Natural born leader?
Is there any such thing as a natural born leader?
This article was written by Martin McLean who is deaf and works as a Project Manager for Deafinitely Theatre, a company that produces plays in British Sign Language. In 2000 he did a degree in Genetics about how different things are passed down from person to person.
Is there any such thing as a natural born leader? Someone who is born with all the skills they need to be a perfect leader?
There are lots of families where more than one person has been a leader. In America, two presidents have come from the Bush family. In England, both the Milliband brothers, Ed and David, are politicians in the Labour Party.
The Deaf community has some very strong families within it where deafness has been passed down from generation to generation. People in these families are often seen as the community’s natural leaders.
Did their genes make them stand out or was it the way they were brought up?
What does this mean for those of us not born into families like this?
Examples at the top
Ed and David Milliband are brothers so they share some of their genes.
It is hard to say if what people do is because of their genes or how they are brought up.
Often these powerful families have lots of money - and that helps get things done too!
Being brothers, Ed and David Milliband have about 50% of their genes in common. They both grew up in the same house with the same parents and had a very similar education, going to the same schools and Oxford University together.
With both brothers growing up in the same place, how can we say if their success is just about their genes?
The evidence
There has been lots of research about what things are passed down through our genes.
To do this research, people look at both identical twins and non-identical twins.
Take these things:
- intelligence - how clever someone is
- neuroticism - how negative someone is (how worried, sad or angry they might be)
- extraversion - how much you like going out and being with other people
These things are passed down through our genes.
This means if your mum or dad is like this you might be too!
Traits
I am not saying that there is a simple ‘leadership gene’.
There is a single gene linked to deafness. It is called connexin26. It is is the most common gene that means that profound and severe deafness is passed on from parents to their children.
The picture above shows you how the connexin26 gene can be passed on to children. The red dot is Connexin26.
Leading isn't that simple.
There are lots of different skills leaders need and lots of different ways to lead.
There are some things that lots of people think leaders need - like being able to talk with people, being honest, being open.
Some of these things can be passed down.
We are not the first people who have looked at what a leader is or should be.
The Greek philosopher, Plato, was looking at what made a leader years and years ago in his book called Republic.
What does it mean for us?
If leadership was found to be about what you were born with... is there any point in leadership courses like Sync?
The research shows that some things can be passed down from our parents.
If these things are the only things that are important to being a leader, why bother to have courses, training and projects like Sync? Why not just work with the people who are born into those families, the people with those skills?
I would say that it is the other way round.
Some skills that we get from our parents might make us good leaders but we still need to know how best to use them. We still need to find our passion to give us a reason to lead.
Also there is only a 50% chance that the skills are passed down from our parents but we can still learn skills to help us lead.
Our lives are what we make them, not just what our genes are. We have a say in this too.
There was a report in 2009 by a man called Forsyth. He said ‘most people through diligent effort and careful mentoring can acquire the skills to be an effective leader’. This means most of us can become a good leader with the right training and support.
There is hope after all!
