English Language Resources Online - series on leadership, power, politics, part 7

English Language Resources Online - series on leadership, power, politics, part 7

There are two distinct parts to this virtue and leadership essay - one is on the nature versus nurture debate, and the second is the specifc recommendation that I make in order to answer the essay question that I was set. Here in English Language Resources Online, I continue from the essay introduction and go on to the first part of my essay.

Essay title:
Are leaders born or educated? Suggest a leadership education for Singapore.

The first part of my essay (essay body)

First, leaders usually have natural character traits that they are born with. For this paper, a general working definition of leader would be a person who leads his/her followers to goals, by influencing or guiding them. In addition, there are different types of leaders in different contexts, such as military leaders and military campaigns, political leaders and their countries. These basic definitions would suggest that there are certain traits that followers would look for in a leader, perhaps such as courage in a military leader and an extroverted personality in the case of a political leader, for instance. Courage is a quality that soldiers would most likely look out for in a leader because they want to feel that they are being commanded by someone with bravery and who would be able to lead them to success, and at the same time it is difficult to imagine a political leader who is very introverted and keeps to himself being able to influence people. Many of the qualities that people expect of their leaders can be said to be natural, meaning that the leader is to a large extent born with them. Apart from courage and extroversion, other natural qualities would possibly be native intelligence, kindness, strength, prudence, and other personality traits. Thus, nature plays a role in leadership.

However, one can see that there is already a kind of link between nature and nurture, for while a person may be born with such qualities, these qualities can be enhanced and developed by education and experiential learning. One usually talks casually of developing one’s character. To Confucius, the jun zi (gentleman or exemplary person) can indeed be cultivated. It is possible to examine one of Confucius’ sayings:

“When there is a preponderance of native substance over acquired refinement, the result will be churlishness. When there is a preponderance of acquired refinement over native substance, the result will be pedantry. Only a well balanced admixture of these two will result in gentlemanliness.”(Confucius: The Analects, translated by D. C. Lau, 1979:83).

It can be said that Confucius felt that “native substance” played a role in making a jun zi but this “native substance” had to be tempered with “refinement’ and, by extrapolation, education; only a person who cultivated his character would become a jun zi. Confucius stressed the importance of education and learning many times in his discourses. Hence, nature and nurture go hand in hand because education can nurture natural gifts.

In addition, to take an extended view of nature and being born with gifts, some leaders are born with a rich family background and family connections. Some people are born royalty or offspring of rich and powerful people. However, this additional idea also leads us to the argument that there is a tight, interlinked relationship between nature and nature, because there is no guarantee that someone who is born with the right circumstances will eventually become a leader. Clearly, some sort of education is required.

What sort of education, then, is required? It is possible to argue that certain types of leaders need certain types of education which do not come naturally or are intrinsic in human beings. Let us examine a military leader. A military leader needs military training; for instance, Cyrus, the great Persian king, underwent Persian training that involved schooling, physical training, military training, magistrate practice, tests and hunting, among other methods of education (Xenophon, Book I, C2:23-28). This shows that a military leader – Cyrus happened to be both a political leader as well as a military leader, but as he went on many campaigns we can justifiably focus on his military leadership – requires a particular type of education in order for him to develop his natural gifts, for instance courage, strength and intelligence. Let us delve deeper and compare Cyrus’ childhood and his later years, to see the impact of education on training leadership out of natural characteristics. In Book I, Chapter 4 Cyrus exhibited signs of natural characteristics needed for military leadership – “he loved to learn”, “he did not run from being defeated into the refuge of not doing that in which he had been defeated; rather he immersed himself”, and he was courageous and bold while hunting (C4:34-35). Yet his youthful exuberance and natural characteristics nearly got him killed “when he saw a deer leap up, he forgot everything he had heard and pursued it, seeing nothing but the way it went as it fled” (Book 1 C4:35). This shows that while Cyrus had many natural characteristics that could potentially have led to excellent military leadership, his same natural qualities untrammelled were hazardous to himself and to his guards. Compare this youthful reckless behaviour to the discussion Cyrus conducts with his father, who is educating him in the arts of war in Book I, Chapter 6. The Cyrus who emerges from this talk comes across as more mature, and better able to learn lessons from his father in the arts of war, and able to realise his mistakes when they are pointed out to him. To take a specific case, Cyrus acknowledges his father’s wisdom that he “must contrive a source of income”, and indeed, does follow the advice and learns from his initial mistakes (Book 1 C6:48-49). He extrapolates the lessons himself and learns what to do, and how to use the education that he has had to his advantage in battle. While Cyrus’ love of learning is innate and something that he is born with, the effect of education countering his other innate qualities of boldness and reckless courage is important in transforming him from a mere talented youth into a great military leader.

