Recent scientific studies suggest that leadership is 30% genetic and 70% learned. These findings propose that leaders are made not born. 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.

Whether or not you are destined to be a successful leader depends on two things.

1. Your level of desire and interest in being a leader, beyond being motivated by title and compensation and
2. Your ability and willingness to put in the work required around the practice of leadership

Early on in my career I was an HR consultant at a well-known media company. At that time, I was meeting with a very senior level leader on the Finance side of the business. He was venting to me about some of the perpetual struggles he was experiencing with leading his team. He turned to me and inquired, “Can you perhaps arrange for these people to roll under someone else and simply deduct $20,000 or $30,000 from my annual salary?”.  He was serious. He went on to explain that he simply didn’t see himself ever having the time to lead. He found leadership to be an additional job on top of his ‘real job’ of managing fiscal results for the organization. He wanted to quit the job of leadership. He had truly become uninterested in and less and less willing to put in the work required to lead his organization. He now just wanted to be a high-level doer. And he was clearly no longer motivated by compensation.

Looking back on this situation I now understand that this leader was someone who ventured into leadership with incredibly positive intentions. When he realized that the increases in title and pay came with steep shifts in expectations around what was required of him, the actual leadership aspect of his role lost its allure. But why From my observation, he lacked the coping skills and mindset required of successful senior leaders. Because he had not established them early on, his ineffectiveness at navigating new, stressful situations caught up with him and left him feeling like he was drowning. All. The. Time. Turns out those under him felt like they were drowning, too, as a result of his inability to lead effectively. At one time this individual was seen as having the potential to be a wonderful leader. Sadly, he’d not been set up for success in reaching his leadership potential and he and his team were becoming disengaged.

So, how do you figure out if leadership is for you without throwing the towel in too early? Or too late?

You can probably remember a time when you were a child and your mom, or dad, or a grandparent set a plate of food in front of you that you’d never seen before. You looked at it with big eyes, sniffed it, sized it up as strange, and announced you did not want to eat it. You likely heard a response that was along the lines of “How do you know you won’t like it? You’ll never know whether or not you like it unless you try it!” 

Well, leadership is like this. When you try it, then you will be able to get a true taste for it and uncover what it’s really about and discern whether or not it’s truly for you. It might quickly become your favorite aspect of your work. Or you might determine that it’s not your cup of tea at all.

From my decades of supporting leaders at all levels and across many industries in corporate America I have come to believe two things:

1. Leading can be for most anyone if they want to lead. Science backs this up. Leaders can be grown.
2. Leading is not for anyone who is unable or unwilling to put in effort into developing their leadership skills.

While leadership abilities may come more naturally for some than others, leadership success comes naturally for no one.

Think about other areas of your life where you’ve prioritized developing new skills – maybe a new sports team or exercise regimen, perhaps mastering the grill or becoming an expert at home repairs, or maybe learning to paint or knit. You become more confident and produce greater results when you practice and bring consistency to your practice. The same can be said for learning to lead. When you put in the practice, your results reflect this. When you don’t put in the work around learning to be an effective leader, it shows and most of all, you feel it. This in turn can create a self-fulfilling prophecy where you experience leadership as an unrewarding struggle.

So, if you’re curious about really knowing whether or not leadership is for you (or if you’re really for leadership), try it on fully for size. Be intentional about learning it and practicing it. Align yourself to others who are good at leadership (this might not be your boss) and soak up their lessons learned. Be OK with learning from your own mistakes. Get comfortable asking for and seeking out feedback. Set aside time for activities you enjoy that also bolster your awareness around leadership. Maybe listening to podcasts or TedTalks. Perhaps carving out time to read blogs or books on leadership. Scheduling time to attend a workshop or seminar. Participating in a group cohort or mastermind with other leaders. Identifying a mentor or leadership coach to work with.

It comes down to this: it’s human nature for people to enjoy the things they’re good at. So, if you wish to enjoy being a leader, learn to be a good one.