There is an old question: are leaders born or made? If they are born, it seems that they are equipped to handle the challenges of leadership in any situation. If they are done, it will require constant training to navigate new scenarios. Whether leaders are born or made, when they don’t have all the answers, they can turn to more experienced executives for advice. However, what happens when everyone is faced with a situation that no one has ever witnessed, such as the recent global pandemic?

If leaders are born, it would seem that they magically have answers and a style to suit all occasions. Some will call them intuitive leaders who seem to have a way of navigating themselves and others through tough times. And 2020 ushered in a challenge that has forced everyone to change and deal with a new normal. These are the times when the masses look to the leaders for direction.

Except you have to wonder if there are limits to born leaders. Are you prepared for all occasions? Are they really born with the ability to lead? Or did they grow up in an environment where leadership was part of their education? There are many people who grew up in a home with parents who were entrepreneurs. Or your father may have been a CEO at a major corporation. Those children would have been exposed to conversations with their parents or their parents’ colleagues that revolved around being responsible for the well-being of others, making tough decisions, focusing on a vision and mission, understanding the cost of hiring and firing people, and many other . leadership aspects. On the surface, it would seem that they were born with leadership in their DNA. The fact is that they were being educated almost at birth.

Historically, when we look at leaders like Ghengis Khan, Alexander the Great, and Hannibal, we see that their fathers were also great leaders: kings or generals. The men I mentioned earlier grew up with an education that is different from most. Perhaps it could be said that their environment made them.

At the same time, there are those who have never lived in an environment with leaders. They either sought leaders to mentor them, received formal education, or worked in an organization that provided training and opportunities to use leadership education. To most, it would be obvious that they became leaders.

That said, what is going on with the leaders today. The world is facing a situation that no leader in recent history was a part of. Although there was a pandemic in 1919, how many of today’s leaders have experienced it? Furthermore, today more than ever the world is connected through a global economy. In one way or another, we all depend on other countries to support us in manufacturing, food or services. This time we are really in this together.

Maybe this is the time we learn to take advantage of each other in a way we never have before. It can also be a great opportunity to retrain ourselves to deal with constant change. With that, I am not saying that there is never stability. I am saying that the world is changing faster than ever through technology and globalization. The global pandemic may be the wake-up call for all of us to develop a new mindset that is more agile and better able to deal with constant change and uncertainty.

It will require a mindset that is prepared to venture into entirely new paradigms while maintaining the integrity of existing business models. New paradigms often require new skills, knowledge, mindsets, and the ability to invent information that no one has seen. It also requires a fair amount of risk tolerance. On the one hand, the new paradigm can be disruptive and hugely successful, like the iPhone. On the other, it can fail and fail. Except the lessons learned can be the catalyst for other opportunities, like Post-Its.

For leaders to build that kind of agile company, executives would have to undergo a considerable amount of training and transformation. The next step would be to train the rest of the organization. This type of training does not mean that leadership will have all the answers in the face of the current global pandemic. It simply means that transformative training allows them to be more agile mentally. That allows them to not be as reactive as people operating in the status quo. Transformational leaders will be better positioned to step back and look at the landscape for opportunities as they harness the mind power of those around them.

What kind of transformational training are you doing to prepare for the new normal?

What do you think? I’d love to hear his feedback. And I’m open to ideas. Or if you want to write me about a specific topic, comment through my blog: https://turnaroundip.blogspot.com/