What Makes A Good Leader?

Leadership is a facet of management. It is just one of the many assets a successful manager must possess. The main aim of a manager is to maximize the output of the organization through administrative implementation. To achieve this managers must undertake the four functions of management: planning, organization, leading and controlling. In some cases leadership is just one important component of the leading function. Predpall (1994) said, "Leaders must let vision, strategies, goals, and values be the guide-post for action and behavior rather than attempting to control others". In some circumstances, leadership is not required. For example, self-motivated groups may not require a single leader and may find leaders dominating. The fact that a leader is not always required proves that leadership is just an asset and is not essential.

Every person has a different definition of what makes a leader. Some feel a leader is inspirational, while others regard leadership as someone who can give criticism and make the tough decisions. Each definition is unique, and each is vague. This is why the definitions of leadership people use aren’t always accurate. Bolman and Deal, however, do an excellent job of presenting four frames of leadership people use to successfully—or unsuccessfully—support and lead a group of people. The four frames presented by the authors are: human resource, symbolic, structural, and political. The human resource frame is used by leaders to empathize with their followers, the symbolic frame is used to inspire and unite followers around a vision, the structural frame is used to emphasize the importance of a process, and the political frame establishes competition and focuses on creating allies.

Management is positional. It is said that you can’t choose your boss but you choose your leader. Contrary to public belief, leaders aren’t always those in power. In tandem, those in power aren’t always utilizing leadership. While researchers have usually focused on those in power, the studies have failed to find the exact traits and behaviors needed for successful leaders. Therefore, leadership cannot be taught. However, leadership can be learned. Leadership boils down to people. A leader has followers. The leader motivates and empathizes based on what they know is important to an individual. Changing people to the better to change things for the better is the essence of leadership: walking the journey with the follower, instead of just giving directions (management).

What makes one a leader; do they have to hold a certain position or title? A leader is someone who leads by example. In order to require something from others a leader has to exemplify on what needs to be done. A leader needs to achieve own excellence before demanding it from others. The medical field is composed of many leaders, from management to nurses to doctors, and each on of these titles comes with the responsibility of being a leader. Nurses are leaders who advocate, take care of their patients and through daily tasks exemplify leadership. For these past couple of months, I have had the privilege of having Deb Daniels as my preceptor at Baystate Noble surgical department. She is a registered nurse in the operating room, she takes on the role of a charge nurse on the unit, and most importantly she exemplifies leadership on this unit. On my last week of preceptorship, I had an opportunity to sit down and have an interview with Deb on her thoughts about leadership. The interview questions went as following:

What does it mean to be a leader? We encounter leaders in everyday situations, whether it be a professor, boss, coach, or parent. No matter how distinguished or subordinate our roles, we have some type of leadership responsibility over others. How does one effectively lead other people? What methods, ideas, and skills should leaders convey to the public? It is not always easy or fun to be a leader and it is almost guaranteed that a population will not like the views and beliefs of the one in charge. What type of person or idea comes to mind when someone says the word President? Hopefully, they are positive words like leader, intelligent, helpful, and hardworking. A president has one of the toughest leadership roles because he/she is placed in a position to make very tough decisions on topics that people have many varying opinions about. As a voter, it can be difficult to stay informed on topics and determine which party to choose. A person must ask themselves what they stand for or believe in and then decide which candidate is best qualified to fulfill the requirements. Being a first time voter is a very exciting experience that comes with a great responsibility. The 2016 campaign has showcased much personal and political turmoil of the candidates, making it hard to know which side to choose. With an election year like never before, the candidates have placed a lot of pressure on voters to decide who is fit enough to bring our country back into order, but Donald Trump has

What qualities make a good leader? You can ask a hundred different people, and you will get a hundred different answers. A good leader is someone who accomplishes the mission, has the respect of their subordinates, and makes the difficult decisions when needed. For me, I believe that a great leader needs to have a variety of qualities, but most importantly a sense of fairness, hard work/care, and common consideration for others. Different experiences throughout my life and time at West Point have lead me to believe that these three tenants are what are most needed for a great leader. In terms of a leader’s moral character, common consideration has the greatest influence on the success of a leader, because without common consideration, a

