Leaders Are Always in Beta

“Nature or Nurture?” The biological/psychological/sociological debate on whether human behavior is determined by genetics or environment. I offer a new reading and different look at the old argument, albeit based on the same basic notion. My question here relates to leadership: Are leaders born or are they made? Are leaders created by DNA or degrees? Is it birth or books? Can I learn leadership in a classroom? Or is it something else?

After careful consideration, my view is that there is nothing that can really prepare real leaders for the challenges they will face as leaders. No training can predict the situations that real leaders may be confronted by. Yes, one can learn the basics of leadership. Yes, one can study the theory and simulate the possibilities, but circumstance is what takes an ordinary, everyday human and morphs them into the person we will all follow into hell.

Let’s look at two leaders, separated by thousands of years, yet who had so much in common that the latter was often compared to the former.

Turning to the Bible, consider one of the earliest great leaders ever recorded: Moses. We've all seen the movie—Moses, born a slave, raised a prince. Early in his life, he runs away from his responsibilities, but is called upon by God to lead his people out from bondage, and although he initially says, “I can’t do it,” he shows up. He makes his demands and eventually finds the backbone to lead the Israelites out of Egypt. He faces multiple challenges, successes and failures, but ultimately isn’t able to fulfill his one desire: to enter into the Promised Land.

Yet all along the way, he learned. He grew. He made more mistakes and learned some more and, in the end, had no entitlement (my weekly readers will get that). The takeaway lesson here? Leaders show up. They can be humble, tentative, scared, or all three. They learn by doing. They make mistakes, make more mistakes, but remain steadfastly focused on the outcome—even if it doesn’t include them.

Let’s jump a few millennium…

Abe Lincoln. Born in a cabin, self-educated, lanky, and a little goofy. Real. Extraordinarily empathetic. Elected President….and then? The country falls apart, warring with itself. After many bloody battles and countless losses of life, Lincoln ultimately wins the war, ends slavery, initiates a national reconciliation and is often compared to Moses by his admirers. But before he can fulfill his destiny, seeing a united country prosper, he is assassinated.

The lesson here? Many of the same—your birth circumstances don’t count at all, and empathy for all, even your enemy, becomes a strength. Determination is key. Right is not might, it’s just right and what separates mere power posturing from true leadership.

Moses and Abe: Neither man would have been high on anyone’s top recruiting list for the jobs they ultimately performed. Neither man would have imagined himself in that role, nor in the legendary ways each has been portrayed and remembered…Charlton Heston playing one and Gregory Peck the other…Neither one would have picked themselves as “The Leader,” and neither one went to the class, seminar or retreat that guaranteed leadership abilities.

As I’m sure many of you have noticed, we live in an age bereft of leaders. An era where ephemeral fame and power are are often conflated and confused for leadership. A time when people declare themselves leaders and never look to see who might be following. Where right for right’s sake has lost out to might determining right. Where not listening is seen as strength, and rule breaking as power.

Bottom line…those who think they lead, those who are sure they are in charge, are very often being led themselves. And we know where that all leads. Put the books down and ditch the seminars. Learn about leaders, learn from leaders, but don’t try and learn how to become one. When the circumstance presents itself, you will know, and others will too. Listen:

“The point is not to become a leader. The point is to become yourself”—Warren Bennis

Moses and Abe ultimately became themselves—and that’s the challenge for us all. What do you think?