We've all heard the old adage 'leaders are born not made', and looking at some examples of great leaders it is understandable why that train of thought is one that is still prevalent today, but how true is it? How many of the qualities that are displayed by great leaders from history are inherent and how many of them are learned through experience and leadership training?

If you examine the lives of the great leaders from history the one thing that links them all and is a key indicator to why they all were such a success is hard work. With this in mind then it could be argued that leaders aren't in fact born but they are made. Through serious hard work and understanding of whatever field they may be in they have achieved great thing. Whether this leadership training was done in a classroom or in the school of life it is clear that without it certain people in history would not have gone on to be great leaders.

Today in the world of business people are waking up to the fact that the 'leaders are born not made' way of looking at the world and the people in it is something of a myth. Yes, there will always be the ones that have what could be termed the ' factor', something that makes them stand out from the crowd but even those people, on closer inspection, have not just appeared from nowhere, they will have gone through a learning process of some description.

So today we have a greater understanding of what constitutes a great leader and how people we give this title to have achieved their goals. With this knowledge then we can study what qualities are needed to become a great leader and turn the results into something that can be studied or taught. In this respect leaders can be made. This type of leadership training acknowledges that even people who do not or have never considered themselves to be leaders can, through a change in behavior, acquire skills that enable them to go on to be leaders with some degree of success or even greatness. After all, even the greatest names from history had to learn from the people who went before them.

Presidential leadership - The American president John F Kennedy displayed all the characteristics that make up a great leader. It could be said that much of it seemed effortless, which was part of his charm, but he was a well educated person, spending some time at the London School of Economics, and also underwent a different type of leadership training during his military service in World War II. It was during this time that he would have had to learn to work in a team and hone his decision making skills, two traits that he would later become famous for.

In the face of adversity - Edmund Shakleton is regarded by many as the first classic example of great leadership. His is a strange story in that he failed in his original aim to cross the Antarctic but out of that failure he displayed great character and leadership skills to bring his entire crew home alive, something that still amazes people today.

Shakleton's leadership training was all done during his time in the Navy, but many of the things he did to bring his team home were completely new and displayed a way of thinking that would later become textbook training in schools and colleges across the world and be applied to fields ranging from the military to the world of business.

Both Kennedy and Shakleton displayed vision, passion and character, perhaps three characteristics that many people regard as things you either have or don't have. What leadership training helps to develop is a type of behavior that brings these things out in people and builds on them. This understanding of behavior can help people acquire leadership skills who may not have had them before.