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What Makes A Good Leader

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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 …show more content…

There are numerous occasions at West Point where I have seen individuals dole out unequal shares of duties or rewards based on their personal feelings towards the recipients. Fairness and impartiality are fundamental traits in good officers. If a leader singles out an individual for either unfair rewards or punishments, it signals to the unit that there are other necessary factors needed other than hard work to get ahead, such as cozying up to the platoon leader to get the good assignments. Soldiers need to know that assignments or tasks they are assigned are either given through merit, or are given equally to all soldiers in the unit. Unfair treatment is a quick way for soldiers to drift away from the task at hand and instead focus on getting into the good graces of the leader, leaving the unit less cohesive and the mission unaccomplished. I have witness firsthand here at West Point many unfair decisions that were made solely out of how much someone liked or hated the person they were dealing with. One such example that comes to mind is when one cadet was given preferential treatment and allowed to get off morning workouts, while other cadets had to continue. The physical development staff of my company forces any cadet with an APFT score of less than 260 to show up to morning workouts on Monday, Wednesday and Friday of each week. These cadets are given the opportunity to stop attending workouts by scoring above a 270 on a diagnostic APFT conducted once a month.

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