When it comes to the discussion about leadership, it is important for everyone to start it by thinking about the necessity of leader in a group life. In personal life, the leader of someone by all means refers to the person itself, considering that every individual should be respected and thus processes the right to determine the life of his own regardless of any requirement and order from outside, as long as the decision totally originates from will of the person himself. The reason why a group of people, which might consist of an army, a corporation or a government, is more or less also because of the individual personal will that has been proved every single day around the world that the power of which is irresistible to all who want their happiness truly and strongly, which I believe are still of the majority. Every single person may want every single thing in a unique way, or I might say, a different way from others, thus more often than not leading to a miserable mess in a group when decisions are about to be made. The reason of this unpredictable disaster, which is usually the origin of failure, is that different person in a group, well, of interest maybe, own different education background and personal experience. Those are the base of the values and the main aspect they will consider to make decisions. Since each person is similar in terms of this case, there is no difficulty in understanding that the expectation of harmony that people will agree with each other to go into a certain direction is way too stupid. Then the group will finally dismiss to terminate this pain of disagreement.
The necessity of leader then comes right out of the discussion above. People gather together for a certain destination, like earning money, winning an election or obtaining nice reputation, requires a person to give them a hand when the group is in crisis, to show them the right way in front when there is confusion and to encourage them bringing the bright sight out of despair when it seems to have no hope any more. When everything goes well, the leader for most of the times will try to maintain the good conditions and keep the good situations. Also, by sharing happiness, the leader can develop the inter-group relationship, which is helpful for the group to confront difficulties because of the sense of attribution. So above all, what is leadership all about? It is about protecting the group from the damage from the outside and inside, giving a right direction for the group to endeavor and increasing the happiness for people to stay in the group, which sometimes can be the most important aspect in a long term.
According to the description we have above, the following question is about to be rose, what are the qualities of an excellent leader?
First of all, a good leader should be confident about himself and his decision. It is really hard to believe in someone when he does not trust himself. It seems to be some kind of human nature that people’s judgment about one person can be more or less affected by the person himself, even though sometimes, or, for many people, usually, the story the person tells about himself sounds really unrealistic or nothing but bluffing. If this psychology stuff of human is something that is written in our gene, then it will be a total wasting of time over here if the argument is still going on about why people can be so easily blinded or more awareness should be paid to this issue. No matter how, confidence is one of the most significant qualities of a successful leader. What is interesting to study about, which a lot of people might not even realize, is that in some cases it is the fact that everybody truly believes what is going to happen that makes it happen. And that is the reason why sometimes a confident leader can accomplish something that seems really impossible. That is actually one of the truths of life. Not all the dreams can come true if you just dream about them. You truly believe it and you fight for it, which might not be the sufficient condition but must be the necessary condition of dreams coming true. So for a leader, people can only feel confident to follow him if he has true confidence in himself.
The second one goes just along with the confidence, which is the great sense of judgment. Different from confidence, this is not something that can be acquired by just one’s feeling about himself, but is related to a lot of things, like the education he had, the personal experience he enjoyed and for many of the times the intuition that helps him judge. To make a long story short, this quality requires experience after trials and errors. A confident leader always inspires people at the first time, but without a good knowledge of what to do and how to do it, this trust can be as fragile as a piece of paper. Like in an army, a commander that cannot give the right orders will be looked down upon badly. What is not like an army in real life is that people are not constraint to any military law or something like that, once the reputation is ruined for a leader, objection can be revealed in such a strong way that there will definitely going to be a crisis for the position of a boss, especially in western countries, I bet. A leader also has to prove that he actually is qualified for his position, and he must show to everyone that he surely can make the best decisions. It is actually the main part of the leaders’ job.
Last but not least, I would have to say a good leader should have the ability to unite the group of people from the beginning. A lot of people believe that a good leader must be a charming person, for the simple reason that a charming person is more attractive to others and thus easy for people to accept considering that appreciating beautiful thins is also part of human nature. However, as a successful leader, it is significant that the charm he has must go parallel with his great capability to keep his members friendly to each other. This looks to be an easy job, but actually it is always ignored when it comes to practice. The bonds between different members in a group might be different from one another. These two people might be friends together, and those three might be best buddies ever since. They choose to come together not because they want to be friends together, but for something that attracts them like reputation and money. Since the relationship among them is not well as founded at the first time as it is when friends found each other, arguments and personal opinions might easily generate. It is well known that tiny flaws take down a big dam, and these small obsessions in a group can be the potential reason that caused the group to bankrupt. Clearing out these bad feelings between group members is also a very essential work for a good leader, because that is one way to generate a harmonic working environment where people are fond to be thinking good for the group and pleased to cooperate with each other making contributions to the benefit of all of them.
As long as the confidence, the great sense of judgment and the uniting ability have all been possessed by the leader, then he should show his way to put the group business on track.
