Overcoming Handicaps

Over the last few generations, the problems faced by handicapped individuals have received a good deal of long-overdue attention. Overcoming handicaps may in fact be one of the most effective ways of developing extraordinary skills, and we seldom recognize the fact that many of history’s greatest leaders suffered from one handicap or another.

Contemporary psychology has learned that one of the most important developmental events of anyone’s life, particularly in youth, is the experience of overcoming adversity, bad luck, or handicap and prevailing over circumstances. When the handicap is not too severe, the strength and courage it helps generate can produce the potential for leadership. Alexander the Great, an epileptic who dominated much of the world by the age of 21, may be the most dramatic ancient example, and Franklin Roosevelt directing the course of our nation from his wheelchair may be the best modern example.

Until recently, of course, visible handicaps were mostly kept out of the limelight, and FDR went to great lengths to disguise his polio. Nowadays we are learning to deal with the idea of handicaps and to take advantage of whatever human talent may be hidden behind them, or even driven by them – including leadership talent.

Natural-born Leaders?

Are leaders made or born or both or neither? Are some people destined for leadership while others are destined for followership and still others doomed to watch from the sidelines? Our ideas about these questions have changed over the years.

The study of leadership behavior really got rolling around World War I when psychologists hired by the military set out to discover ways to measure leadership ability so potential military leaders could be singled out and developed. Unfortunately, try as they might, the psychologists could never prove much about the traits they thought leaders should possess. They figured leaders should be intelligent, but then they discovered that real geniuses have trouble in leadership roles because followers can’t understand them. They figured a strong sense of initiative would be useful, but then they discovered that too much initiative resulted in a tendency to do things alone and leave followers behind to fend for themselves.

To make a long and frustrating story short, the attempt to study leadership by studying individual character traits was eventually abandoned. The more recent and more practical approach is to study the functions or roles of leadership – such as motivating, communicating, making decisions, organizing tasks, and setting standards. Some people are good at some leadership roles but not others, so the best leader for any particular job depends on the situation, the task at hand, the way the group is organized, the kinds of followers involved, and the nature of the surrounding environment.

Talents are inborn, but skills have to be learned and developed. A successful senator may be a lousy corporation president and vice versa. A born leader in one situation may turn to be a born loser in another.