Are we born with leadership skills?

Many people would argue that leaders are born with traits that make them become great leaders and one can't obtain skills to be a leader. Traits are attributes that include aspects such as values, needs, motives, and personality (Yukl, 2006). I would agree with those who believe great leaders are not born, but can be made. Let's look at a general definition of leadership: Leadership is a process whereby an individual influences a group of individuals to achieve a common goal. When viewing leadership as a process, this means that leaders affect and are affected by their followers either positively or negatively. Also, leaders carry out this process by applying their leadership knowledge and skills.  However, we know that we have traits that can influence our actions.

With this being said, I believe that everyone is born with traits but not everyone is willing to use these traits to become great leaders. If you want to be a leader, you will use these traits for the good and continue to possess more knowledge and skills to enhance your traits to ultimately become a great leader. The chart below shows the Process and Trait type of leadership.

References:
Guerrero & Rowe. Cases in Leadership, 2nd Ed.
Concepts of Leadership. 2010. May be accessed at: http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/leader/leadcon.html