what is a good leader essay

Feb 15, 2023

Essays on Leadership for Students | 200 - 500 Word Essays

Are you writing an essay about leadership? Check out these examples!

Leadership is often defined as "the action of inspiring others to act in concert to achieve a particular goal." It signifies the harmony in actions that lead to a common objective. A genuine leader not only exudes confidence but also paves the way for their followers towards triumph. Over the years, various leadership styles have been identified and discussed by psychologists.

 Qualities such as intelligence, adaptability, extroversion, innate self-awareness, and social competence often emerge as the hallmarks of impactful leaders. There's a consensus that these traits mold an individual into an effective leader. Interestingly, some theories suggest that extraordinary situations can thrust an ordinary individual into the spotlight, bestowing upon them the mantle of leadership. It's also believed that leadership isn't a static trait but an evolving journey. It underscores the belief that with dedication and the right resources, anyone can hone their leadership abilities.

 True leadership goes beyond merely advocating for a cause. It involves taking responsibility, igniting motivation in others, and differentiating oneself from just being a 'boss'. A leader's essence lies in their ability to inspire and propel people towards grand visions, whereas a manager typically focuses on oversight and operational aspects.

What Is a Leadership Essay?

A leadership essay falls under the category of student application essays and serves to provide student admissions officers with insight into your past leadership experiences. Despite appearing to be very specific, this type of essay acknowledges that the nature and perception of leadership can vary significantly depending on the individual and the context.

 If you find yourself in need of further insights or a unique angle for your leadership essay, consider exploring an expert essay-writing tool designed to assist students in crafting compelling narratives by analyzing vast data and generating fresh ideas within minutes. In this article, we'll also delve into various leadership essay examples to offer a clearer understanding of the genre and inspire your writing journey.

4 Examples of Leadership Essays

Qualities of a good leader, introduction.

Confidence is the most important attribute first of all. One of the most important qualities in a leader is confidence in one's own abilities. A lack of self-assurance is fatal to a person's leadership potential. If you want others to follow you, you need to exude self-assurance. It's imperative for a leader to have faith in his own judgment and actions. How can people want to follow him if he doesn't even know what he's doing?

Every effective leader knows that they need to be an inspiration to their followers. A leader needs to set an example for his team. In addition, he ought to inspire them whenever feasible. A leader must also maintain optimism in trying times.

What qualities a good leader must have?

Leadership is the ability to influence and guide individuals or groups toward a common goal. A leader must possess several qualities to be effective, including:

Communication skills: A leader must be able to communicate their vision and goals clearly and effectively, both verbally and in writing. This requires excellent listening skills, empathy, and the ability to adapt to different communication styles.

Emotional intelligence: A leader must be able to understand and manage their own emotions, as well as those of their team members. This includes being able to understand and respond to the emotions of others, and handling conflicts in a constructive manner.

Visionary: A leader must have a clear and inspiring vision of the future, and be able to articulate this vision in a way that motivates others to work towards it.

Strategic thinking: A leader must be able to think critically and creatively to identify and solve problems, make decisions, and develop plans and strategies to achieve their goals.

Flexibility: A leader must be able to adapt to changing circumstances and be open to new ideas and perspectives. This requires the ability to embrace change, be innovative, and continuously learn and grow.

Integrity: A leader must have strong ethics and values, and be willing to make difficult decisions that are consistent with their beliefs. This requires honesty, transparency, and accountability.

Decisiveness: A leader must be able to make tough decisions quickly, without undue hesitation or procrastination. This requires courage and the ability to take calculated risks.

Empowerment: A leader must be able to delegate responsibilities, give team members the resources they need to succeed, and foster a sense of ownership and accountability among their team.

Conclusion 

These qualities are essential for effective leadership, and when combined with hard work, determination, and a commitment to excellence, can help leaders to achieve great things.

How one can be a Great Leader?

Leadership is the act of performing the duties of a leader. In the business world, for instance, it is essential to have someone in charge of a team to ensure everything runs well. Effective leadership is essential for any group that wants to maximize its prospects of success.

Leadership Comes from Experience

As we've shown, leadership can be innate in some cases but is more often learned through practice and exposure. Sometimes the best traits of a leader must be learned over a lengthy period of time, so that one can become a notable one, proving that leadership is not always about a person's innate qualities. Leaders should continuously be on the lookout for opportunities to grow their leadership skills.

