Essay Term Paper on Leadership

 

Leadership …power … influence … path-builder … director … it can defined in many ways, but most commonly Leader is person who influences the thoughts and behaviors of others; a leaders is one who establishes the direction for others to willingly follow. One person can serve as a leader or several persons might share leadership. A person may be appointed as leader or may be elected by people within his circle. Leaders play vital role in standardizing performance. Leaders can influence other to perform beyond the expectations. Managers plan, organize, lead and control so that “leading” and “managing” are inseparable, they are both integral part of each other. If one cant influence and inspire others to work willingly towards aims then all planning and organizing will be ineffective. Similarly setting direction is usually not enough, no matter how inspiring one can be, management skills are crucial.

 
Leaders will simultaneously fill many roles interacting, motivating group members, solving conflicts as they arise. Leaders set vision, strategies, goals, and values in order to guide for desired action and behavior. Leaders are characterized by certain traits which distinguish leaders from non-leaders includes Drive, desire to lead, honesty, cognitive ability, self-confidence and knowledge. Effective leaders must have two major qualities: knowledge and communication competence. Leader needs knowledge of issue and the ways of effectively leading a team. This knowledge will enable leader to identify alternatives available. He also needs to be an effective communicator as equally listener and speaker. Leaders should acquire qualities of flexible, openness, empathetic, courage, interactive, and positive attitude.

 

An effective leader generally values people, listen actively, gives credit to others, have consistent behaviors, admits mistakes, have a sense of humor and above all they set a good example for their followers. I have been running plastic manufacturing firm, which produces household plastic product. There I have developed three major departments of Production, Finance and Marketing. I have developed a seven-member team, which is headed by me. We usually come across discussing major issue related to finance, production and marketing. We make plans, have discussions, and generate ideas. My job out there is to design the agenda, set priorities, follow-up the discussions, and make our session meaningful. At the same time I perform simultaneously role of interacting, motivating group members, solving conflicts as they arise. During our sessions we set vision, develop strategies, targeting goals, and evaluating our past performance in order to guide ourselves for desired action and behavior.

Being a leader and owner of the firm I have dual responsibilities to organize and develop a culture of selflessness. A failure of my team member is the failure of myself. I had to do my work selflessly and biggest challenge for me is to get my team members also work selflessly for our firm. Each of our team members feels as he/she is the owner of the firm and we do our work for firm success, we should not to stick it for earning livelihood. That is the most admiring change, which I am striving to bring about. The hardest job for me is to set myself as an example for my all fellows.

All such exercises have made me able to actively contribute towards MSM program. MSM program will provide me an opportunity to further develop a broader understanding of management/leadership and enhancing my analytical skills. This program will also provide me with the hands-on study and learn from varied backgrounds. My prior leadership experience will provide me a feedback while attending MSM program. This will provide me an opportunity to share me experiences with others. This program will also enhance my leadership traits and enable me to learn and develop my capabilities as becoming successful leader. It will also improve my communication skills and gain more knowledge through the experiences of group members. These learning will help me to improve my attitude and behavior that would be helpful in my leadership career. I am fully confident that MSM program has the potential to make me able to achieve my challenge to bring an organizational culture of selflessness.