What does it mean to be a leader? What qualities does a leader have? How do you become a good leader? Leader have many qualities that represent a wise person. There are leaders in everyday life and most of the time we don’t realize, their leaders. If we didn’t have leaders in life, nothing would get done and people would be clueless. Leader tend to lead when the time gets tough and people look to them. What happens if your leader is not a good leader? Your leader can also lead you into trouble and not be a traditional good leader. There are three leaders that come all in different times, Plato, Machiavelli, and Marcus Aurelius. These leaders aren’t at all from the same era, Plato was about 400 BC, Marcus about 200 common era, and Machiavelli about 1450 AD. These leaders all have different leading methods and show them through their writings. Of these three leaders I believe Marcus Aurelius is the better leader of the three. Marcus just like Machiavelli was an actually leader. Their ideas are is it better to be feared or love? Marcus thinks love, well Machiavelli thinks feared. The Plato side, is Platonism which is basically go with the flow type of leading, if you can’t control don’t worry about it. Unlike the first two Plato was never an actual leader. There are clearly different ways in which these leaders lead, they all have made clear texts for each style.

What makes a good leader? Is it someone who can effectively tell others what to do? Someone who can make tough decisions? Someone who can take control in a difficult situation? A leader should be all of these things, but also they should be much more than that. Throughout this semester we have learned how we can become better leaders in both our personal and our professional lives. There are many different ways we have learned how to become better leaders. In order to apply what I have learned this semester I need to develop a plan on how to improve my leadership abilities and forge myself a more successful future.

In the three surveys that I took about what makes a good leader, all three of the individuals agreed on relatively the same thing. Not one of the survey takers chose the answer neither agree nor disagree or worse. Each answer was agree or strongly agree to the fourteen questions. A leader has great characteristics and the ability to motivate others. In this paper, I will go over their results and talk about what makes a good leader.

Strategic thinking is one of the abilities that enables me to think widely about border business perspective and will help my problem solving skills to assure an organization`s enduring success. I would like to think deeply and find the key things that an organization needs to be successful. I know that I have to improve my leadership skills for addressing the human and organizational capabilities that are necessary for implementing the business strategy.

The topic of leadership, more specifically effective leadership, has been a common research topic for quite some time. There are many definitions and many views on what makes a good leader. In Management, Kreitner defines leadership as “the process of inspiring, influencing, and guiding, others to participate in a common effort” (Kreitner, 394). This is a broad definition describing a leader that can inspire workers to achieve their goals. In regards to what actually makes a good leader,, the concepts and research have recently been geared towards ethics and the differences and common qualities between a leader and a manager. In essence, “today’s leaner and continuously evolving organizations require people who can both lead and manage—in

What makes a manager of an organization one that can be properly characterized as an authentic leader? Furthermore, what makes the people who report to that manager motivated to not only accomplish the needed tasks and meet the required deadlines, but also to go above and beyond that to simply do the right thing, or, for the benefit of others in the organization? I will demonstrate through this post that I believe the one characteristic that makes a very good leader a great (and truly effective) one is when they display authentic leadership. I will discuss two specific methods that characterized my manager’s display of authenticity in his leadership style as an accounting manager: ethics and trust, and other-centeredness (described by Robbins and Judge as, “socialized charismatic leadership”) (2011).

V , 2008). Leaders can emerge within a group and it may not always be the manager, as some people are natural leaders and lead the group in a certain direction due to their specific talents. However, as Robert House, 1968, said “it is found that leadership training can have undesirable consequences for group cohesiveness, superior-subordinate relations, intergroup relations & the formal authority system.” A manager is known to be someone that everyone must obey where as following a leader is through choice. Managers may have obtained their position through time or loyalty to the company and not for their leadership skills. “Organizational environments are becoming increasingly complex, dynamic and interdependent. As it is difficult for managers to detect, interpret and handle these challenges all by themselves, employees have been recognized as an invaluable source of comments and suggestions for addressing and solving work critical problems and issues.” (Gao, L, Janssen, O, Shi, K. 2011). As a manager has many different managerial functions these can be dispatched amongst employees, the workload is therefore shared amongst employees and a shared responsibility of meeting performance targets, showing that you do not need managers to produce good management.

Gemmy Allen says that the key point between leadership and management is the idea that employees willingly follow leaders because they want to, not because they have to (Allen, 1998).

I never would have imagined when I started this journey a year ago that I would be so changed in my opinions of what a good leader should be. We began with organizational behavior and the importance of the individual and what motivates them, and how this applies to group cohesiveness. Throughout each module we were given insight by example of how certain types of leadership works and does not work. After eighteen years of working for the same company and being led by several different types of leaders, I hope to combine what I learned through this last year with what is really needed to become an awesome leader.