Nobody can disagree that experience is a key component of leadership. Numerous examples exist to back up this claim, such as:

Instance 1:

Our school's head boy or girl has traditionally been an older student who has been around for a while and thus has a better grasp of the ins and outs of school politics.

Instance 2:

When there is a vacancy for a team leader, it is common practice for the employee who has consistently put in the most effort and attention to the office job to receive a higher number of votes than their coworkers. 

“The best teacher for a leader is evaluated experience.” - John C. Maxwell

How one can be a Great Leader/Skills to be a Great Leader?

Effective leadership is a skill that develops through time. Developing into a leader with all the qualities that are needed takes a lot of hard work and potential. Being a prominent leader calls for a wide variety of traits. Some of these characteristics are addressed in further detail below:

One should be a Good Communicator

To be an effective leader, one must be able to convey his thoughts clearly to his/her/its subordinates.

Should have Confidence

The individual should have faith in what he says and does.

Give Credit to other Team Members too

A leader not only needs to impose his viewpoints and opinions instead he must also hear to the suggestions of other members of the team and offer them credit if their concept is appropriate.

Good Bond with the Team

A leader's ability to command respect from his team members depends on his ability to develop and maintain positive relationships with them.

Leads with Responsibility

A leader needs to be completely committed to his position. It's important that he takes on responsibility so that he can effectively deal with the various challenges he will inevitably face.

Any group or organization needs a leader above all else. Leadership development takes time and effort. One needs to have lived through a lot to be an effective leader. It's not enough to simply have years of experience in the field; one must also have the traits that make one an effective leader. You can't be a great leader unless you possess certain traits.

What makes a Good Leader?

Trying one's hand as a leader appears easy when viewed through this lens. Is that so tough? Of course not; leading is difficult, and not everyone aspires to be a leader. The vast majority of us have settled into well-established careers where we report to superiors and make a living. Still, not everyone is content to go along with the crowd. They become leaders in whatever field they pursue. A leader is an example to followers and will prioritize the needs of those around them.

Some Unique Qualities of a Leader

Many individuals resort to their leaders to vent their frustrations, therefore it's important for them to be good listeners.

A leader ought to be completely forthright; they can't play favorites or give anyone preferential treatment. One of the most essential qualities of a strong leader is the ability to make decisions with integrity.

They need to be aware of the bigger picture and understand what makes an individual stand out or become a leader. It's their expertise in addition to other distinguishing traits. Their awareness of current events and the results of recent studies is essential. In many ways, this is helpful, and it's the leader's responsibility to stay current.

Since some might not understand them, they should utilize straightforward, easily comprehended language. Leaders need to be able to communicate effectively at all times. In reality, what sets them apart is their exceptional communication skills. Adolf Hitler was such a gifted orator that his followers believed every word he said.

No matter how you're feeling or what's going on in the world, if you listen to a leader, they may make you feel energized. Since leaders are in charge of inspiring confidence in their followers, they can't afford to be wary or unsure of themselves. People tend to blindly follow their leaders.

Whether you're a leader or a doctor, you should devote yourself completely to your chosen field. Everything we do is for the benefit of others; engineers, for example, spend much of their time designing and constructing buildings for other people. So, take pride in what you do, and if you possess the aforementioned traits, you are also a leader who doesn't have to rely on others to succeed. No matter what you do, aspiring to leadership positions will always benefit others.

What is Leadership in Management and what are the weaknesses and strengths of a Leader?

Simply said, leadership is acting as a supervisor or manager of a group. Different mental pictures pop up when we hear the word "leadership" used in conversation. One might think of a political leader, team leader, corporate leader, school leader, etc. Leaders facilitate order and efficiency in the workplace. Teamwork and success are fundamental to effective leadership. Leaders utilize their managerial abilities to establish courses and guide their teams to success.

Strengths and Weaknesses of Leadership

Able to express oneself more clearly

Growth of character.

Self-awareness.

Possession of teamwork skills.

Gain assurance in yourself.

Weaknesses:

Acting favorably toward one's teammates.

Having no faith in the leader.

Thinks they're better than everyone else, but act hypocritically.

Not living up to the promised standard.

Insufficient morals.

Leadership and Management

Management and leadership are inextricably linked to one another. Leadership and management are both vital to the efficient operation of an organization; but, they accomplish very different things in the process. Leadership is a necessary skill for anyone aspiring to be an effective manager. The terms management and leadership are synonymous with one another. In this manner, we are able to draw the conclusion that a manager who demonstrates the traits of a successful leader is, in fact, a manager who is effective.

