what does it mean to be a leader?

i started wondering the other day, what does it mean to be a leader? What qualities makes a leader? Can you claim you are a leader with whatever qualities you have?Are leaders born leaders or is it possible for anyone to become a leader, if one invests enough time to become one?Do leaders do things differently? Is their main job to motivate others or facilitate others to get the job done?Do leader roll up their sleeves and get their hand dirty or just sit back and make others work?
These and many more questions are cropping up in my mind.
I'm sure there are people around you, may be your friend, a colleague, a teammate or someone you know who you consider a leader. This guy/girl need not be the best person, or best qualified or the most brilliant person around yet, you feel like listening to him/her. what are the qualities that attract you to him/her? what are your expectations out of them? is it because they always live up to or fair better than what you expect that you are attracted towards them?
I look around in my company to see if I can find such a person. I've not yet seen a single person who can be role model but I've seen good qualities that I look upto in them. Each one has a different good quality. May be this is how you can become a better person. there is one who is good at making people comfortable and get things done. there is another who is awesome at creating automations. There is another who is great at presentations. So, I guess if you look around and observe you can find people from who you can learn. This brings to another point, teachability.
what does teachability mean? It simply means your ability to be taught not teach. It means that you are open to suggestions, open to try a new thing, open to learn, open to pull yourself together and zeal to move forward and become a better person. Many few people are teachable. this might be a consequence of many things Personality, environment, friends, childhood bring-up, attitude, schooling how pretty one looks, anything. These people think they are absolute authority in pretty much everything. They do not want to even consider a suggestion. there are the people who you would raise comments like "If I need advice, I'll give you." These people make friends but very few good friends. Many of their friends just leave them sooner or later. There are few more who are at least open to suggestions, but they will never seek it unless it is utterly required.These people at the nick of the moment will listen to whom they trust.
To be continued...