Normally the group works everything out by themselves according to regular route. However, there is going to be some cases where the leader should stand out and play his role. Let us just say that in a company, the top strategists are gathering trying to figure out what to do about the choice of different products offered by different agencies. The total has been automatically break into several parties, each of which insisting on their own opinion about the choice. Some focus on the short-term benefit the company can earn from this trade considering the financial difficulty that the company is experiencing recently, some focus on the long-term instead arguing that it is not wise to sacrifice the company’s future finance for the issues at hands and that the financial difficulty the company confronts right now can be figured out by some other ways, and the others might concentrate on the reputations the company can obtain from this trade instead of interest, who stand on their own ground stating that development of the company requires reputations more than just the benefit and that it is a good opportunity that can be seized now or never. In this case what a good leader should do?
As the leader himself, he might have a tendency about which strategy he is fond of the most, but if that is enough for him to decide, then the unfortunate things could drop right down on his head. The prejudice of those whose opinions the leader does not even bother to listen to might start flowing around the room and considering the power that the boss has, silence might be kept but the anger is still going to be real. The leader himself, normally as stupid as he already proves, will not find out what has happened and believe that he will not even think he did anything wrong. Since it is not my obligation to finish this novel here, I am going to go directly into the right behavior a good leader should take. Firstly, no matter which strategy he likes the most, a good leader must always finish listening to all the opinions from all the members if possible. When it comes to the top managing people in the company, it becomes necessary, because normally that the intelligent are very much aware of their respect and are curious to know that their ideas are very important to the company, which in close related to their personal value they think of for themselves. Then according to the information delivered to him, the leader should judge which of it truly describes the situation they are facing and which of it that contains too much personal feelings. Then, a more or less total picture of the situation should be well formed in the leader’s head, telling him that what is now available to the company and the cost and benefit of each strategy. By acquiring whole picture of the situation, the leader should now make his second judgment. Which way should the company go? It is him who has the privilege to determine the values and the direction of development of the company so he has to consider first which way benefit the company the most in the company-term. Meanwhile, he needs to modify his original opinion as well according to the information he obtained. If his original opinion does not work out well, then it should be abandoned immediately. This part of judgment actually tests the leader the most. It requires strong ability of taking and giving away. Only that kind of leader who is total conscious of what the company is satisfied with and that is the most farsighted can be capable of this work. After he has made his decision, he needs to announce it at first in front of all the people in the discussion before and then explain every single detail, like how this decision is going to work, why it is going to work, what result it is going to get and why that result is very important to them so that the others are abandoned. Then last but not least, the leader will have to convince the people who are not pleased with this decision why this one is preferred right now, and how their ideas are contributing all the time. Before making this long speech, the leader should keep it clear in mind about what he is going to talk about and the tone that he is going to use for different part of the speech. By this the leader has finished the work of making decisions and uniting the group as one. This long process seems tiring, but it is imperative.
I can still remember that winning election speech of Barack Obama in Chicago. Maybe it is because that I lived in China and I have heard almost no political speeches that I think that is the most impressive speech I have ever heard in my whole life. Instead of political policies that he is going to put forward to this nation, Barack Obama mentioned more about what American people actually dream about and really care about, like that America is believed to be a country where everything is possible, how the country is confronting difficulties, how American families are suffering from all kind of pressure and how the American young people are not willing be taken as self-involved and are already prepared to prove that they also love this country and are ready to make contribution to the reconstruction of the honor of America, etc. He also mentioned that 106-year-old lady who has seen half of the history of this young nation, moving but also showing that the America has experienced a lot even though that it is so young and changes are always happening on this land. What Barack Obama is trying to do here is arousing the pride of American people and the light the fire of hope in people’s heart that American people can make changes and will confront the difficulty that they are facing, like the lack of jobs and the financial problems. The most impressive thing I have learnt from this man is that his amazing ability to inspire people and give them hope and encourages them to fight for the common values of them, which is shared by them all. Since it is a long time ago, and after that speech when Obama is on the position of president, his policies have been criticized a lot, but this is not the focus. “Yes, we can!” is the slogan that is widely used those days. When this slogan is put out, it attracts a lot of young people who cannot accept the judgment to them that they cannot take the burden of sacrificing themselves to fight for the glory of the country, and the power the slogan contains arouses the passion of many American people, calling them out to reconstruct the country that they love. What I have learnt from Obama is that it is always important to give people hope when there is depression undergoing, even though the hard work in front might bring back the depression again. Whatever to be faced, it is essential to motivate people to start resolving it.
