We must assume that leadership is a set of skills that can be learned, developed and applied to organizational involvement and everyday life. Leadership is not an inherent trait.
Leadership is for everyone.
If this is true, an effective leadership program will help members develop essential skills and give them an opportunity to put these skills to use. One of the challenges we face in developing a leadership development program is that there are as many definitions of leadership as there are people to give definitions. In order to face this challenge, we formed a focus group composed of professionals who deal with leadership development as a major part of their job. This group was familiar with DECA, yet was diverse enough to give an outside perspective on the topic of leadership. Our group developed a list of characteristics or skills associated with effective leadership.