Leadership in School

Leadership is essential in nearly every group, as we've seen above. That group includes one's educational institution. Every school needs an outstanding figure to serve as its head of school. Class monitor, assembly captain, cultural leader, etc. are all examples of leadership roles that can be taken on at school, but this raises the question of what makes a person a successful school leader.

Any student hoping to be chosen as a student body leader will need to demonstrate a wide range of competencies. He or she needs to be a consistent student who pays attention in class and does well in extracurricular activities. For the simple reason that no intelligent and hardworking kid would ever be considered for leadership. Student leaders are most often selected from among those who participate fully in all activities.

Leadership in Organization

Leadership in an organization, also known as organizational leadership, is the process of establishing long-term objectives that further the company's mission and help it reach its ultimate destination. This is a classic illustration of how Bill Gates often works with his team: they agree on a strategy, and Gates implements it. To the same extent, it is the responsibility of the leader in each given organization to determine what it is that the group is trying to accomplish.

Leadership in Politics

Leadership in politics, also known as political leadership, is the process of becoming actively involved in a political party in the role of a party leader. Knowledge of political processes, their outcomes, and the political agenda is central to the idea of political leadership.

An effective leader can be developed in anyone who has the determination and drives to do so. Both the strengths and the areas for improvement should be nurtured. Whether in the classroom, the workplace, or the political arena, leadership is always necessary. Therefore, one can exercise leadership anywhere they like inside their own organization.

What are the types of Leadership?

The ability to lead is a rare trait that not everyone possesses. The ability to do so is a gift, so count your blessings if you possess it. It's recommended that you hone it even more so that you can propel your career forward and serve as an example to people around you. However, it is crucial to grasp the various leadership styles before you go ahead and polish your skills.

Types of Leadership Styles

Democratic Leadership

In this style of management, subordinates are given a voice in decision-making. Although the subordinates' efforts are highlighted, the leader is ultimately held responsible for the group's actions. Many people find this type of leadership to be effective.

Transformational Leadership

Transformational leaders motivate and inspire others to adopt new behaviors and ways of thinking in order to improve their own performance and that of their teams and organizations. A transformational leader is someone who encourages their team to strive for greater things and works to boost morale and output.

Team Leadership

A good leader fully incorporates his team into the task at hand. Members of the team are motivated to reach their goals and advance in their careers thanks to the leadership of the group.

Strategic Leadership

It requires a chief executive who doesn't restrict himself to brainstorming sessions with his superiors. He contributes on every level of the team. He is well-liked for his ability to unite the need for fresh ideas with the necessity of grounding them in reality.

Autocratic Leadership

The leader in a command and control structure is the center of attention. The chief executive has absolute power in this setting. He decides things on his own, without polling his staff. He relays this information to his staff and stresses the importance of swift action. The buck stops with him, and he alone must answer for his actions. Not much room for negotiation exists. It's no secret that this method of leading has its detractors.

Visionary Leadership

This kind of leader appreciates the abilities and requirements of his team members. He describes his ideal outcome and the teamwork that will be necessary to attain it.

Coaching Leadership

Leaders who coach their teams do so regularly in an effort to raise output. He inspires his employees to do better and works to keep them motivated. This approach to leadership has been much praised.

Facilitative Leadership

With occasional guidance, a facilitative leader ensures that the process runs smoothly for his team. As a precaution in case his team is ineffective. If the team is highly effective, the leader will take a hands-off approach.

Cross-Cultural Leadership

The leadership of this type is necessary when interacting with people from various cultural backgrounds. Because of the wide variety of cultures represented in the workforce across the United States, many managers and executives hold cross-cultural positions.

Laissez-Faire Leadership

The members of the team are given responsibility in this style of management. They are free to choose how they spend their time at work, with minimal oversight from the boss. It's not a good way to lead, according to experts.

Transactional Leadership

An interactive approach is integral to this kind of leadership. When team members successfully implement their leader's ideas and choices, they are rewarded with immediate, material benefits.

Charismatic Leadership

In order to bring out the best in his followers, this kind of leader makes the effort to change their attitudes, values, and actions.

This article should dispel the notion that leadership qualities can't be further subdivided. It should also assist you in pinpointing your own personal brand of leadership so you can perfect it over time.

