Leadership Is A Contact Sport

Over the past couple of months, we discussed several traits, skills, and behaviors that have contributed to the success of both past and present leaders. Intelligence, integrity, charisma, and confidence are some of the traits that characterize many of these leaders. Interpersonal skills, oratory skills, and conceptual skills are some of the more important skills that helped to shape their leadership style. Some of these skills go hand in hand with the traits that are essential for strong leadership. Meanwhile, the behaviors that drive these leaders include inspiring and motivating others, collaboration, having a strategic perspective and trust. Combined, these traits, skills and behaviors make for effective leadership.

The reading this week covered chapters 3-4 of Resilient Leaders by Robert F. Dees. Dees (2013) summarized that character is formed by a three strand cord consisting of selflessness, integrity, and courage. Chapter three discussed the importance of integrity and courage in leadership. Dees (2013) provides definitions and comprehensive overviews of leadership integrity and courage. Chapter four discusses the importance of wisdom in leadership. Illustrations of leadership without wisdom were brought to light. Additionally, the chapter differentiates a leader from a wise leader along with the importance of growth in attaining wisdom, knowledge, in character and competence. Dees (2013) says that wisdom is the bridge

A leader is a person who has the ability to lead or command an entire group of people, a leader is someone who is followed by other people. Being a leader is a wonderful privilege, it is something that is not necessarily handed to an individual nor is it something that can be bought, leadership is something that is earned. This entire course we have been learning about and discussing various characteristics of effective leaders. Some of those characteristics included confidence, charisma, courage, heart, perseverance, and among many others. This paper will focus primarily on one individual who exemplifies these traits and many other characteristics which contributes greatly to his success as a leader. The person that has been selected

In the Leadership Challenge, 4th edition, it is Kouzes & Posner (2007) intention to present a road map for individuals to follow on their leadership journey. The authors stress that “leadership is not a gene and it’s not an inheritance.” Leadership they assert is “an identifiable set of skills and abilities that are available to all of us” (p. 23). They make clear that the “great person” theory of leadership is “plain wrong.” Leaders are our everyday heroes who do extraordinary things on a regular basis (p. 23).

In chapter three and four of Resilient Leaders, several concepts are discussed that describe other characteristics that are part of an effective leader. This paper discussed three concepts that include integrity, emotional courage, and wisdom.

Throughout the years, leadership has played a significant role in the world of athletics. Whether it is coming from a coach or a player, leadership is no doubt the most important role one can hold; leadership can make or break a team. John C. Maxwell put it clearly when he stated that “everything rises and falls on leadership”. When looking at leadership as it relates to sports one must first define leadership. Barrow (1977) defined leadership as “the behavioral process of influencing individuals and groups towards set goals” (p.232). This definition puts an emphasis on vision of a leader while it also highlights the importance of the interaction between the leader and the group members. Leaders play an important role in the success of the

The privilege of working with highly influential individuals, and having the opportunity to be continually challenged, are boons to one’s career; consequently, success accompanies failure, and growth as a leader begins. Positive behaviors are reinforced by prompt open recognition, while adverse behaviors are addressed privately and are a cause for self-reflection. Learning from these incidents has shaped the leader I’ve become. Leadership as a definition continually evolves in my world. Notwithstanding, there are elements that remain permanently anchored in this definition, such as respect, purpose, collaboration, heart, trust, and spirit. Carefully managing team synergy, harmonizing their dynamics, and maximizing the advantages of their diversity in order to achieve collective success signifies leadership.

According to organisational behaviour by McShane, leadership is defined as influencing, motivating and enabling others to contribute towards the effectiveness and success of the organisation of which they are members (page 382, McShane).Becoming an effective leader depends on the leader’s leadership style. Successful leaders have vision and charisma, also the leader should have an ongoing personality, talkative, careful and self-disciplined. The leader must also have self-concept

The trait leadership theory focuses on the individual leader’s personal characteristics as the basis of its investigations. It is one of the earliest leadership theories upon whose tenets many researches on leadership have been done. Although it is not very coherent, its heuristic nature has contributed to its significance in leadership research. Zaccaro and Klimoski (2002) define traits of reference to leadership as the stable personality characteristics, which result in a consistent leadership performance pattern, given different scenarios and groups. They include individual personalities, temperament, rationale, prowess, as well as cognitive abilities. Initially, the theory explored both physical and psychological characteristics that tell apart leaders from non-leaders.

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.

The purpose of this paper is to reflect and make an analysis of the general strengths and weaknesses of a leader, provide recommendations, thoughts of overall performance to improve on this person’s leadership style in which practices and theories were utilized most effectively. Upon such, draw conclusions and provide an integration of this leadership practice into my own leadership practice. The accomplishment of this will be achieved by identifying several key practices from published documents surrounding and encompassing the leader, and comparing them to known relative concepts for a holistic view of the approach.

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.

There are many kinds of leaders; some lead through position and authority, while others lead through inspiration and vision. Some people are simply natural born leaders. However, whether one was born a leader or has to become a leader, all great leaders spend time developing their traits. Similarly, when you train for a sport, you first learn to develop the fundamentals, and then you work to master and apply them. I’ve been told I am a born leader, but have always sought to improve my leadership abilities through experience. Maxwell states, “The learned leader; has seen leadership modeled most of life, has learned leadership through training, and has self-discipline to become a great leader” (Maxwell, 93). This statement is reflective of my experience during my military tenure, and what it means to me is; leadership must be developed in practice, as well as in theory.

“Leadership is more ability than job. Moreover, it is all about determination, ability to solve problems, set direction for followers, gather them for common purpose and motivating people to achieve tasks. Furthermore, it is a charisma and the ability to reacting at the right time for a particular competitive situation” (L.Mullins, 2010, P372).

Student leaders come in all shapes and sizes. They choose to lead based on their skills and preferences. Whether in social groups, athletics, or within the classroom, student leaders demonstrate certain traits that benefit both themselves and those they are leading. Generally speaking, leaders are classified as role models within the student body. They are the students who challenge the status quo, who ask questions and demand answers. They inspire athletic teams and social organizations alike; they bring to light the issues that an organization or club faces and work toward a solution. The traits and skills that these leaders exhibit socially, athletically, and academically can be both inherit and learned. The