In the 21st century leadership plays a dynamic role in both the private and public sectors. Leadership is a practical skill and focuses on the ability of an organization or an individual to lead and influence a team, other individuals or the organization itself. Webster defines leadership as the action of leading a group; the state or position of being a leader; leaders of an organization, country etc. According to House et al (2004), leadership is solely the ability to influence, motivate and enable individuals achieve their set goals and objectives. Overtime, however I have learned that leadership is not just about the position you hold, but it is about a set of innate characteristics. Characteristics that cannot be learned or even taught but they are natural. The saying you are a born leader is not just a saying but it holds true for the people who are not the CEO, to the man who is pastoring a church, or the line worker who can get the team to meet production. These are the people who are the leaders in an organization. They all had this power to draw people with a vision and purpose. In times, before social media one could definitely tell who and what a leader looked like, it was most likely one who did not have degrees, who was not on the national stage but instead was creating movements from their small areas that spread nationally and even globally. Every person we meet in some way is a leader. They have influence and they make decisions even if it’s just for
The traditional concept of a leader, as being the directing chief at the top of a hierarchy, is now considered to be inadequate to truly lead a modern organisation. Leadership is concerned with people and so anyone, and indeed everybody, has the potential to demonstrate leadership qualities and behaviours.
Leadership is, and always has been, a vital aspect of social and economic constructs. It is essential to the survival of societies, industries, organizations, and virtually any group of individuals that come together for a common purpose. However, leadership is difficult to define in a single, definitive sense. As such, theories of leadership, what constitutes a great leader, and how leaders are made have evolved constantly throughout history, and still continue to change today in hopes of improving upon our understanding of leadership, its importance, and how it can be most effective in modern organizational cultures.
When we think of leadership, what comes to mind? Is it the bold, charismatic, and passionate person who takes the group on their back? Or is it really the more quiet and realistic leader who has a compromising attitude? Most people will think of a loud and passionate person who can grab the attention of an audience. But leaders come in all shapes and sizes. Leadership is defined by dictionary.com as the ability to guide or influence others to achieve a common goal. Although the term leader is used in our everyday lives, many people mistake it for close synonyms. Not all leaders have to be the boisterous, bold, and burly people that most people think of them to be. More often than not, a leader will be the commanding one in the group. But there
It is easy to presume that that person is in the position they are in because of money, connections or an extraordinary intellect. We may suppose that any adversity or problems that this type of person has encountered are on another level to those that we face. Perhaps we don't imagine that there were private obstacles to overcome, personality traits that needed adjustment or adaptation, that private insecurities or personal failings had to be surmounted. It is simplest to assume that the role of leadership was cut out for him/her alone. More often than not, one imagines that the "leader" in an individual emerges early on in life, apparent from an early age: a bright child with above average intelligence, active in all walks of life, successful in anything that he puts his/her hand to, popular with peers and admired by elders. But nothing is that simple.
What is leadership? Are individuals destined to lead or are they mentored into it? Leadership can be taught and seen by hard work, mentoring and a specific mind set, but the great leaders are born with the leadership quality. Leadership is taken from hard work. If one individual sees another individual working hard than the other will try and help the fact and get the job done with more efficiency by he also trying his hardest. It has a conformity affect. If most people in the group work hard and keep their eyes on the prize than good things will happen. Leadership could have been taught by the worker that began the domino affect with the conformity of the group. He could have a very humble father that taught him that hard work pays bills. Therefore if he works to his abilities than the worker will receive riches. If a worker only half-asses it than he will not move up the chain of life. Some people have mind sets that make them successful. Herbert hoover, the 31st President of the United States was an orphan.( The Biography.com website.) This tells us that no one's life is invaluable, and that no matter what environment a person comes
In Band of Brothers Episode 5, Crossroads, the audience is introduced in the first scene to Captain Winters running across an open field and coming to an embankment at the end of the field. On the other side of the embankment sits a German soldier scrounging for something on the ground. Winters squeezes the trigger and then the screen goes black. This scene as short as it is I believe is a very powerful way to start the entire episode. If one were to break this scene down there is several traces of leadership that can be found.
