Often it is said that a leader has the “right stuff”. Tom Brady has the unique blend of a talent, determination, and leadership that makes him successful on the football field. While, Bill Gates had a special mixture of intelligence, vision, and business acumen that made him excel in the business world. But is it only that “right stuff” that makes leaders successful? Or is it something else, additional that helps determine if the leader is primed for excellence?
In his best-selling book, Outliers: The Story of Success, Malcom Gladwell points out that “we want to know what they’re like – what kind of personalities they have, or how intelligent they are, or what special talents they might have been born with” (2008, p. 18). We want to know because we believe we can somehow be like these success stories. The trait approach however tells us that we need to have certain characteristics in order to be successful. Kirkpatrick and Locke determined that leaders possess the following six traits: “drive, motivation, integrity, confidence, cognitive ability, and task knowledge” (Northouse, 2016, p. 22). According to Kirkpatrick and Locke, these are the six traits make up the “right stuff” for successful leaders (Northouse, 2016, p. 23). On the other hand, Gladwell believes that it takes more than just asking what the successful person is like, but also understanding where the successful person is from (Gladwell, 2008, p.19). With the Psychodynamic Approach in mind, the ideas of where a person is from or their make-up start to show up. One of the points of the Clinical Paradigm, which the Psychodynamic Approach is based upon, states that “we are all products of our past experiences, and those experiences, including the developmental experiences provided by our early caregivers, continue to influence us throughout life” (Northouse, 2016, p. 297). Interestingly enough Gladwell suggests that tallest oak tree in the forest did not become that way just because it grew from the best acorn, but other trees did not block the sunlight, the soil was rich, and the tree was not cut down. Essentially, Gladwell is suggesting that characteristics or traits are important; however, just as important is the environment that the successful leader was brought up in, training, and some luck.
For instance, let’s examine the background of Bill Gates. Gates’s father was a lawyer and his mother was a banker, so Gates did not come from humble beginnings (Gladwell, 2008, p. 50). Gates was a highly intelligent and very bored with public school, so his parents enrolled him in a private school (Gladwell, 2008, p.51). This private school had a computer club in an era when most universities did not even have one, so Gates was writing computer code in the eighth grade (Gladwell, 2008, p. 51). These early events set the stage for Gates to turn his passion into a corporation and a computer into a device that no one can live without.
By understanding the trait approach and the premise of Outliers: The Story of Success, it appears that the “right stuff” is the foundation of a leader, while the environment, training, and luck is the differentiator that makes leader successful.
References:
Northouse, P. G. (2016). Leadership: Theory and Practice (7th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.
Gladwell, M. (2008). Outliers: The Story of Success. New York, NY: Back Bay Books/Little, Brown and Company: Hachette Book Group