Understanding childhood influences on leadership

While it’s a fact that from childhood onwards our brains develop as we grow older, our early interpretations of events and people form beliefs that we carry into adulthood. It is in childhood that we start to create a self-identity and shape our leadership traits. Little management research and literature is available on the importance of early influences on leadership styles however some academics like McCall’s (2004) views on the subject are worthy of scholarly investigation as he posits that, ‘’The primary source of learning to lead, to the extent that leader-ship can be learned, is experience”. It would appear to me therefore that all those childhood experiences come into play. Some aspects of leadership are more or less fixed at a young age while others are able to be developed from well into adult life.

That should bring it home. This argument is plausible particularly when we consider how some of the world’s top leaders were influenced by their domestic backgrounds. For instance, Nelson Mandela’s early life moulding, infused with intellectual-ism, was in the boxing ring, while Barack Obama confesses in his autobiography, Dreams From My Father, that his famed virtues of courage, values and leadership were inspired by his ‘personal interior journey in search for his father. It’s no secret how they both turned out as leaders. We are all a part of our community and extended families. As such we are both individually and collectively responsible for mentoring and bringing up those around us, or if you have not attained that status in life yet, for the way in which you turn out yourself. Following the logic in the foregoing, the way in which the leaders of tomorrow perform their leadership roles will very much be determined by the way in which we mould them today.

Understanding childhood influences on leadership

Latest

Finland’s women-in-tech model offers lessons for Tanzania

Finland offers Tanzania a blueprint for blue-economy innovation

Miners told to prepare for heavy rains

Kilimanjaro fire prompts temporary closure of two routes used for climbing the mountain

Macron invokes Europe’s Judeo-Christian foundation as Leo visits

Kenya set to make new monthly HIV prevention pill

In the headlines

Mixed reactions greet new mandatory travel insurance for foreign visitors

Kilimanjaro fire prompts temporary closure of two routes used for climbing the mountain

Tanzania removes extra visa clearance for Nigerians

Concern as safety gaps leave fuel station workers exposed