Characteristics and experiences related to the leadership skills of agriculture students in college

Much has been written in recent years regarding leadership. Decades of academic analysis have generated more than 350 definitions of leadership. Leaders were once thought to have been born, not made, summoned to their calling through some enlightening process. This belief was commonly called the “great man ” theory (Bennis & Nanus, 1985). “Great man ” theorists viewed power as having been vested in a limited number of people whose inheritance and destiny made them leaders. Those of the right heritage could lead and no amount of learning could change the fate of others. Situational theorists explained leadership as an effect of a single force or set of forces. According to Murphy (1941), leadership did not reside in a person but was a function of the occasion. Situations called for a certain type of action; the leader did not inject leadership, but leadership was the instrumental factor through which a solution was achieved. Recently, researchers have proposed theories of transformational leadership in which individuals become leaders through education and training. Leaders and administrative officials of the British Empire at its greatest height received from their public schools a general education in self-discipline, teamwork, and group loyalty which created an aura of command and habits of superiority with “a facade of crisp decisiveness ” (Stogdill, 1959). Numerous studies have been conducted to evaluate the results of leadershi