When it comes to the Four C’s of Leadership, many people have different interpretations of what the four C’s actually are. In my opinion, the four C’s of leadership stand for character, competency, communication, and courage. Similarly, authors Finneran, McKiernan, Rizzo, Roach and Walter have some of the same perspectives. For the most part, throughout all of their web articles, there was an underlying similarity between their ideas of what the four C’s of leadership stand for. The first C of leadership is character. This is not only my belief of the first C, but authors Thomas Finneran, Jerry Rizzo, and Ekaterina Walter all agree. Character can be described in many different ways depending on whom you ask, but the most generalized description of character is the mental and moral qualities distinctive to an individual. In other words, this is what makes someone who they are as a person. Ekaterina Walter, author of ‘4 C’s of Enlightened Leadership’, explains this best when she states, “being a strong leader means first and foremost understanding yourself and then understand your team” (Walter, ‘4 C’s of Enlightened Leadership’). Knowing your strengths as a leader, recognizing your shortcomings, and working to become someone whom people will follow, is what having character in a leadership position is about (‘Walter, 4 C’s of Enlightened Leadership’). Dale Roach, the author or ‘The Four C’s of Strong Leadership?’, agrees with Walter when he says, “the character of a strong
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.
Through Frederick Douglass’s, Sam Houston’s, and my own life, being fearless, determined, and dependable has helped us be great leaders. In all great leaders, character plays an important part, for it defines the way they will interact with people and situations. Leaders tend to have strong traits, courage and ambition, for example.
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.
This inquiry is set out to define the components that make up an effective leader, whilst taking
Character and Determination. A leader is made by their character and willpower, meaning that the two go together hand-in-hand in a virtuous
“People ask the difference between a leader and a boss. The leader leads and the boss drives”- Theodore Roosevelt. What does it mean to be a leader? What defines a good leader? History has taught us many things about leadership. Good Leadership can be the difference between winning a war and losing a war. Even in everyday life, a good leader is capable of achieving much greater things than a normal person. But leadership is a powerful tool that can be used both for the good of mankind and its downfall.
(2016). p.33). There are many traits that a leader must have to be able to be successful. Three that come to mind are trustworthy or honest, motivated, and knowledgeable. Ever leader needs to be honest and have the trust of those who are following them. This is essential for any plan or idea to be carried out steadily. Also, open communication cannot happen if one does not trust their leader. Next, a leader must be motivated and have energy. If a leader is not motivated, those who are following them are also not going to be motivated either. Someone has to be able to push others to keep up the hard work to get to where they need to be. Lastly, a leader needs to be knowledgeable. At work, often when faced with something that I do not know the answer to, I go to my charge nurse who is very knowledgeable on almost all situations that may arise. If lacking any vital knowledge, staff under that leader will not have anyone to go to in times of need. This leads to the follower being lost and not knowing what the next step is in their situation. All of these traits are what I like to see in a leader in my work
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
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.
From Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela’s charisma, to Winston Churchill and Martin Luther King’s intelligence and Steve Jobs’ analytical nature, there can be as numerous ways to lead as there are leaders (Crossman, 2010). Leadership is a hot debate both in the business world and other areas of the society. Throughout the world's, there have been as many leadership models as there have been their commentators (Burns & Peltason, 1966). Fortunately, psychologists and businesspersons have established useful frameworks that refer to the main ways of leadership.
Therefore how a leader’s character or personality influences leadership. This paper will critically evaluate how useful is the trait approach to leadership. It begins with
“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).
Denis Waitley (1995) in his book, Empire of the Mind, encourages the reader to explore his/her beliefs on leadership. He asks the reader to be cognizant of how these beliefs manifest themselves in our lives, by stating, "What the mind harbors, the body manifests in some way" (p. 119). My beliefs about leadership are shaped by my experiences with my father. I have compiled a list of good leadership qualities from watching him interact with others over the years.
This theory is based on the premise that there are certain personality characteristics that are essential for a person to possess in order to be a leader. The main emphasis is on what the person is in terms of a constellation of personality traits. This theory searches for that set of universal leadership traits that will assure success. Numerous traits have been suggested: courage, integrity, loyalty, charisma, ambition, intelligence, honesty, clairvoyance, persistence, arrogance, health, political skill, confidence and vision.
Leaders with competence and character are mainly focused on four skills in essence. These include: