This is significant, from Drucker in his book The Effective Executive:
[The practices of effectiveness] are not “inborn.” In forty-five years of work as a consultant with a large number of executives in a wide variety of organizations — large and small; businesses, government agencies, labor unions, hospitals, universities, community services; American, European, Latin American and Japanese — I have never come across a single “natural”: an executive who was born effective. [emphasis added]
Did you catch that? Drucker wrote those words toward the latter part of his long career. He had been doing consulting work for forty-five years. He had consulted with executives in all types of organizations — all types. And he had consulted all over the world — all over the world. And he never came across a single natural. Never.
So we probably shouldn’t think of ourselves as naturals, either. And we shouldn’t be too hard on others we know and encounter that aren’t “naturals.”
Instead, we need to realize that if we are to become effective and increase in effectiveness, it comes through learning, effort, and practice. Which is what Drucker goes on to say:
All the effective ones had to learn to be effective. And all of them had to practice effectiveness until it became a habit.
And here is an encouraging word on that:
All the ones who worked on making themselves effective executives succeeded in doing so. Effectiveness can be learned — and it also has to be learned.