Explore whether leadership can truly be taught. Discover the research showing that whilst 30% is genetic, 70% of leadership capability is learned through experience.
Written by Laura Bouttell • Thu 20th November 2025
The claim that leadership cannot be taught persists as one of the most dangerous myths in organisational development. Warren Bennis, one of the foremost leadership scholars, explicitly warned: "The most dangerous leadership myth is that leaders are born—that there is a genetic factor to leadership." Research consistently demonstrates that whilst genetics account for approximately 30% of leadership capacity, the remaining 70% is learned through experience, training, and deliberate development. Leadership can absolutely be taught—but not in the way many assume.
When people claim leadership cannot be taught, they typically mean one of three things:
Each perspective contains a grain of truth, but none captures the complete picture. The reality proves more nuanced—and more optimistic for organisational development.
Research does reveal a genetic component to leadership. But the magnitude surprises most people.
Studies conducted at the University of Illinois support research demonstrating that leadership is approximately 30% genetic and 70% learned. This finding aligns with behaviour genetic investigations published in Twin Research and Human Genetics.
Specific genetic influences vary by leadership style:
A 30% genetic component doesn't mean 30% of people can lead whilst 70% cannot. Rather, it indicates that genetic factors influence certain predispositions: extraversion, confidence, cognitive processing speed, stress resilience. These traits advantage individuals in leadership contexts but don't determine leadership capacity.
Think of athletic ability. Genetics influence height, muscle fibre composition, and aerobic capacity—yet training, technique, and strategic thinking separate elite athletes from merely talented ones. Leadership follows similar principles.
We notice successful leaders—Churchill, Thatcher, Branson—and retrospectively identify innate qualities that "explain" their success. We ignore the thousands with similar traits who never reached comparable prominence. Success retrospectively appears inevitable; we mistake outcome for innate destiny.
Thomas Carlyle's Great Man Theory, popularised in the 1840s, suggested "leadership traits are intrinsic, meaning that great leaders are born and will emerge when confronted with the appropriate situation." This romantic notion proves emotionally satisfying—it simplifies complex organisational phenomena into digestible narratives centred on singular figures.
Contemporary scholarship has thoroughly dismantled this theory, yet it persists in popular consciousness because it provides comforting simplicity in a complex world.
People with genetic predispositions towards leadership often demonstrate confidence and capability earlier in life. This early advantage compounds through increased opportunities, feedback, and experience. What appears innate frequently reflects accumulated advantage—genetic predisposition amplified through environmental response.
If leadership cannot be taught, why do organisations invest so heavily in development? US companies alone spend approximately $14 billion annually on leadership training. Globally, organisations invest an estimated $60 billion. This isn't collective delusion—organisations demand return on investment.
Research demonstrates impressive returns on leadership development investment:
A meta-analytic review by Avolio et al. examined leadership training using experimental and quasi-experimental studies. The conclusion? Leadership training widens participants' perception of satisfaction, increases their learning capacity, and drives results affecting the organisation as a whole.
Powell and Yalcin's meta-analysis covering 1952-2002 demonstrated long-term research evidence of managerial training effectiveness. Lacerenza et al.'s 2017 study found that training programmes have a profound effect on organisational levels.
Bennis himself—whose quotes are often misused to suggest leadership cannot be taught—explicitly argued the opposite: "Leaders are made rather than born." He taught that "leadership was a set of skills—that can be learned through hard work" and believed "the way we become leaders is by learning about leadership through life and job experiences."
The claim that leadership cannot be taught often stems from confusion about what "teaching" means. If we imagine passive classroom instruction producing instant leaders, then yes—that approach fails. But effective leadership development operates differently.
Strategic Thinking: Analytical frameworks, scenario planning, systems thinking—all systematically developable through instruction and practice.
Communication Skills: Persuasive argumentation, active listening, storytelling, difficult conversations—improved through feedback and deliberate practice.
Emotional Intelligence: Self-awareness, empathy, social skills—enhanced through assessment, coaching, and reflective practice.