Final Words

In conclusion, leadership is a complex and multifaceted concept that involves various qualities and skills. Effective leaders possess traits such as integrity, vision, empathy, decisiveness, and the ability to inspire and motivate others. They are able to navigate challenges, make difficult decisions, and lead their team toward success. Leadership also involves continuous learning and self-improvement, as leaders must adapt to changing circumstances and remain relevant. Effective leadership can have a positive impact on both individuals and organizations, fostering growth and creating a culture of success.

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Leadership Essay

27 August, 2020

12 minutes read

Author:  Richard Pircher

As a college student, you must write essays on a regular basis since the latter is one of the most common types of home assignments. All this means is that in order to get good grades and be successful with writing the papers, you need to have a sound understanding of the structure. Additionally, what you should never neglect is the variety of essay types. Indeed, your essay will significantly differ from one type to another: description essay will most likely have a structure that is slightly different from an argumentative one.

What you may have already encountered in your academic life is the work on a leadership essay. Although it sounds pretty complicated and vague, it is mostly possible to master an essay on leadership. Below is a guide for you to get an insight into this particular essay type.

What is a good leadership essay?

A good leadership essay is the one in which the essay writer has fully covered the topic of leadership and understood its core ideas. More specifically, to end up with a flawless leadership essay, you will need to indicate what makes a person a good leader. For achieving the latter, you will most likely need to conduct research and trace how a particular person reaches his or her goals. In other words, the task is to discover which actions the person undertakes, what their followers say about him or her, and how the person organizes the work. So, a leadership essay implies providing real-life success examples and further revealing them.

Above all, a good leadership essay is the one that follows a precise, clear, comprehensive structure. Structuring your essay about leadership in the most coherent way leads to a win-win situation: you have fewer troubles and barriers to writing a brilliant essay, and your teacher is able to comprehend the essay easily. This guide is what you will need to refer to to get an insight into how the flawless structure for a leadership essay looks like and how it will let you take a benefit.

How to write a Leadership essay?

To write a leadership essay that stands out, you first need to brainstorm all the ideas that you have and come up with a topic for your essay. If you are struggling with this step, you may think of some of the most influential people, read about them, and find out what makes them unique. Or, you can pick any topic which is mentioned at the end of this article. After you have chosen an issue, it is time to structure your essay appropriately.

As you already know, an essay constitutes three essential sections: introduction, main body, and conclusion. Below is the more detailed description of each of the parts.

Introduction

Of course, your leadership essay introduction will always vary depending on the topic of the essay. However, you can always begin by stating your vision of leadership regardless of the topic. Additionally, to motivate the reader and instantly catch his or her attention, you may use a quote of a famous leader, or simply a quote which you find relevant to the topic. Be aware that you should avoid outlining the essence and the role of the leadership in your introduction; leave it for the body paragraphs.

What you may also do in your leadership essay is ask a question, which will most likely intrigue the leader. Or it will at least give your reader an overview of what you will dwell on  in your essay.

Body Paragraphs

You will need to divide the main body into 3-5 paragraphs to make the structure more comprehensive. What you have to do at this point  is  give your reader a sound understanding of your ideas. Therefore, try to fit each idea in a single body paragraph so that you do not confuse your reader. Do not hesitate to indicate your examples to strengthen your arguments. For instance, you may explain a fact that makes a particular person you are writing about a real leader.

Also, always stick to your thesis statement and don’t forget that the body paragraphs should reveal the parts of your thesis statement.

As you may already know, you need to restate your opinion and briefly summarize all the points from the main body in conclusion. For instance, if you wrote your essay on qualities of an effective leader, state the most fundamental qualities and indicate why they matter the most. Besides, try not to copy what you have already written in the body – it is better to restate your opinion using different words. And, of course, beware adding any new and extra information; indicate only those points that you have already outlined in the text. Finally, keep in mind that it is always favorable to keep your concluding remarks short.

Leadership Essay Examples

Writing a leadership essay requires some research and time. In case you feel the necessity to go through an essay example, below is a leadership essay sample you can refer to.

Is leadership an inborn or an acquired feature?

Is everyone capable of becoming a leader, or is this ability innate? A lot of researchers have been struggling to answer this question. One assumption about leadership implies that the leader is the person who possesses particular characteristics. Another assumption claims that leaders are capable of acquiring specific features over their life span. As the evidence shows, leaders own many features that distinguish them among others and make more and more people become their followers. These might be cognitive abilities, psychological traits, professional qualities, and a lot more, and all of them will be either acquired or innate. Based on the importance of leadership qualities, such as commitment, stress resistance, and the ability to make quality decisions, it is reasonable to claim that leaders are made, not born. 

