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Defining leadership is an elusive pursuit at best. Over the years, great leaders have been identified. We have had less success, however, in enumerating specific characteristics of leadership that can be universally replicated and form a firm foundation for identifying the full range of leadership characteristics. It appears that we know leadership when we see it, yet we are less able to define exactly what it is we see.

Over the past 40-50 years, much effort in the academic and business communities has been dedicated to assessing characteristics of leadership. Great leaders have been studied in detail, and traits of leadership have been defined, researched, and explicated as a way of getting at some fundamental numerators of leadership that conform with the foundations of our understanding and become the content of formalized programs directed toward teaching leadership. Leadership is known to be a valid and meaningful part of the human experience. Leaders have surfaced under all kinds of circumstances, from war to great political and social change, from religious and moral foundations, and from cultural and social transformations

Each age of human experience has produced a leader who represents the characteristics of the times. As we review the course of human experience, it becomes clear to anyone who understands history that leadership changes and adjusts depending on demand, social circumstances, and the particular needs of the time. Indeed, each generation of human interaction created the conditions from which leadership would emerge. These conditions are fundamental circumstances within which any model of leadership responds to the demands of the time. Leadership operates through the expression of vision, determination, and force of personality and will, converging to create a significant change in the order of things.

Leadership is about more than generalized characteristics. Leadership is about people. Leaders are both born and made. Leaders are born insofar as they are influenced by the genetic characteristics of their heredity. Leaders are made insofar as social development, circumstances, and personal experience converge to create the conditions and context within which specific leaders could emerge. This happens at the point of convergence where there is a good fit among the times, the demand, and the personal characteristics of the individual who would be leader.

Some generic and identifiable characteristics of leadership can be learned and replicated. Although these characteristics can be taught, the circumstances and knowledge in which leadership characteristics can be expressed are important considerations for the success of specific leadership traits. A good leader recognizes this convergence of forces and conditions and responds to them with such clarity and appropriateness that the actions undertaken are congruent with the demand for them, and a meaningful transformation occurs or valued outcomes are achieved.