Leaderrship

Leadership

Due to today’s desperate need of leaders in the world, we have been asked to write this leadership essay. Everyone is a leader in one way or another. I will use Moses, from the book of Exodus, as a prime example of leadership in the context of the slavery of the Hebrew people in Egypt. The word leadership can refer to the process of leading, the concept of leading, and those ideals that perform one or more acts of leading. These various meanings can result in some confusion. (Wikpedia.com/leadership) In this essay, I will explain what leadership is and what characteristics of leaders are. Then in great detail, I will describe what type of leader I am and how I want to exercise my leadership. This is a very vast topic because there are many views on what leadership actually is. Also, many people want to have good leadership skills and become great leaders.

A very, narrow definition of leadership is “the ability of an individual to influence, motivate, and enable others to contribute toward the effectiveness and success of the organization of which they are members.” This definition is very unclear on the fact of what is leadership. There are two groups in which you can categorize the exercise of leadership. (Encyclopedia Britannica) These two ways of leadership are actual and potential leadership. Actual leadership is the giving of guidance or direction. (Wikpedia.com/leadership) Potential leadership is the capacity or ability to lead. Some types of ways people express leadership is by being in public office, such as the president, a person in a position of expertise, such as a ship’s captain, a person in lead of some trend, such as a fashion trendsetter, or a group of respected people, such as a spokesperson. A man named George Terry describes leadership the best. (Wikpedia.com/leadership) He defines it as “the activity of influencing people to strive willingly for group objectives,” because if we define followership as “becoming influenced by others to accept some purpose” then leadership and followership become the same and share the same meaning. In his way of thinking leadership, whether it is successful or not, can not occur until at least one follower joins in. Then on the follower side wouldn’t exist without someone to follow. (wikpedia.com) Even though a person may only govern themselves, or even the whole earth, we see leaders in many different things. Some of these are families, bands, tribes, states, nations, and even empires. Also, there are teachers and business owners who are leaders. Others, such as Martin Luther King, were leaders in the civil rights movement. Leaders help change the world or change just some small aspects of life. Some qualities of a good leader are the ability to guide others through example and being able to serve. They also need the talent and technical ability to perform the task they are leading and be a charismatic inspiration. Then the major needed quality of a good leader is their sense of purpose or mission, because you need clear goals, focus, and commitment.

Leadership cannot be defined without stating that it involves some sort of vision. This vision should appear as a simple image in the mind of the leader. It should describe the future state in regards to the present state. (Encyclopedia Britannica) It should be good enough to fire up the followers. In this theory of vision, the leaders must communicate the vision to the followers in a way in which the followers can take on their own vision. Leaders cannot just witness the visions themselves; they must have the ability to get others to see it too.

If you want any form of leadership to be successful it has to have a support structure. There is usually the leader figure who everyone knows, who beneath them is a cabinet of other leaders. In the case of the president, he doesn’t make all the decisions. He has a cabinet