Sample Essay On Leadership for You

Leadership has always been an important part of life in the society. It is the cornerstone of success in all things. For a nation, a business or a community to succeed, it requires good leadership. Leaders are usually expected to gibe inspiration, guidance, and motivation to the teams that they lead. Generally, leadership helps in the achievement of set goals by ensuring that there is effective planning, a clear vision and mission, a proper crisis management approach amongst many others. This paper is going to focus on the history of leadership, the changes that have taken place in leadership over the years, as well as, the various characteristics, axioms and challenges in leadership.
Leadership has been in existence since time in memorial. The study of leadership, dates its origin in the commencement of civilization. Over time, a lot of things have changed in terms of evolution of organizations, the development of nations, and general growth in various departments. Leadership has been one common factor in the prosperity of the ancient states of Egypt and Greece. The Greek heroes and the Egyptian rulers played important leadership roles in influencing people to work hard towards achieving their goals. The focus of leadership has been the same where a leader is selected to lead people. However, Leadership has evolved over the decades in may ways (Peris-Ortiz and Álvarez-García, 62).
A lot has changed on my outlook on leadership. To start with, the ways of leadership have changed. In the ancient days leaders had so much authority that made them and they would oppress heir juniors. The people who were being led would follow the lead without any questions. The people would work like slaves to increase productivity. In addition, in the past, leadership used to be communal an it was influenced by age. People believed that the older a person was the wiser they were; hence, they automatically qualified to be leaders. The ancient ways of leadership were not learnt in school, but they were taught by the elders. Nevertheless, in the contemporary world, leadership has changed from the simple hierarchical leaderships in the communities to more constitutional and political leaderships (Peris-Ortiz and Álvarez-García, 62). Now days, leaders are mainly chosen by the people through elections and other ways, where the outgoing leader appoint a replacement of his own choice. Moreover, leadership skills are taught both in school by qualified personnel, and therefore leaders are not selected according to their age, but according to the skills in leadership and integrity. The people are lead are also given an opportunity to air their views in order encourage, empower and motivate the to become independent and professional people in whatever they do.
Axioms are ideas that people choose to believe that are true in order to motivate them in a certain way in life. Some of these axioms include; “winning leaders have winning points of view” this axiom is meant to encourage leaders to always have convincing and sensible point of view. For someone to be a leader, they need to be selected by a team of people. The latter, therefore, needs to have a winning a point of view that will convince the voters to select him. Another axiom says “Be a learner to be a leader” This axiom encourages leaders to make learning art of their lives. They are encouraged to learn from the other leaders’ mistakes as well as their own mistakes (Bambrick-Santoyo and Brett, 98). Every situation the experience of see in life should serve as a lesson to them.Leaders are constantly facing different challenges in the lives. The first challenge is the public criticism that they always get from other people. Their leadership styles do no please everyone and therefore the people who are not pleased, keep critiquing the leader. Secondly, leaders always face opposition and hostility from the opposition. Constant opposition from the haters makes it difficult for a leader to successfully lead a team.
Leaders are expected to have a number of characteristics. The first characteristic is that a leader has to be courageous. A leader is supposed to persevere, as well as, have confidence in all that they do. They are also expected to face all the obstacles that come their way with confidence . Leaders are also supposed to be broad minded so that they can be able to come up with new ideas and ways of leading people. Honesty is another important character of a leader. Leaders ought to be transparent and sincere in order to earn the trust of the people (Shankman and Scott).
In conclusion, it is evident that leadership is very significant in the successful running of life. Without leadership, there would chaos and misunderstandings amongst people. Leadership been there since a long time ago. However, the study of leadership started in the 20th century. Leadership has evolved over the years from authoritarian types of leaderships to more democratic ad charismatic leaderships. The ways of choosing leaders and the ways of acquiring leadership skills have also changed over the decades.

Works Cited

Bambrick-Santoyo, Paul, and Brett M. Peiser. Leverage Leadership: A Practical Guide to Building Exceptional Schools. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2012. Print.
Peris-Ortiz, Marta, and José Álvarez-García. Action-based Quality Management: Strategy and Tools for Continuous Improvement. , 2014. Internet resource.
Shankman, Marcy L, and Scott J. Allen. Emotionally Intelligent Leadership for Students: Facilitation and Activity Guide. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2010. Print.