Born Leaders vs. Made Leaders: Are Leaders Born or Trained?

What’s the difference between a born leader and a made leader?

Are leaders born or trained?

Can leadership training for managers create better leaders?

Though some people may already possess many of the skills and qualities that make a great leader, they can always grow and hone their leadership ability. And just because someone doesn’t appear to be a leader outwardly doesn’t mean they can’t develop leadership skills through a leader training program.

The keys to great leadership in your company simply involve providing the opportunities and custom training to foster leadership growth in your employees.

If you want to know what good leadership training looks like or how to become a good leader, you’re in the right place.

Keep reading to learn why great leaders are made not born and how to start providing the best leadership training to your employees.

Are Leaders Born or Trained?

For decades, people have been trying to figure out whether great leaders are born with innate leadership skills or if you can develop people into leaders. Recent scientific studies suggest that leadership is 30% genetic and 70% learned. These findings propose that leaders are made not born.

Ultimately, the answer is that both are true: a person can be born with natural leadership abilities, and someone can learn how to be a good leader at work. Regardless of whether someone is a “born leader,” everyone has room to learn new skills and grow in leadership competency.

The ability to train leaders is excellent news for organizations. You don’t need to wait around for someone with natural leadership skills to arrive—you can start training great leaders today.

Additionally, providing leadership training to your employees doesn’t just prepare them for more senior positions, it also comes with a host of benefits like:

• Reduced employee turnover
• Increased leader confidence
• Double-digit YOY revenue growth
• Increased training satisfaction rates

However, it’s not enough to simply know that you can train leaders and the benefits of good leadership training. You also must know how to train employees and what leadership training for managers or other employees looks like.

The Best Leadership Training for Managers

When choosing a leadership training program, you want to ensure that it’s effective and provides the value you expect.

Every company will be slightly different and need unique topics for their specific teams. However, the best leadership training contains some similar elements.

Here are three things to keep in mind when developing your leadership training program.

Goal-oriented Training

First and foremost, your training needs to be goal-oriented.

Your business has goals and objectives you want to achieve, but you can’t do it all on your own. You need other leaders in the organization who know your goals and how to achieve them.

• What are your overall business goals?
• Do your managers know these goals?
• Are your managers equipped to direct their teams toward these goals?

Managers are your boots on the ground. They’re the ones who help guide and direct teams and employees towards the company’s goals. You want your managers to know the company’s goals and feel confident leading others in the right direction.

As you create a leadership training program, ask yourself, “Will the employees who go through this training leave understanding our goals and how to achieve them?”

Compelling and Engaging Content

Once you’ve made your goals the focal point of the training, it’s time to think about the actual training content. One of the keys to great leadership training is compelling and engaging content.

These days, it’s not enough to simply provide information about being a leader. Employees need content that’s engaging and compelling. People don’t want to sit in an extended seminar, watch hours of boring videos, or read long paragraphs of text. You need to provide your training content in such a way that it drives learner retention.

So, how do you engage employees while also providing them with valuable training content?

You need to get creative, customize your program, and potentially invest in an LMS. An LMS (or learning management system) is an online platform that allows you to distribute customized training content to employees in many different forms. Some of the ways an LMS will enable you to engage employees include:

• Microlearning videos
• Gamification
• Virtual instructor-led training (VILT)

Using various content modalities provides employees with a fresh way to learn. These modalities help drive learner engagement and retention.

Remote Accessibility

Lastly, you want your potential leaders to quickly, easily, and remotely access the training content.

Business has become increasingly remote. But training doesn’t need to stop or slow down in a remote environment.

Above, we mentioned that an LMS provides an excellent way to deliver engaging training content. It’s also a great way to make your training accessible at all hours of the day and from anywhere in the world.

Even if your company is moving back to the office soon, you can’t overlook the benefit and value of employees’ ability to train continuously. And if your company is staying remote, then you need a way to keep training and developing leaders from outside the office.

With an LMS, your leaders can access and engage in training at the office, in their homes, at a co-working space, or anywhere in between.

Expert Help Developing Good Leadership Training

Great leaders are necessary for any organization that wants to grow its business and achieve its goals. And every company can have great leaders without needing to go out and hire new senior-level employees.

Many people think there’s a difference between a born leader and a made leader. Some people may have natural leadership qualities. However, even the most seasoned leaders learned skills along the way and still have areas of improvement. Recent studies also suggest that leaders are made not born.

If leaders can be developed and improve their leadership capabilities, you can start identifying and training up leaders today.

Your specific training program needs may differ from other organizations, but the best leadership trainings are:

• Goal-oriented
• Compelling and engaging
• Remotely accessible

You want your managers and employees to know how to become a good leader, so give them the leadership training they need.

At Unboxed Training & Technology, we specialize in custom, engaging leadership training solutions. We take the time to understand you, your business, and your needs. Then, our team gets to work creating a tailored training program that’s relevant and on-brand. The result? A training program that helps you develop great leaders within your organization.

Request a demo of our custom training solution to see how it can help increase your company’s growth, employee retention, and customer satisfaction.