Think You Have The Leadership Gene? Answer These 6 Questions To Find Out

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Leadership is both a gift from birth and a learned skill.

For anyone who has led large teams in business, you know there are certain methods and best practices that are important. Over-communicating with employees, clearly setting expectations, leading by example–you can learn these things at any leadership seminar.

Yet, for anyone in leadership, you also know there’s a gift and a penchant you’re born with related to leadership that is much harder to learn. You might know there is vigorous debate over the “leadership gene”–that some behaviors such as being an introvert or an extrovert or an ability to assume risk can dictate whether someone is an effective leader.

I happen to believe the leadership gene does exist, mostly because I’ve seen it in myself and in others. Being an introvert is a recipe for disaster in leadership, for example, because the knee-jerk reaction is to avoid people and not try to make frequent contact with them.

Of course, this means you just have to work harder at leadership and can still be incredibly successful. But it does help to know if you already have a head start. To help, I’ve developed a few simple questions to ask to see if leadership comes naturally to you or if you will need to find workarounds and develop new strategies to lead others in business.

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