One can deem commitment as one of the top fundamental qualities of the leader. In essence, such a feature indicates that a person is passionate about the common goal, strives to be a team player, and makes every effort to reach a shared goal. As the history shows, none of the successful companies was uncoordinated by an influential, committed leader: Apple, Amazon, Microsoft – all of these companies are examples of dominant teams led by a dedicated leader. A committed leader also inspires his or her team to achieve common goals and put more effort into the shared activity. Besides, commitment is unlikely to be an innate feature; it instead comes with experience. This is so, since commitment implies dedicating oneself to the shared task, and one can reach it only via learning and continuous self-improvement.

Stress resistance is another incredibly important feature that every good leader should possess. This is because only a stress-resistant leader has sufficient capabilities to overcome any complexity and not let the anxiety and stress prevent him or her from making proper decisions. Besides, such a leader will most likely have a positive influence on the team, as long as leading by example will motivate the team members to attain the same emotional stability. What is so far familiar about stress resistance as an effective leader’s feature is that it can be either innate or attained. However, although some researchers admit that emotional stability is something one is born with, it is not entirely true; many people still put a great effort into self-improvement, changing the attitude to unfortunate situations, and so on. Therefore, being resistant to stress can be mostly attributed to a personality.

An ability to make high-quality decisions most likely determines the chances for an enterprise’s success. In particular, such quality is incredibly fundamental for a company of any size and professional orientation. Additionally, it is one of the top tasks of a good leader to make final decisions. What he or she should do implies brainstorming, discussing various opinions in the group, making forecasts, analyzing all the pros and cons. However, the leader is the one to make a final decision. Thereby, he is in charge of researching the market, discovering all the hidden truths, and analyzing the organization’s potential and capabilities to result in the most effective decision. As it flows logically from the latter, an ability to make sound quality decisions is purely a professional quality. This leads to the conclusion that one has to work hard to become a genuine leader and master the skill of making effective decisions. 

Overall, the leader may possess a multitude of different skills and master them perfectly. However, what has so far become transparent is that any leader, regardless of which team he leads, must possess three essential qualities. These qualities are commitment to the common goal, ability to handle and resist stress, and, finally, an ability to make effective decisions. All of the three qualities are most likely to be acquired over a lifetime. The statement below leads to the conclusion that even though some qualities can be innate, most are not the ones that leaders are born with. Hence, this answers an essential question: leadership feature is acquired, and not necessarily inborn.  

20 leadership essay topics

When coming up with your next leadership essay topic, it is imperative to brainstorm ideas and think of what leadership might be related to. If you are struggling with a topic of the importance of leadership essay or any relevant type of essay, you may quickly take a look at some of the possible topics we prepared for you:

• What are the main qualities of the leader?
• Successful Time Management as a feature of an effective leader
• The role that rhetoric plays in leadership
• The most exceptional leader in the history of the 20-th century
• The role of female leadership
• What are the challenges of the leader of the 21-st century?
• How college helps students develop leadership skills?
• Qualities of the leader that motivate people to follow them 
• Top things to avoid doing to become a team leader
• Examples of effective and ineffective leadership in the history
• Top techniques for developing leadership skills
• The interconnection of creativity and leadership 
• Is a university’s role fundamental in developing leadership skills?
• Dictatorship as an anti-example of leadership
• Liberal vs Authoritative leadership: which one works better?
• The influence of the leader’s role model on the followers’ mindset
• Main difficulties that the new leader may face in a new team
• Leadership of today vs leadership of the past: what has changed?
• Reasons why I want to become a member if the leadership program
• The role of cognitive abilities for the leader 

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Your Complete Guide to Writing a Compelling Leadership Essay

• Essay Writing Guides

True leadership lies at the heart of human well-being and success. Every positive step humanity ever took required great and responsible leadership. Therefore, people have studied leadership for many edges to unravel its different underlying factors. 

But how do you write a great essay that demonstrates your grasp of this sacred call? This post shares practical insights on how to write a leadership essay . Keep reading it to sharpen your skills in this assignment niche. 

What Is a Leadership Essay ?

Before proceeding to see how best to draft a perfect leadership essay, let’s answer the big question, “ What is leadership essay ?” A leadership essay is an assignment that falls under student application essays. This paper provides student admission officers with insight into your previous leadership experience. 

