effective leadership qualities essay

Chapter 4 Important Personal Traits of Effective Leaders Personality | Persuasive | Persistence | Patience | Perceptive | Probity | Praise Giving | Positive Orientation | People Based | Possible | Practical | Progressive | Prepared | Power-Building traits plus motivation equals leadership Successful leaders come in a wide variety of personal characteristics such as their ability to make speeches in public or to relate to people in groups or individually. We have all met successful leaders that we wondered what enabled them to be effective. Some are smooth and some are rough. Some are charming and some…. It is impossible to find any one characteristic that all of them have and many non-leaders do not have. Motivation is the most important characteristic (yes, it can be called a trait) of any leader. Even the shyest person may become a hard charger if something near and dear to them is threatened. I have seen numerous quiet people suddenly find their public voices when NIMBY (not-in-my-backyard) became real to them as some type of development became threatened their back yards. Talk to parents of school age children and many will step out of the quiet shells. After the threat or need passes, some of these people return to their non-public roles, but others find that they have some previously unknown or newly developed skills that can be used in other leadership activities. These will become the community and organizational leaders of the future. Communications skills are the second most important. If you cannot communicate effectively, you cannot be an effective leader. But as I discuss below, communications is much more than being a good speaker. Despite the great diversity among leaders, there are some characteristics or traits which most successful leaders have. These are the Traits listed here. Very few leaders have all of them to the limit, but the most effective.
An efficient leader is defined as a person who is followed by the others. Besides that, a leader has to know about the human nature, and be able to direct people reducing the group's doubts about succeeding. Some people believe that a leader is born that way and there is no way, practicing or studying, to create a leader. They are wrong because inside of each and every one of us there is a leader waiting to be awake and holding on an opportunity to come out. A leader is capable of influencing and inspiring the people around him to voluntarily commit towards accomplishing a certain goal. There are different types of leadership people who specialize in trying to understand this important phenomenon. The only kind of leadership in which a person communicates true self are by way resonates with other people. This behavior is highly individual and situational for both the leader and follower and therefore there are a huge variety of ways in which effective leadership occurs. On top of that, when we think about the characteristic of a leader, we often think of leaders that are dynamic, which makes each of us to follow. We could take an example, such as Hitler.  He did not have the values that we should follow, but he had that inspiration for the country to follow.  If we also stop to think about the leaders today, we do not get the same vision of a leader that has a dynamism that is hard to resist, but rather a leader that has a good quality.  The characteristics of a leader are not behaviors that will be new to those that strive to master them. Developing a good leadership skills take time, just like perfecting an idea or delivering on a project.  Without an investment of time, very few people will have the skills to become the great leaders. Thus, there are many types of characteristic of being a good and efficient leader. A good leader is confident in doing everything.
Leadership is a common and quite simple word but rather very difficult word to define due to its complexity and multifaceted composition. According to Bass (1981) leadership can be defined in different ways: It is an act of influencing activities of an organized group in its quest to set goals and also to achieve certain goals. He also defined leadership to mean the influence that somebody exercises in a situation by means of communication in order to attain a specified goal. However in order to be a leader you require a variety of qualities. A good leader is one who doesn’t know everything: trying to imagine that effective leadership is related to knowing everything is one of the most dangerous misconceptions in the field of leadership. So as much as the final decision and responsibility lies with one individual, it is important for him/her to gather other peoples’ opinions or views and respects them before making a final decision on an issue. To be a good leader one also need to be open to change. This is one of the obvious factors that take place in life including areas where we work but has remained strongly resisted by mankind. However effective leadership demands that we anticipate all changes whether minor or major and respond to them promptly to allow growth to take place. On other hand however, it is also important to understand some of the attributes associated with bad leadership in life so as to avoid them completely when one is aspiring to be a leader. In order to be a leader one should avoid being a buddy boss. This character is normally exhibited when a manger make buddies instead of being a leader after failing to acquire the recognition of a leader amongst employees. Experts hold it that bosses can never be buddies with their employees; in fact their power and authority are always neutralized by friendships. Such relationships are always known to.
How are some people able to effortlessly lead and inspire others, whilst other meet with constant criticism and failure? What are the qualities that we should look for in potential leaders? If you ever find yourself in the position to offer leadership, what are the factors that will help you lead more effectively? The following characteristics will help you estimate the leadership ability of others and become a better leader yourself. Inspire not Command. “A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves.” – Lao Tsu The best leader will inspire his followers. He will lead, yet people will not feel that they are being led. If you direct people through issuing proclamations and directives, you will come up against opposition and resistance. The most effective leadership is to help others feel they are working from their own initiative. To inspire your fellow workers in this way, it is necessary to lead by example and offer encouragement where appropriate. Have Confidence and Belief. Confidence and belief are essential for effective leadership. The nature of the human mind is to doubt and expect the worst. Unless a leader can maintain a clear vision of where he wishes to go, others will not follow. If a leader has an iron will and tremendous self belief, he can can inspire others very powerfully to pursue the ideal. Be willing to admit Mistakes. A good leader needs the strength to ignore criticism. However, many leaders make the mistake of thinking this means that they can never admit they are wrong. Actually, this stubbornness is usually the result of their own ego. They don’t want to admit their mistakes because they feel this would make them look stupid. However, to persist with the wrong strategy, just to try and prove yourself correct, is the worst thing a leader can do. A leader should.
SANS Technology Institute's mission is to develop the leaders of the future for the information security industry. One of our admission requirements is that an applicant complete an essay describing leadership qualities they have demonstrated in the past. Other Related Articles in Leadership Lab: STI Degree Candidates' Leadership Essays Leadership Essay SANS Technology Institute Kevin Fuller Version 1.1 What is leadership? It has been defined as the ability of an individual to influence, motivate, and enable others to contribute toward the effectiveness and success of the organizations of which they are members. (1). That definition identifies one of two major areas of leadership: the leading of people. The other area of concern in the field of information security is technical leadership. I found no distinct definition for technical leadership so I am defining it as “the art of motivating and influencing others and achieving the goal through one’s innate and learned knowledge and experience with the technology of one's chosen profession.” A technical leader must utilize many of the same skills as other leaders do in addition to his/her technical skills to be truly effective at leading.The traits of a leader in each area are similar, if not the same. They include, but are not limited to:Proficiency in the chosen area of expertise: Whether it is information technology, dentistry, or aircraft maintenance, if you don’t maintain proficiency, you cannot expect others to acknowledge you as a technical leader.Lead by example: If you are not willing to dig in and get your hands dirty, how can you expect others to do the same? If you do not maintain proficiency as previously mentioned, you will lose credibility in the end. So jump in and do the hands-on work once in a while.Have integrity: “Do as I say and not as I do” carries no weight if one wishes to be a leader. You must.