all politics is personal

I believe all politics is personal, because at bottom, politics depends on trust, and unless you can establish a personal relationship, it's awfully hard to build trust.... I have always followed my father's advice: Never tell a man what his interests are. Be straight and open with him about your own interests. And try to put yourself in his shoes. Try to understand his hopes and his limitations, and never insist that he do something you know he cannot. It's really just about making the effort to make a personal connection.

Joe Biden

Promise Me, Dad: A Year of Hope, Hardship, and Purpose. By Joe Biden. Flatiron Books. 2017. Preface. 129

can anyone be a leader?

Leadership is a skill, and I believe like all skills, can be mastered with practice and coaching. That does not mean that there aren’t individual differences, but that people can improve on their current capabilities.

One of the reasons why leadership training so often fails—Bill Gentry of the Center for Creative Leadership estimates that about half of all leaders are ineffective in their roles—is that leadership education insufficiently focuses on building the influence skills and acumen in managing organizational dynamics—organizational politics, if you will—that are so essential to getting things done on the one hand and surviving and succeeding in workplaces on the other.

Jeffrey Pfeffer

"Jeffrey Pfeffer: What Most People Don't Know About Leadership." Forbes. 9/15/2015