Leadership - A discussion of traits, characteristics, and current news of leaders.

Some think it's necessary to be a leader in order to be a leader. Wonder what that means? Read this news piece from MSNBC and decide if the assessment is right.

Being a leader requires a thorough and complete understanding of people and how they work. Being able to identify with people and really understand their needs is a true sign of leadership. Being able to fix their needs also defines itself as a characteristic of leadership. What I have a problem with is people thinking that you have to have experience in order to be an effective leader. Do you?

On the one hand, you can be a leader in theory by reading books, taking classes and theorizing what you would do or react in certain situations. On the other hand, until you have experienced certain issues, you cannot really qualify yourself as being an effective leader because you don't have "hands on" experience.

Obama has been called fresh-faced and experienced many times in comparison to Hillary. But I wonder if his lack of experience and his bright ideas are really a detriment to him...or an advantage. Barack doesn't have the tales of negativity and why this won't work or why that won't work. He's not telling masses of people reasons why they cannot get certain benefits or why they shouldn't expect certain things from the government. At the same time, Hillary is able to apply her real-world experiences to the campaign front and all but assure voters that with her experience in dealing with foreign situations and homeland security, her ideas and implementations will work. After all, she does have many years of experience.

What do you think? Is it necessary to have previous experience to be a leader? Or, are all leaders with experience simply in the way and not open to new ideas?