Quazi M. Ahmed, IFC Certified Master Trainer; TEDx Speaker; International Trainer; Leadership Coach ; Management Consultant; Certified Facilitator, InsideOut Coaching (USA); Lead Consultant and CEO, FutureLeaders™

As a leadership coach and trainer who successfully delivered training programs in seven different countries across three continents, I come across many different questions from the audience, and here are just two of them. Please feel free to ask me questions on leadership, and I will try my best to give an answer that might make you think deeply about issues.

 Can anyone become a leader?

The answer to this question is a resounding yes, and yet there are possibilities—however small that is– that some people won’t be leaders mostly because they refuse to be on the journey of leadership.

The debate surrounding whether everyone can be a leader or not is as old as history, and I don’t want to enter the dichotomy trap where leaders are either born or made. As a student of leadership for over 20 years, I now have my own understanding based on my experience, insights, and access to research on leadership across the world.

To begin with, science tells us that everyone is born with certain talents, a particular disposition, or a tendency. Those who study genetics would, of course, trace that to parents, grandparents, and beyond. For instance, children of parents who are singers are more likely to end up having the disposition toward singing, and those with sports will have the same (that is, an aptitude toward sports).

Now don’t get me wrong: just because a child was born with a certain endowment doesn’t mean that she or he will flourish in that area automatically. Why so? This is where the environment plays the biggest role. Let me give an example to clarify. I would argue that world-dominating Bangladeshi cricketer Shakib Al Hasan already had that element and then he had the best training—academic and otherwise—to help him reach his potential. Can anyone become world-class without the in-born tendency? Yes, one can, but then that person has to invest way more time and energy than the one who had won a genetic lottery in terms of being born with a disposition toward a certain talent.

Many of you know about the “10,000-hour Rule,” popularized by former New York Times journalist Malcolm Gladwell in his book Outlier. He quoted research by Professor Anders Ericsson that anyone who can do deliberate practice for 10,000 hours (it may be done in five to 10 years) has a very high probability of achieving world-class performer status in his or her field.

Now a few words on why some people don’t become leaders. First of all, I have had the opportunity to meet people who don’t want to be leaders. That’s it. It’s a choice they make thinking that he or she doesn’t want to walk the extra mile—whether it means working harder, being more courageous, or spending more time developing others. Not wanting to be a leader is someone’s human right!

But what makes me truly sad is when I come across participants in my workshops or elsewhere—when I am in the company of friends or family– who believe that it’s not possible to become a leader. My argument is that how come that person is so confident that she or he is not a leader material? Who held the proverbial crystal ball confirming that person’s fate? Confidence is a good thing, but I would say that please don’t’ be confident in a way that doesn’t serve any useful purpose.

Which follower types have a high potential to be leaders?

If you search on Google with the word followership, you will find 13 lakh web links, but the same search with the word leadership will yield web links amounting to 290 crores. What this says is that we all are somewhat obsessed with leadership, and there is hardly any enthusiasm to be a follower. And yet, we all become followers before we become leaders. I am sure Nelson Mandela, at a certain age and time, was just a follower, and so was Mother Teresa.

Any good observer will find that, like leaders, there are different kinds of followers too.  In her book “followership,” prominent thought leader Barbara Kellerman of Harvard University proposed five types of followers based on the degree of engagement they have: from “isolates’ who have given up on involvement to ‘diehards’ who are willing to sacrifice their life for a cause—be it patriotism or corporate citizenship. And in between these two extremes are ‘bystanders’, ‘participants,’ and ‘activists’ on the engagement continuum.  Needless to say, it is the task of a leader to turn the isolates and bystanders/ observers into participants first, and then it would be best to turn them into activists or diehards. The main point here is that those followers we call activists or diehards are not ordinary followers; they are actually co-leaders even though there is no formal recognition for them as leaders.

Hence leaders are well advised to observe their team members and junior colleagues and then identify what type of ‘followers’ they are. And as mentioned earlier, followers with high engagement have a high potential to be true leaders as they are leaders in the guise of a follower.

Research also shows two other types of followers who quickly end up becoming leaders: first, those who agree with the leader when there is reason to, and they don’t mind disagreeing in a diplomatic or polite way when critical thinking is crucial in problem-solving or decision making. Secondly, there are followers who, unlike others, not only work well but also keep regularly in touch with the supervisor, and they perceive themselves in a role of a ‘partner’ in that department or function. This type of follower makes time to ask his or her supervisor questions such as ‘What’s our priority?’ and ‘What can I do more to make us even more successful?” and the line.

As you can see, those behaviors shown above are behaviors of leaders, not mere followers, and that’s why leaders might as well pay attention to their team members and continually make future leaders out of the otherwise ordinary follower types.