Source of poles and zeros in a physical system?
I'm surprised this doesn't have an adequate answer after all this time. Yes, physical components do have pole and zero behavior. We exploit this behavior build analog PID systems.nRLC circuits are used to implement simple lead and lag compensators, here is a photo of one taken from Stevens and Lewis Aircraft Control and Simulation



Here we can see that the resistance and capacitance are chosen to determine the pole and zero placement of the compensator.