Leadership

Name
Date
course
 Introduction
• Leadership refers to the act of encouraging people towards achieving an
established goal
• The process of motivating and helping an individual or a group of people
towards common objectives.
• According to Adler (2006), leadership involves creating ways for people so
that they can find a meaning and contribute to what they do.
 Leadership and management
• Management refers to a process that involves organizing and directing people
with an aim of coordinating and controlling events..
• Leadership on the other hand is a process of influencing people’s behavior
and attitudes with an intention of achieving common goals.
 The essence of leadership
• The ability of a person to influence others
• The objective is to achieve a certain common goal
• The leaders usual has some qualities and characteristics which are appealing
to the followers
• The act of leadership involves interaction and believing on someone ways of
conduct.
 Formal and informal leadership
• Formal leadership
• This happens when an authority lead by exercising its power.
• It is used when delegating duties and tasks in an official position with a company.
• Informal leadership
• Occurs when someone who does not have formal authority influences other people
 Importance of leadership
• Ability to change potentials into realities
• Has the ability to transform the behavior of individuals, thus promoting
human conduct through inspiration
 My choice of a leader
• Barack Obama, the former president of the United States.

https://obamawhitehouse.archives
.gov
 Leadership style
• Democratic style of leadership which is considered to be Obama’s favorite style
• It is regarded as the most effect leadership style (Goleman, 2000)
• It guides people while offering a chance for their participation and to give their
inputs and ideas on the agenda at hand.
• It encourages people to contribute to the topic, but the leader has the final say after
careful consideration of other people’s views.
• However, according to Cherry (2006), members who follows leaders that utilizes
this style are less productive compared to those who follow authoritarian kind of
leaders, but they immensely contribute quality ideas.
 Characteristics
• A clear vision
• Confidence
• Ambitious
• Inspirational
• Courageous
 Success as a leader
• As a result of his leadership style and characteristics, he was elected as a
president which unlike the his predecessors who were veterans and ex
governors, the only election he had won was senatorial one.
• Due to his style of leadership, Obama was able to achieve a lot in his tenure
in sectors of health, education and infrastructure.
• The America’s economy significantly grew and the level of unemployment
slightly went down. He was elected at a time at a time when America was
under economic crisis
 Success as a leader (cont.)
• He successfully made people to believe in themselves, thus he was
inspirational to other people.
• He was ambitious in his achievements.
• Most of his policies passed, notably Obama Health Care and the education
bill even though they were not appealing across the opposite side of the
Houses and Senate.
 Personal appeal
• Envisioning the future and get other people to participate in the same. They
are inspirational.
• Taking initiative and acting without hesitation
• Clear goals and expectations
• Effective communications while at them same time listening to other
people’s opinions.
 Lessons learned
• Activities are easily carried out when people are involved in decisions making.
• It is much easier to convince people to do things and achieve a common goal
when utilizing a democratic leadership style.
• Where possible management should involve its employees by asking for the
opinions before carrying out major decisions unless it is a specialized activity
which requires certain expertise.
 Lessons learned (cont.)
• Though at times things might be difficult, listening to other people’s opinion
can help in decision making.
• Managers should always strive to feedback from their colleagues on issues
concerning the operations.
 References
• Adler, N. J. (2006). The arts & leadership: Now that we can do anything,
what will we do?. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 5(4), 486-499.
• Goleman, D. (2000). Leadership that gets results. Harvard business review, 78(2),
4-17.
• Cherry, K. (2006). Leadership styles. Retrieved from.