Decision-Making Under Uncertainty: Mental models, bias recognition, probabilistic thinking—strengthened through case analysis and structured feedback.
Team Development: Delegation, performance management, conflict resolution—refined through supervised practice and coaching.
Research identifies communication, accountability, commitment, passion, delegation, and empowerment as "attributes of a successful leader"—and anyone can cultivate these attributes through systematic development.
Here's the critical nuance: leadership development requires experiential learning, not merely conceptual instruction. You cannot learn leadership exclusively from books any more than you can learn surgery from anatomy textbooks.
Effective leadership development combines:
When people claim "leadership cannot be taught," they often mean "reading books about leadership doesn't produce leaders"—a claim with which no serious development professional would disagree.
If 30% of leadership capacity is genetic, what constitutes the developmental 70%?
All these elements respond to deliberate development. None emerge purely from genetic endowment.
The evidence that leadership can be taught doesn't mean all development programmes succeed. Many fail—and these failures reinforce the myth that leadership cannot be taught.
Passive Classroom Learning: Lecture-based programmes divorced from experiential application produce minimal lasting impact.
One-Off Events: Single workshops without follow-up, practice, or accountability rarely generate sustained behaviour change.
Generic Content: Programmes ignoring organisational context or individual starting points fail to transfer to workplace application.
No Real Accountability: Development without genuine responsibility and consequences doesn't build actual capability.
Insufficient Time: Leadership development requires sustained effort over months or years, not weekends.
The workplace application of learning is typically low, and many programmes underperform or fail—not because leadership cannot be taught, but because programmes are poorly designed or implemented.
| Ineffective Approach | Effective Approach |
|---|---|
| Passive classroom lectures | Action learning with real organisational challenges |
| Generic competency models | Context-specific development aligned with strategy |
| One-off training events | Sustained programmes with coaching and feedback |
| Individual skill-building | Development embedded in social context |
| Knowledge acquisition focus | Behaviour change and results focus |
| Separate from work | Integrated with actual leadership responsibilities |
| Expert-driven instruction | Self-directed with facilitation and support |
Effective leadership development recognises that we learn leadership by leading—but with appropriate support, frameworks, and feedback to accelerate learning and reduce costly mistakes.
Consider Sandhurst, the Royal Military Academy. Does the British Army believe leadership cannot be taught? Clearly not—they invest extraordinary resources in systematic leadership development.
Yet they don't lecture officer cadets into leadership. Instead, they combine rigorous instruction with progressively challenging experiential exercises, immediate feedback, reflective practice, and graduated responsibility. Cadets learn both about leadership and how to lead through iterative cycles of action and reflection.
This model—which can be adapted for corporate contexts—demonstrates that leadership development works when properly designed.
Absolute precision requires acknowledging limits. Certain elements resist direct instruction:
The fundamental desire to lead—to accept responsibility, face challenges, and persevere through difficulty—cannot be directly taught. This motivation may stem from personality, early experiences, or value systems. However, development programmes can channel existing motivation more effectively and help individuals discover leadership aspirations they hadn't recognised.
Ethical foundations form early through family, culture, and experience. Leadership programmes can sharpen ethical reasoning and provide frameworks for navigating dilemmas, but they don't instil basic integrity in adults who lack it.
That intangible quality of "presence"—the ability to command attention and inspire confidence—partly reflects personality and partly emerges from genuine self-knowledge and confidence. You cannot manufacture authenticity through technique. However, development can help individuals discover and project their authentic leadership style rather than mimicking others.
Some exceptional leaders possess indefinable qualities that resist systematic explanation or development. But organisations don't require exceptional leaders at every level—they need competent leaders who can mobilise teams, execute strategy, and develop others. That capability is absolutely teachable.
The most effective leaders display a blend of natural talent and learned behaviours. The nature versus nurture debate presents a false dichotomy. Leadership emerges from their interaction.
