Were you interested in being a leader before you took on your first leadership role?

This reminds me of the is leadership learned or innate discussion. For me, I started being a leader in the playground. I was always given leadership roles, but funnily enough didn't receive any formal leadership training until I was fairly senior. 

I did have people that I followed and were my role models, not sure I knew I wanted to be a leader but certainly wanted to learn how to be like them.

I believe that the Leadership journey is a continuum. It is influenced by 3 Factors :
1) one's innate talent, 
2) academic training,
3) on-the-job experiences and learning.
 Even individual contributors who have no formal people reporting to them have a number of opportunities to practice and demonstrate leadership skills in their day-to-day lives. 
Given the above one must be able to pick Leadership roles at any point in time. Your learning will never stop. 

Leadership in my view is nothing but a tool to inspire and help others. I have always been interested in helping and supporting people around me. It may be termed in a way, that i was interested to become leader. However, i feel, if i haven't made a positive impact to others while being a leader, then its useless to be one.

I have always loved helping people see their own potential and sharing my knowledge in any way I could. This naturally led me to mentor people around the office and I saw how this support improved their work and performance which naturally led to me wanting to lead teams of my own..