Similarly, a political leader needs some kind of government and public administration education. One could take Machiavelli’s The Prince as an example, as the whole book is basically a written treatise serving as political education for Lorenzo de Medici, a political leader who ran a principality (Machiavelli’s Letter, cited in Bull 2003:3-4). Let us examine one of Machiavelli’s ideas: “the need to avoid contempt and hatred” (XIX), where he suggests ideas on how to avoid being hated so as to prevent internal subversion and rebellion. When examining the Roman Emperors in this regard, he noted that anyone who wanted to maintain political power had to pander to the wishes and demands of those who supported him, therefore one “should strive assiduously to escape the hatred of the most powerful classes” (XIX, 2003:62). In the case of the Roman emperors the soldiers were key to their rule and emperors had to maintain control over them. Machiavelli makes the most insightful comments when he analyses the Turkish Ottomans: their political system also makes it necessary for Sultans to accommodate the military, whereas in Italy, in the context of Machiavelli, the common people are more powerful and must be accommodated (XIX, 2003:66). Hence, Machiavelli’s take is that there are rules to be learnt for political mastery, but circumstances differ, from Roman emperors to Turkish Sultans to Renaissance Italy. Machiavelli’s treatise shows that the issue on education is far more complex than simple. There are implications arising from his analysis: governments differ and there are differing types of polities and political systems: democratic, authoritarian, or a mixture. This is not to say that Machiavelli’s ideas cannot be applied to different situations – they can – but one notes that there are different leaders in different contexts and that therefore a nuanced understanding of education is key, where it is difficult to find a “one-size-fits-all” solution to problems.

Let us also examine a leader in history to see what insights we can gain. A case in history would be Bismarck and his successful manipulation of European diplomacy to maintain peace in Europe (Pflanze 1958). Bismarck can be taken to be a case study where I will show the intimate relationship between being born a leader and being educated to become one. It can be seen that Bismarck, as an educated Junker set on the path to government leadership in authoritarian Prussia, studied and learnt Machiavellian ideas; thus he is an example of being born into the right circumstances by birthright while also possessing a leadership education. I would argue that Bismarck’s adaptations of Machiavellian ideas to the situation in central Europe led to the rise of Realpolitik, “the politics of realism”, where there was “a particular conception of the realities of political life” and “techniques of achieving positive results in view of those realities”, where politics to Bismarck is power (1958:493). This political strategy was developed from studying politics and Machiavellian ideas. Bismarck manipulated events as they occurred and moulded history by using the relationships between various events, such as the rise of nationalism and industrialisation (511-512). Bismarck eventually unified Germany by the orchestration of many wars (504-506). Hence, ostensibly education in terms of studying politics seems to be the major factor in the making of this leader. Yet, Bismarck was himself ambivalent on why he was a great political and diplomatic leader – he considered himself a “genius” who had an intuitive touch given by nature, yet there was “the persistent recurrence of the same general pattern of political conduct”, where he used a Machiavellian “basic approach to political strategy” (513-514). While Bismarck obviously had very high natural intelligence as well as a great deal of courage, perseverance and charisma, and could manipulate events to his advantage, there was also an application of Machiavellian and Enlightenment intellectual ideas, such as rationalism and nationalism, running through his policies. Yet many other politicians and diplomats of other countries were familiar with Machiavelli and Enlightenment ideas but none emerged as strong as Bismarck. It could thus be said that both nature and nurture were closely interconnected in Bismarck’s case. A further possible extrapolation would be that education does not necessarily have to be always formal (academic), but can be a developmental process of self-education. Bismarck seems to have developed his own methods creatively from what he studied and did not blindly learn. To summarise: there clearly is an intimate link between nature and nurture, as exemplified by Bismarck, 19th century political leader and diplomat, whose successes could be attributed to both nature and nurture, and while education plays a role, education can be extended to “informal” education, such as self-reflection and experiential learning, not just merely “formal”.


Remember to ask yourself questions about the essay and always think about how you can improve your own writing, or my writing, for that matter. Thanks and cheers.

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