What Influences The Birth of Our Leadership?

I spend a lot of time thinking of what starts someone on their leadership journey? What drives them and influences them to become the leader they envision themselves to be? Easy answers are religion and spirituality, parents/guardians, siblings. But what about those who are not religious or do not believe or unsure of a higher power? Those who do not have healthy and positive relationships with their parents/guardians and other family members.

As I entered emerging adulthood, I would always tell myself that I am going to become the person I needed as a child. Into my adolescent stages and beginning stages of emerging adulthood (that stage is nowhere near talked about enough in terms of responsibility, growth, and foundation of identity). So I started to think of all the people I admired, from coaches, church members, civil rights leaders, humanitarians, teachers, etc. However, I also thought of the people I did not want to be like and who hurt me emotionally.

As I picked, pulled, and identified the qualities, attributes, and character strengths I wanted to embody and the ones I did not want any parts of, I started to carry myself in a specific manner. I changed my wardrobe to my own individual style that spoke to what I wanted to stand for. I began to loc my hair to fight the status quo of professionalism while still building my persona to mirror my character. As I transition into this man I had an idea of, I questioned myself if I doing this for myself or was I doing this because of the view of others? Who am I standing up for? As I worked through those questions and various other questions that arose, I realized one big thing for myself. Spite was my driving factor to being the leader I was transitioning into. Although I was making my transformation out of a genuine want and pursuit of the life I wanted to create for myself, it all stemmed from spite. I wanted to prove so many people wrong at the expense of them regretting the moments they have hurt me. So I had to ask, was it really for me? Or was it for those in my past?

Lead Advantage(leaddvantageinc.com) says five factors influence our leadership behavior. Those five factors are:

1. Personality
2. The situation
3. Individual needs
4. Leadership styles we have been affected by
5. Operating environment

These make sense. Our natural personalities are just that our personalities, but it influences how we behave as a leader. The situations we face determine how we behave and react and how we would lead in those situations. I can explain each factor, but they are self-explanatory, primarily if you evaluate yourself in each aspect.

However, these do not answer the question of What Influences The Birth of Our Leadership? Factor #3 seems to be a really close answer as I think on this question, think on other people’s perspectives on leadership, and thinking to my own experience as I shared above. Remember, I said spite was the driving factor, so was my leadership birthed out of spite? Think to yourself of what really birthed your leadership?

Let us explore a little bit more. Factor #3 is Individual needs. Lead Advantage goes on to say, “individual needs play into the leadership behavior we exhibit. For example, a need for power would tend to lead someone to be more authoritative and demanding, whereas a need to be liked by others would encourage “going-along-to-get-a-long”” (leadadvantageinc.com). I had a need to satisfy, and that need was to simply heal. Spite can look like many different things, but ultimately it is anger. Anger is just the tip of the iceberg we see, but its depth under the water is hurt, frustration, insecurity, and contempt. Hurt people hurt people is the saying. It is safe to say here that I was a damaged person trying to break people in a way that was not explicit while at the same time pursuing the genuine want to just be a better person for many other reasons.

So I think of people of disadvantaged communities who happen to come out on top. They lead their own life to greatness, overcoming trials and tribulations, and I have to think about what influenced the birth of their leadership for them to take the route they choose.

An easy argument point can be about natural-born leaders. Yes, some people just have that gift, and some may say they have that calling. Whether it is divine purpose, how the cards were placed for one’s life, or they had an epiphany, vision, dream of being the person they are or want to be. I would still ask what specific moment, thing, experience happened for them to actually apply themselves in the way they did to lead themselves in the way they did to get to where they are as a self-proclaimed leader?