Lee Iacocca's statement that "leadership is forged in times of crisis." For a detailed list of responses click here.
There were two main themes that emerged through the collected responses to the posed question:
- The need to balance weaknesses and strengths
- The ability to take a vision or strategy and communicate it to the people you are leading.
It is not surprising that these are the kinds of challenges we face as Executive MBA students. As we encounter more situations to exhibit leadership, we have to choose how we manage our own strengths and weaknesses - when to show them, and when to disguise them. It is a balancing act between the overt and subtle elements of leadership. And when we have a great idea, an innovative strategy, or a dream that we want to share, we need to communicate and motivate people effectively so that we can bring the dream to fruition.
We plan to repeat this exercise in May 2012 when our class graduates. Our guess is that while we might get responses that are more articulate and developed, the nature and perspective of the responses will remain the same, begging the question "are leaders born or made?"
