What I have to say.

One of the questions that come up often in my line of work, particularly because of the type of-magazine that we edit here, is the inexorable, 'are leaders born to lead, or are they made?' This question was very present in my mind when we started the planning for this edition. Does Leadership DNA really exist, or is it rather a series of well-made decisions that make a leader become one?

There are 30.1 million Hispanic adults in the United States, and 14.4 million of them--or 48%--are women, according to the 2000 U.S. Census Bureau estimates. That got me to thinking about the Latinas in this issue. What makes them, as well as so many others that for lack of space cannot be included here, such remarkable examples of leadership?

After reading these stories, the answers, which we have often discussed here at the office, became a bit clearer. There is no leadership DNA. Leadership actually is a mix of both.

The stories in this edition are of women who would have probably been by any standard ordinary, had they not made the decisions that led them to where they are today. There is also one common characteristic among all of them. They all have a burning desire to lead, to be influential, motivational, and take responsibility for themselves and others.

What makes these women effective is not a congenital ability; it is their desire to help others, combined with a set of learned skills that they apply as leaders. The only real ingredient in the leadership recipe that they possessed when they began leading was desire. Their desire to ...