Expository Essay About Good Leadership Skills

There is some cultural crossover in servant leadership, which according to Northouse (2013, p.219), was originally proposed by Greenleaf in the 1970s, and also has origins in ancient Eastern and Western philosophies; for example, it is deeply embedded in Arab-Islamic culture (Sarayrah, 2004, p.59).A further concern is raised by Mullins (2008, p.265) who states that determining who is a ‘good leader’ is a subjective judgement and cannot be based, for example, on financial performance alone.However, Yukl (2013, p.18) argues that there are numerous and diverse definitions concerning the concept of a leader as well as the term leadership, although a general consensus appears to suggest it involves a process of influencing and guiding relationships within an organisation .

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Yukl (2013, p.18) further states there are additional factors that contribute to good leadership such as the situational context and the use of power.

Another issue regarding the characteristics of leaders is that many theories and models have been based on Western perspectives (House and Aditya, 1997, p.409) and typically based on research with white males (Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, CIPD, 2008, p.7).

Yukl (2013, p.146) similarly identifies certain characteristics related to good leaders which include a high tolerance of stress, emotional maturity, personal integrity, motivation and self-confidence.

However, Furnham (2005, p.574) suggests that although there are numerous traits, there appears to be little agreement regarding which characteristics contribute to a leader being effective.

A number of characteristics and traits related to good leaders have been identified; for example, Smith and Foti (1998, p.147) undertook a study investigating the characteristics of emergent leaders and found that the traits of dominance, intelligence and self-efficacy were significantly higher in emergent leaders than other individuals who were not classified as emergent leaders.

Expository Essay About Good Leadership Skills Can You Write College Essays In First Person

According to Furnham (2005, p.572), good leaders usually possess characteristics such as persistence, innovation and a willingness to take responsibility for their actions.Trait theories of leadership proposed that successful leaders possessed distinctive traits or characteristics that differentiated them from unsuccessful leaders and subordinates.As Northouse (2013, p.7) mentions there are common phrases in use in society such as ‘ he was born to be a leader’ or ‘she is a natural leader’ which suggest that people tend to think good leaders are born and not trained.Furnham (2005, p.588) suggests that transactional leadership can be defined as a contract between the leader and a worker where the leader achieves what they want by offering some sort of reward which is desired by the employee. There is typically a limited relationship between the leader as in certain situations (for example in the military) transactional leadership is necessary as certain actions need to be undertaken without subordinates questioning or debating issues (Bass and Bass, 2008, p.41; Bryman et al. Transactional leadership does not appear to be concerned with the characteristics of leaders and is more concerned with creating structures and systems which allow the sharing of information (Bryman et al. Transactional leadership depends on contingency reinforcement which means the subordinate understands that a reward will be received when performance goals are achieved (Bass and Riggio, 2006, p.8). Leaders have an important role within an organisation related to its success, productivity and the performance of the employees.The ‘fundamental task of a leader is to build and maintain a high performing team’ (Furnham, 2005, p.566).You can view samples of our professional work here.Any opinions, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of UK Essays.The aim of the following essay is to investigate whether certain characteristics are related to good leadership and which can be identified in theories and models of leadership such as trait theory, transformational and charismatic leadership as well as authentic and servant leadership.Finally, there will be a brief discussion regarding interpersonal characteristics such as emotional intelligence and communication skills.