Making Sense of Theories of Leadership for Capacity Building

Leadership is defined as an ability to influence a group toward the achievement of goals.(1) There has been an explosion of literature on leadership. In 1999 alone, more than 2,000 books on leadership were published;(2) some of them even repackaging Moses and Shakespeare as leadership gurus.(3) Even though so much has been written about leadership, there is no consensus on the right mix of qualities of a leader. It is dangerous to overdefine the capabilities a good leader should have.(4) Adair was probably the first to demonstrate that leadership is a trainable and transferable skill, rather than being an exclusively inborn ability.(5) The best aspect of leadership is that we all can learn and develop leadership skills. Each one of us has some capacity for leadership though some of us are born with traits that make it easier to become leaders, but all of us can develop leadership skills. If you have the desire and the will power, you can become an effective leader.(6) David Thomas believes leaders are 90% made, may be even more.(7) It is common knowledge that good leadership is essential to improve productivity of an organization. A study by Barling et al.,(6) (1996) found a significant correlation between leadership training and attitudinal and financial outcome. The challenge lies in choosing most appropriate concepts of leadership to apply in various situations to achieve the organization’s goals.