Genetic predispositions create starting points and potential ceilings—but the gap between genetic potential and actual capability is where development operates. Two individuals with identical genetic predispositions will develop vastly different leadership capacity based on experience, training, and deliberate practice.
Think of Warren Bennis's observation: "Leadership is a function of knowing yourself, having a vision that is well communicated, building trust among colleagues, and taking effective action to realize your own leadership potential." Self-knowledge requires reflection and feedback. Vision communication improves through practice. Trust-building develops through repeated interactions. Effective action emerges from experience.
If leadership can be taught, what should organisations do?
Abandon the belief that leadership capacity is fixed. A growth mindset about leadership development fundamentally changes talent strategies. Rather than exclusively "buying" leadership through external hires, build it systematically.
Design comprehensive programmes combining conceptual learning, experiential challenge, coaching, and reflection. Research shows 94% of employees would stay longer at companies investing in their development—retention alone often justifies the investment.
Leadership development needn't wait for senior roles. Distributed leadership models (as discussed in earlier research) require leadership capacity throughout the organisation. Begin developing leadership capability early in careers.
Ensure development includes genuine responsibility with real consequences. Action learning—where participants address actual organisational challenges—delivers superior results to classroom instruction alone.
Individual coaching yields remarkable returns. The International Coaching Federation found 86% of organisations saw ROI on coaching engagements, and 96% of coached executives would repeat the experience.
Track business outcomes, not just satisfaction scores. Effective development should yield measurable improvements: better team performance, higher engagement, stronger retention, improved financial results.
Leadership is approximately 30% genetic and 70% learned, according to research from the University of Illinois and behaviour genetic studies. Whilst genetic factors influence predispositions like extraversion and stress resilience, the majority of leadership capability develops through experience, training, and deliberate practice. Communication, strategic thinking, emotional intelligence, and decision-making can all be systematically developed.
Warren Bennis explicitly argued that "leaders are made rather than born" and called the notion that leaders are born "the most dangerous leadership myth." He taught that leadership comprises skills that can be learned through hard work and that people become leaders through life and job experiences, not just university degrees. His work established the foundation for modern leadership development practices.
Leadership development programmes fail when they rely on passive classroom learning, one-off events without follow-up, generic content divorced from organisational context, or insufficient time for practice and feedback. Globally, organisations invest $60 billion annually in leadership development, yet workplace application typically remains low because programmes are poorly designed—not because leadership cannot be taught. Effective programmes combine conceptual frameworks with experiential challenges, coaching, and accountability.
Research indicates approximately 30% of leadership capacity is genetic whilst 70% is learned. Specific studies show 48% of variance in transactional leadership and 59% of variance in transformational leadership can be explained by heritability. A 2007 twin study found 32% of variance in leadership role occupancy associated with genetic factors. However, genetic influence affects predispositions, not destiny—learned elements remain dominant.
Teachable leadership components include strategic thinking frameworks, communication skills, emotional intelligence, decision-making under uncertainty, and team development capabilities. Research identifies communication, accountability, commitment, delegation, and empowerment as learnable leadership attributes. Knowledge, skills, mindsets, and pattern recognition all respond to systematic development. What cannot be directly taught includes intrinsic motivation, fundamental character, and authentic presence—though development can channel these more effectively.
Leadership development delivers an average ROI of $7 for every $1 invested, with case studies showing returns ranging from 30% to 7,000%. First-time manager training produces 29% ROI in three months and 415% annually. Companies offering comprehensive training have 218% higher income per employee and 24% higher profit margins. Additionally, 42% of organisations observe increased revenue directly attributable to leadership development, and 94% of employees stay longer at companies investing in their development.
Effective leadership development combines conceptual instruction with experiential application, reflective practice, and iterative refinement. Rather than passive classroom lectures, use action learning addressing real organisational challenges. Provide sustained programmes with coaching and feedback over months or years, not one-off events. Integrate development with actual leadership responsibilities where participants face genuine consequences. This approach—exemplified by institutions like Sandhurst—accelerates learning whilst reducing costly mistakes.