Leaders: Born or Made?
Quest 1: The Human Mind
Andy Harasewych + Perrin Moses

Title, Introduction, and Scope:

    In researching and developing ideas for a pathfinder, we came up with the questions relating to leadership. Are leaders born or made? Can a person be born into the world carrying with them leadership skills, or can a great leader be created from experience and interaction with the world around them? The assignment was to create a pathfinder referencing the best information. Our goal now is to help others answer the same question we attempted to and give them the results needed in order to do so. 

General Advice for Researchers:

    Researching a topic for the first time can seem to be a daunting task. Even when it seems that you can't find any information on your topic, don't give up. With the immense size of the internet and the capabilities of search engines, you are bound to find something on your topic. But a downside to the size of the web, is that some sites you may find are useless to you, with no scholarly value whatsoever. Being a good researcher means finding information, but also having the skill to weed out the unimportant search results.

Dewey/Library of Congress Number/Reference Works:

Sills, David. ed. International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. New York: The Macmillan Company & The Free Press, 1968. R 300.3 INT
            - Explains the psychological, sociological, and political aspects of leadership in the real world.

Dewey/Library of Congress Numbers: Circulating Works:

Covey, Stephen. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1989. 158 COV.
            - Explains 7 habits of highly effective leaders

Online Databases:

EBSCOHost
    - MasterFILE Premier
            + "Provides full text for over 1,890 periodicals covering nearly all subjects" (EBSCOHost).
    - ERIC
            + "ERIC, the U.S. Department of Education Educational Resource Information Center database, contains citations
                and abstracts from over 980 educational and education-related journals, as well as full text of more than
                2,200 digests" (EBSCOHost).
    - MAS Online Plus
            + "Provides full text for nearly 300 general interest and current events magazines" (EBSCOHost).

Gateway sites on the Internet:

Invisible Web
    - Leadership University
            + "Telling the Truth at the speed of life" (LeaderU.org)

Specific Web Sites:

Leadership in the 21st Century
            - An online journal about leadership and the qualities involved with being an effective leader.

Are Leaders Born or Made?
            - Master of Arts in Organizational Leadership is a major offered at Biola University. This online essay delves into the idea of whether leadership is made or born.

Are Leaders Born or Made? Scientists Suspect it's a Little of Both
            -  A Seattle Times article explaining the controversy of whether a leader is born with a genetic disposition to being an effective leader, or whether a person's environment can "raise" a leader.

Don't Kid Yourself: Leaders Are Made, Not Born
            - David Foote explains his theory on the nature of leadership.

Without Leadership, We Are Lost
            - A PDA explaining the misconceptions about leadership.

Leaders Are Born - And Made
            - Explaining Leadership.

Nature vs. Nurture 2.0
            - "It is now time to return to the idea that some people are simply born with potentialities for leadership" (FastCompany.com).

Online Journals:

Academic Leadership
            - "The online Journal of Academic Leadership is aimed at those in the academic world who care about leadership issues. We will provide a vast array of articles and essays that speak to the major issues of leadership faced by those in leadership roles – from unit coordinators to university presidents" (Academic Leadership Journal).

Organizations, Associations:

National Student Leadership Conference
            - The NSLC helps select students develop essential leadership skills that can enable them to better handle challenges faced in their lifetimes.

Institute for Educational Leadership
            - The Institute for Educational Leadership strives to improve education through positive and visionary change.

Experts/Scholars:

Dr. Edward B. Shils
            - 82 years old, Dr. Shils maintains his economic consulting business and his entrepreneurial law practice in Center City, Philadelphia, continues to teach and advise students in the Wharton School, and in May, added a sixth Penn degree, a doctorate in juridical science. Currently he is teaching a course entitled "Executive Leadership."

Stephen Covey
            - Stephen Covey is chairman and founder of Covey Leadership Center, a worldwide, 700 member leadership development firm. He is author of the phenomenally successful best-seller The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People, with over 6 million copies sold in 32 languages. Dr. Covey is respected internationally as an author, lecturer, teacher and leadership mentor.

Dr. Bruce Avolio
            - Director of the Center for Leadership Studies at SUNY-Binghamton and author of Full Leadership Development: Building the Vital Forces and Organization.

Keywords/Phrases/Subject Headings:

leadership
"leadership AND made" OR "leadership AND born"
leadership qualities
leadership AND genes
"is leadership genetic"
neurochemistry AND leadership

Additional Advice to Researchers:

Never give up hope.
For the first few days of searching we didn't find anything. We came close to switching topics, but now we are happy that we did not.

Additional Categories:

Happy Searching!

Andrij Harasewych             Perrin Moses   
                April 23, 2002