Personal Definition Of Leadership: Martin Luther King, Jr.

Leadership can mean something different to everyone. To me leadership encompasses many things. Leadership is being able to motivate others to achieve. Leadership is listening to what others have to say and acting on it. Leadership is using interpersonal skills to communicate with others. Leadership is being a good example to others.

Leadership, which is defined as “…The action of leading a group of people or an organization” is used in many different ways. Most people think being a leader is mostly about being the boss, having people work under you and just becoming successful, but it boils down to more than that. Leaders are those individuals that actually utilize their many abilities in leadership and administration to help make a better change for themselves, the people around them and the goal that needs to be achieved. Leadership is not an expertise that can essentially be grabbed from a book or article based on leadership but instead it is one of those initiative abilities that are increased through experience and understanding those real life situations.

New Oxford American Dictionary defines leadership; noun. the action of leading a group of people or an organization. This definition is generic and lacking. While it does technically explain a perspective of leadership it lacks in content. I define leadership; noun. the constant action or state of being a catalyst that inspires and creates an environment of momentum and desire to change. Others still define leadership as the ability to get a group of individual to complete a task or objective. That is leading, which is an adjective.

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.

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).

Leadership can be hard to define and it means different things to different people. To me it means being able to create an inspiring vision of the future and help people achieve that vision. It also means being able to help people acquire that vision either directly or indirectly and help them grow.

The definition of "leadership" as defined in Wikipedia means "the ability of an individual to influence, motivate, and enable others."

In my opinion the term leadership is a very broad and various definitions are given by authors. One definition of leadership is that it is

According to Webster’s Dictionary, leadership is the power or ability to lead other people, the act or instance of leading. I believe that Leadership is an art, the art to get others to follow and accomplish a common goal or task in a harmonic manner. A leader can be shown in all kinds of shapes and forms. To be a great leader many people believe it consists of modeling the way, inspiring a shared vision, enabling others to act, and encouraging the heart. Over the course of me learning how to become a better leader and being in leadership roles, I’ve learned that all these are very necessary to be a great leader.

"The action of leading a group of people or an organization, or the ability to do this."

According to Business Dictionary.com, leadership is defined as the individuals who are the leaders in an organization, regarded collectively. It also can be define as the activity of leading a group of people or an organization or the ability to do this. Leadership involves the establishing of a clear vision, sharing the vision with other so that they will follow willingly, providing the needed information, knowledge, and methods to realize the vision and coordinating and balancing the conflicts interests of all members and stakeholders.

There once was a man who, when faced with the ‘burden’ of being a black man in the southernmost part of America, decided to unite his fellow human beings to reach a common goal. That man was Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He possessed the leadership quality of persistence and it definitely showed in his actions. King also had the tendency to dream big and ended up delivering on more than he ever dreamed he would. This man always had an undeterred commitment to keep giving to others and doing for others. The best leadership quality that Martin had was his uncanny ability to inspire others to act. Martin Luther set the example for other leaders by demonstrating unyielding persistence, the propensity to dream big, indomitable commitment to do more,

Leadership is defined in Webster’s Dictionary as the “action of leading a group of people or an organization.” Leadership is also the ability to set trends, inspire, motivate, and sway others to produce desired results. There are different styles and ways of performing leadership and a good leader has the ability to take ordinary people, put them all together, and hopefully yield successful results. For organizations to have sustained results from their performance there must be a good balance of business insight, technical and interpersonal skills, and good team dynamics. A leader must know how to use all these areas as well as trust and communicate with their people in

Leadership is a difficult word to define and according to the Miriam-Webster Dictionary leadership is the “office or position of a leader” (Miriam-Webster, 2010). This definition is definitely not one that I would ascribe to when discussing leadership. My definition of leadership is “the ability someone has to motivate and empower others to achieve a goal.” Some may add to this definition, others may discard it altogether and have a completely different definition. In the end, leadership takes on many different forms depending on who is doing the defining and we end up asking ourselves, what is leadership and why do we care?

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.