In: Economics
Northouse in 2007 defined leadership as a process whereby an individual influences a group of individuals to achieve a common goal. With inspiration from this definition, is a leader born or made?
20mks
It shall be noted that leadership is a process of influencing others to understand and agree about what needs to be done and how to do it, and the process of facilitating individual and collective efforts to accomplish shared objectives.
The given definition suggests several components central to the phenomenon of leadership.
Some of them are as follows:
(a) Leadership is a process
(b) leadership involves influencing others
(c) leadership happens within the context of a group
(d) leadership involves goal attainment, and
(e) The goals are shared by leaders and their followers.
Thus, with the given definition, a leader is not born. It means the leadership is not a characteristic or trait that people are endowed at birth. Leadership is a process. The leaders affect and are affected by their followers either positively or negatively. Also, leadership is not restricted to just the one person in a group who has formal position power (i.e., the formally appointed leader).