Over at the ASAE & The Center for Association Leadership, we are discussing transforming volunteers into leaders. A professional-development expert offered the tangential idea that individuals are born with the qualities that make an effective leader. I think this assertion is bogus in light of the fact that leadership is all about nurture, not nature. I started something with a simple truism: leaders have followers.

One cannot be simply born a leader; one must become or be made a leader.

What we call leadership is actually a relationship. After all, what is a leader? A leader is someone who people follow for whatever reason. There is a perception of authority, there is communication, and there is an alignment of interests. Without any of the three, there can be no leadership. Without any followers, there can be no leader.

The success of a leader depends on the progress toward completing a mission, or realizing a vision, that can be attributed to the leader. The greatness of a leader, however, depends on the degree to which followers perceive the leader as authoritative. In effect, a leader who overdelivers is said to be great whereas a leader who overpromises is said to be poor.

Leaders who are concerned about their legacy are often careful to balance the two.

The expert that had instigated this passage countered with a set of attributes that are commonly said to be leader-like: integrity, courage, humility, imagination, ability to inspire others, empathy, etc. The problem is that defining leaders in such a way is overly complex. I feel that a minimalist approach is best, especially when you consider that someone who inheres all of those attributes would probably be stowed away in an asylum. Marsha Rhea, president at Signature i in Virginia, agreed and picked up this line of thinking in her blog today:

Leaders have followers when they take the time to create relationships with others. They keep followers engaged by communicating openly and consistently about the work the organization wants to do. These leaders know how to organize their followers to get critical work done. They stay focused on goals and have the optimism to keep their followers believing in what they can do even when the initial results are discouraging.

Leaders have followers. Defining what makes a leader should not be any more dramatic.