Handbook Define Leadership

Leadership is the process of influencing individuals or a group of individuals by providing purpose, direction with the support of others, and motivating those individuals with the purpose of accomplishing a certain obligation which is helpful to all individual that is involved.

There are many ways to define leadership, but perhaps the most laconic as well as accurate definition is presented in Peter G. Northouse's Leadership: Theory and Practice book (Northouse, 2013, p.5): "Leadership is a process whereby an individual influences a group of individuals to achieve a common goal". Individuals, engaged in leadership, use influence to solve challenges, which the groups under their leadership face, in order to succeed in their common goals.

This approach emphasize that having a leader with a certain set of traits is crucial to having effective leadership. It’s the leader and the leader’s personality that are central to the leadership process.

One definition of leadership states that it is a process by which a group is influenced and directed by a particular member of the group to reach a common goal (Northouse 2010). Many other definitions exist, suggesting that it is a concept as fluid and individual as leaders themselves (Curtis et al. 2011).

What are the key qualities that make a good leader? There are many key qualities that make a good leader, some of them are, honesty and integrity, they are a good communicator, creative and innovative, they are able to make decisions quickly and efficiently. If you are or want to be a good leader you need to be able to be a good communicator as you have to make commands quiet frequently and you need to be able to listen to other people ideas and thoughts to then take action with them. Most of the time as a leader you are faced with decisions that you are gonna have to make quickly and if you cant do that then you cant be efficient. All these qualities are shown wiht Woodward all through the

2. What are the traits of an effective leader? How can these traits be developed?

As a growing debate, the question at hand is whether great leaders are born with specific leadership traits, or if one can be taught certain traits over time. According to (Wikipedia.com) the approach of listing leadership qualities, often termed "trait theory of leadership", assumes certain traits or characteristics will tend to lead to effective leadership. I believe that leadership traits such as honest, competent, initiative, inspiring, hardworking, intelligent, and the ability to lead the masses, are some of the leadership traits one should possess. Within this paper, I will examine the overall concept of leadership traits, while observing the traits that were, or can be associated with successful leaders.

LEADERSHIP- THE POSITION OR FUNCTION OF A LEADER, A PERSON WHO GUIDES OR DIRECTS A GROUP.

Philip (2008) has listed 7 common traits in the characteristic of leadership. The characteristics are empathy, consistency, honesty, direction, communication, flexibility and conviction.

We all easily agreed on what we wanted to do. We helped each other out when we asked for it.

As a team, we will be mutually accountable for the work produced; the members are interdependent of each other. We will build upon each other’s strengths and weakness to collectively complete the assignment. It was decided that certain tasks would be shared while other tasks would be divided into individual responsibilities. These individual tasks within a collective section would be rotated amongst the group members, sharing the roles. Frequent meetings to discuss, plan, problem solve, and make decisions were deemed to be essential to the team aspect of the project. Sharing not only direct information amongst team members, but also ideas, skills, and thoughts is critical to the communication of the

In my reflections as I prepared to write this paper, I came to the realization that leadership is much more complex especially since the paper requires that I focus on a few traits. In an effort to make it simple, I wrote down the traits that came to mind and in process had over 10 important traits but an even bigger challenge was on how to narrow them down to 3 or 4 and this is the place that required a good deal of reflection. Eventually, however, I had to prioritize them since in any case; it is not possible to get a leader that has all the traits. As I thought of the various leaders who have inspired me, I noticed that while they strived to provide the best leadership by focusing on their strong points, they still had their weaknesses. To me this provided a justification for at least identifying key desirable traits and thereafter working to improve them. I did manage to settle on four traits, which for me are indispensible if a leader or a leadership is to become effective.

Leadership is a very broad topic; I never knew just how many different traits and skills that it takes to become an effective leader. Some of which I was familiar with, and others that I was not aware of, but now from taking this course, they all seem to be necessary for the role of leadership. The attached paper, will explain of some of the important theories and concepts that I thought were most important to be able to become and effective leader.

In the textbook Leadership is defined as ‘the process of influencing an organized group toward accomplishing its goals’ (Hughes, Ginnet & Curphy 2015, p. 5). Leadership involves leader, followers, and situation.

For a quick review, the definition of leadership is a process whereby an individual influences a group or individuals, to achieve a common goal.