Simon Cox Blog: Can Leadership Be Learned?

Wednesday 20 September 2017

Can Leadership Be Learned?

You do not have to be a natural-born leader to become a great leader.

Is leadership something we’re born with, or is it something we learn?

Yes. Both-and.

Some people are born with leadership skills. These people may be more charismatic, more extraverted, more affirming. They were president of their class and captain of their teams in high school. Their voice holds the room’s attention, and their ideas catch on throughout an organization.

But, in my experience, natural leaders often rely on instincts. Instincts work for a while, but eventually they fail. They do not scale up to tackling new or more complex leadership challenges—to creating plans for strategic leadership or for effecting system-wide change. That takes processes, strategies, and tools that don’t always come with instinct or experience.

Other people are dropped into leadership positions without natural leadership gifting. Maybe it’s the wise, compassionate woman who is asked to lead her Bible study. Maybe it’s the pastor who loves theology or Biblical counseling but who feels overwhelmed when faced with leading a congregation.

That’s the situation I was in during my second church plant. We’d successfully launched the church, counting 234 people in attendance for the first Sunday. But then we moved past the frenetic energy of the launch, saw our numbers settle around a hundred, and slid towards rhythms of regular church life. And I realized I did not know what to do next. I was stuck, and leadership was the lever I needed to get through.

I am not a natural leader. I am a nerd. While some of my good friends were leading student government in school, I was reading the encyclopedia for fun.

This love of learning became a powerful tool when I got stuck after our church’s launch. I was ...