Saturday 17 May 2014

True Leadership Lies In Guiding Others To Success

The leader-follower connection is diversity as, leaders cannot exist without followers and nor can the followers exit without leaders. A successful leadership is a product of increased follower efficiency and effectiveness through their leadership influences. Maslow helps leaders understand this connection with followers through his Hierarchy of needs. Maslow focused more on the whole person of the follower and leader and saw them as people with “values” and people who make “choices.” Leaders cannot change the “values” of followers but they can understand them. Leaders cannot force the “choices” of followers but they can guide them.

“A Leader is one who knows the way, goes the way and shows the way”


A leader is someone that many people look to for direction, guidance, and inspiration, so it is important for our leaders to have the aptitude to make difficult decisions and to know and do what is right for the people. An effective leader has character, competence, compassion, and courage.

CHARACTER :- A person’s true character is who they are when they are put in a difficult situation. It is the decisions and the morality of a leader that gives them the respectable character that others look to follow. It is essential for a leader to have character because a leader needs the ability to see what other cannot, the sacrifices that must be made, even if the sacrifice is their own, or another person’s life.

COMPETENCE :- Competence means that one knows what must be done. It is possessing the skills to do ones task properly. This quality is vital for a leader because they are the people that command others. If they themselves do not know what their job is, it will be difficult to properly instruct others. 

COMPASSION :- Compassion is important for a leader to have because when the people see that the leader cares for them, they will be more trusting of the decisions that he makes. Also, recognizing and taking the time to acknowledge them will make the people want to do their job properly and to the best of their ability. They will know that the leader is concerned with each person’s weaknesses and will take them into account when making decisions. True compassion from a leader will inevitably lead to trust from their followers. 

COURAGE :- Courage is described as having the strength both mentally and physically to do something that most people could not do. It is imperative for a leader to have courage because as a leader, they have to make decisions that are dangerous or harmful. It takes true courage to not only make the decision but also to fulfill it. For example a commanding officer in a battle of war, his battalion is in full enthusiastically motivated and encouraged by their leader to achieve in their setup goal.
  


As there are different Leadership styles used by different situational leaders who are achieving goals by creating a direction and inspiring followers to take initiative and make the right decisions.