When I was in high school, I used to be the class cadre who is in charge of the daily labor. For high school student, this position is very challenging, considering that there is no connection of interest among us so that other students can always ignore your arrangement if they do not want to do the labor. As an aspirant young man with dignity, it is shame for me to tell on those people who would do that to the teacher and even though it might be obviously effective for the labor work arrangement, my reputation would be ruined and the all other students would take me as a loser. That actually means the failure of my leadership. So I must apply some leadership skills to my work to attract my classmates into the labor work. Instead of keep telling others what to do and getting them tired of the tedious labor, I decided to make them believe that it is not me who am asking them to do the work, but all the class including me are constraint something like a law that rules the labor work. At the beginning of my second year of high school, I made up a laboring system for our class, in which everything including the time schedule and the division of work were written clear in details. At the beginning, people as well as the teacher feel it a little bit strange and not accustomed to this brand new idea. However, after one semester, with my continuous endeavor in pushing the system forward into practice, people are getting more and more reliable on the system and finally accept my opinion that all of us are following these rules and that it is our obligation to follow the rules. During the time I pushed the system, the most important thing I did was to strictly limit myself to the system or more often than even more picky. My effort was just to help my peers realize the significance of everyone following the rules so that a good atmosphere for the laboring work can be well formed in the class, establishing a kind of culture, which is commonly accepted and automatically functions. If there is any doubt about the system, I was always patient to demonstrate it in details and my original mind of the corresponding rule. In this way, I made sure that everyone in the class fully understands the system. As a return for my hard work in this area, at the end of the high school, I won 38 out of 39 tickets in our class in the election of “the Best Municipal Class Cadres” and was rewarded with this reputation. If there is anything in this personal experience that might be helpful to me for lifetime, it should be that a good leader should always have a long-term sight about the task he has to accomplish and that being a good model himself is not necessary but very effective to outstand your convincing power as a leader. Apart from those, what also this experience constantly reminds me is that sometimes it is not always good to show off your leadership. For me, I could asked our teacher to do me a favor, announcing in the discussion class that I am privileged to take charge of the laboring work and thus it is obliged for the class to follow my command. However, then my classmates will take as a “leader” that stands apart from them and has more power than they do. This kind of feeling can make people feel upset and annoyed, which is not good for the union of the class. Even though setting up this system and obeying it by myself will sacrifice my personal vanity about being the leader, it turned out that this decision is the wisest and I believe that my peers would not let me have the reputation of being the best if I focus on my vanity.
Personally, as a leader, I am responsible and have a clear mind about the destination of the group. I am concentrated to the goal and thus can always give the right direction about what to do to accomplish the task. Since I am an organized person, it is also my strength to organize the procedure of a program. I know that the limitation of signal persons so instead of admiring individual heroism I prefer the division of work to suitable persons and that always gives a result more efficiently.
Nevertheless, there is still a lot of room for me to improve my leadership skills. I used to be a very shy boy and have difficulty in communicating with stranger. With time going, my personality gradually transformed and now, I feel no pressure talking with total strangers, but yet I still feel it not very comfortable to greet with people I am not familiar with and I am still not a very smooth talker with everyone. If I looked into my heart, I can see that there is still some fear that builds up psychological defense against other people. I might not be able to eliminate this tiny little “young” me because no matter what kind of person I am now, that guy has always been part of me and is always a composition of my soul, but I can practice my communicational skills with different people trying to figure out how to maintain a conversation in a smooth and easy way that does not bums people out just as a compensation to my unavoidable personal weakness. Besides, considering that I am a very competitive person when it comes to argument, I might easily get myself too excited and subconsciously want to overwhelm others using my words. This can really piss people off, because nobody likes to be proved wrong even though what they are making mistakes. There is a saying that even though it is the truth, it still requires the right way of expression. Once other people realize that you are a person who is not going to let any single chance go to prove that you are better than others, they would instinctively stay away from you. So I think that I need to learn to put aside my competitive attitude and remind myself of that it is not always necessary to argue with others and that the result does not always matter. Sometimes we are not looking for a specific result when it comes to discussion. It is the process that we really enjoy, in which we have fun listening to other people’s opinion, admiring different values and find out improvement that we can acquire from others. If I am able to keep thoughts like this in mind, then I will enjoy more pleasant conversation with more people.
To be a better leader, only realizing the weakness is not good enough for me. I also need to work out some concrete resolutions that can practically help me with my personal shortage. By taking a brief look backwards, I think that my biggest problem that prevents me from being a very good leader is that I do not feel confident enough in my communication skills, which is more or less based on the fact that I am not very good at communicating with other people. To find a way to solve this problem, I have determined not to let go any chance to practice my communication skills with strangers. First I need to convince myself that talking with others is not that a big deal. The worst result I can obtain is that I do not have to talk to them anymore, which is kind of the same with the original situation. Most of the people that I feel to bother me are those who we might never see ever again in my whole life, so a brief piece of talking does not require too much attention and pressure. Then I need to set up a system that can gradually improve my communicational skills. I might ask for help from some smooth talkers. Whatever I have learnt, however, practice is the only way to make it perfect to use for me. Last but not least, I need to have perseverance in what I have planned for myself. It might be easy for me to be talkative for one day or one week, but for like a month or a year, it is really heard. Keeping the faith in mind, I believe that I am right on my way to become an outstanding leader in the future.
Being in Honors College is one of the best things that have ever happened to me. I will seize this great opportunity to accomplish my personal melioration on leadership skills. The road in front for exploring leadership is still very long, but I am pleased to start is already.