Leadership is a personal skill that has to be developed and improved upon daily, just like an athlete works on his craft. We all come from different walks of life and that is often a factor in the way our leadership styles are shaped. Our differences of race, gender, religion, home environment, and lifestyle all have an effect on the way we are led growing up. It is a skill that is mastered over time, while never being perfected. Like anything else in life, leadership skills are often developed from who we are, where we come from and the people in our life who have taught us their knowledge.
Leadership is something that people are born with. It is an inherent charm and it doesn’t hide even if you want to hide it. There is a leader amongst us and he or she is the one that leads other people to great things by inspiring and motivating people to do good deeds. Leadership has been described as “a process of social influence in which one person can enlist the aid and support of others in the accomplishment of a common task”. This way a leader can decide what work goes in and goes out. Good leaders in history have left a mark in walks of life. But great leaders, they’re different. Great leaders have the ability to make each and every individual re-think their life decisions and choices by
In modern day business, leadership has become an issue that is given far more attention and investment than ever before. Leadership involves establishing a clear vision, sharing that vision with others so that they will follow willingly, providing the information, knowledge and methods to realise that vision, and coordinating and balancing the conflicting interests of all members and stakeholder. This essay will discuss whether leaders are born not made, with varies of theories being compared and contrasted and the strengths and limitations of leaders itself. Further this essay will analyse the future aspects of theories which would establish whether a leader was born with leadership qualities or made into a successful leader.
My idea of leadership is being able to inspire others, motivate, set a vision, communicate, respect others, and of course, lead by example. A leader must have an honest understanding of who they are, what they know, and what they are capable of. To be a successful leader, you have to be able to convince your followers, not just yourself or your superiors, that you are worthy of being followed. In my opinion, this can build confidence in their followers to have faith in you, in order to be able to lead. I strongly believe that good leaders are made rather, and not born. If you have the desire and willpower, you can become an effective leader. Good leaders are developed through a never ending process of self-study, education, training, and
For any leadership to be perceived as astute and phenomenal, there has to be a leader who defines the goal/message and followers who bring the dream to fruition. The goal must be well defined for the followers to understand. Leadership can be both an innate character or learned character. Some people are more predisposed to the leadership gene and seem to fit into the leadership role more comfortably than others. Leadership seems to manifest naturally, hence the innate predisposition.
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
When we analyze the success of large corporations like Ford, General Electric and International Business Machines, it is evident that they had series of leaders who were visionary and believed in empowerment of people. When we analyze tough phases of a company or companies that had a fall and ultimate demise, we clearly see a linkage between failure of company and absence of effective leadership (Canwell, Dongrie, Neveras, & Stockton, 2014). The successful organization had leaders who made right decisions at right time and implemented them strategically. The implementation part needs excellent human resources and the ability to lead to them to get the task done. While different situations may need different style of leadership, the sophisticated manpower fueled by technological advancements and globalization have made some leadership styles less effective and some leadership styles to be highly effective (Feser, Mayol, & Srinivasan, 2014). This paper will discuss a tough situation faced in one of my former organization. The organization needed a different leadership style to tide over the falling sales and attrition. Three different leadership styles, their pros and cons, and the likely success in solving the problem will be discussed in this paper.
The intent of this paper is to review some of the qualities and traits of leadership that will be critical as American society continues into the 21st century. The focus of this paper will be on societal leadership, specifically, the political leadership of the United States. This paper will present the theory that there are several skills necessary in our leadership for the continued success of American society.
According to a Gallup survey conducted last year, just about half of the people who quit their jobs do so because they want to “get away from their manager” (Snyder). It’s easy to say that a good boss can improve productivity and moral, but what exactly makes a “good boss”? Evidently, this has been a question that men and women have been trying to answer for over a hundred years. In this paper, a number of different leadership theories will be described that date back to the early 20th century.