While this assignment appears to be specific, it acknowledges that the nature and perception of leadership can greatly vary depending on context and individuals. 

Leadership Essay Ideas and Topics

Selecting the best topics for your essays on leadership is vital. When composing this paper, you will focus on two main areas revolving around your leadership style and the memorable moment when you demonstrated leadership. Please note that these two areas usually overlap because while recounting that moment you demonstrated leadership, you will also show your leadership style. 

Whichever area you choose to focus on, use anecdotal evidence that proves the idea. Here, you can freely go with what feels best for you. Just ensure that the instance you use to demonstrate leadership is a real-life experience. This way, you will be best placed to choose a topic that makes your readers enjoy your paper.

How to Write a Leadership Essay

While this paper might sound like an introduction on leadership essay , it doesn’t mean you aren’t a leader or can’t lead people. So, how do you compose a killer leadership essay that impresses student admission officials? Here are ideas on how to write leadership essay that fetches good grades and makes a positive impression of your leadership potential. 

• As earlier hinted, you must research to choose a good topic that will impress your readers and portray you as an upcoming great leader.
• When writing about a leadership concept, take notes of some credible sources of information. Find out what others have written about that topic.  
• Outline your essay to organize all the details you want to include. This way, you won’t forget to include anything your readers need. 

Alternatively, you can check out past papers written on your chosen leadership topics. This way, you will have a strong basis for further expansion of your arguments and incorporating relevant ideas into your paper. However, remember to follow intellectual property laws to avoid plagiarism.

Formatting Your Leadership Essay

Your essay about leadership requires correct formatting to ensure everything flows well. Like other types of papers, leadership essays follow a five-paragraph pattern. It has an introduction, a body section, and a conclusion, depending on its word count or page limits.  

• Introduction: This section captures the reader’s interest, defines good leadership in relation to you, and directly addresses the given prompt.
• Body paragraphs: The body section gives some background information using anecdotes to describe your leadership style or moment.
• Conclusion: This finishing section is a compelling statement about your leadership attributes and capabilities. It also shows how you hope to apply them to your life and solve other people’s problems.

Tips for Writing a Leadership Essay

Do you want tips to help you write the best leadership essays that will garner good grades? Here are tips and insights to help you compose excellent leadership essays .

Define Good Leadership First

It would be best to define good leadership before proceeding. Take time to think about the best attributes that make one a great leader. Of these qualities you have figured out, which ones do you have? Outline the qualities you demonstrated in your memorable leadership moment. These attributes could be, but aren’t limited to:

• The ability to motivate and inspire others.
• Valuing others.

Lastly, review your list and select the traits you would wish to focus on. 

Moderate Your Humility 

Humility is an invaluable virtue that needs to flow through your papers. However, don’t overdo it when highlighting your leadership moment. So, draw the line between humility and self-humiliation. Just let your readers know what you did to benefit other people’s lives—period.

Don’t Use Another Person’s Voice and Style

When highlighting your leadership abilities and experience, remember to use your personal style and voice. Admission officers want to hear your voice and “see you” in the essay. Thus, allow them to see your personality in the paper the best way you know how to put it. You can use your reasonable sense of humor without overstepping boundaries. 

Tell a Story About Your Journey 

When addressing college admission officers, use your storytelling skills to describe your leadership journey. Give them an engaging story that shows them your true leadership potential. Your story should exhibit the traits you believe are instrumental in helping you lead others. The narrative should tell the readers about the following:

• That you faced a real-life challenge.
• How you solved the problem. 
• How your leadership style and potential have grown over the years.
• Any specific challenge or moment that has helped you grow in your leadership. 

Choose a Case in Which You Played a Key Role

Your leadership doesn’t necessarily mean you are always at the help of things or people. Instead, it means that you helped solve a problem that affected others. Thus, don’t fear highlighting a moment just because you were not calling the shots. Why? Because the officials are looking for the results you helped bring to the table and not necessarily the position you occupied in the story. 

Thus, you should focus more on the improved position others found themselves in after your intervention instead of the position you occupied. Also, don’t mind more about the story’s title, especially when brainstorming. If you tell an impactful story, the title will automatically fall in place. 

Acknowledge Other People’s Contributions

We said in previous sections that you should tell the reader more about your leadership skills and journey. Up to this point, so good. However, you shouldn’t become so egoistic that you assume you aren’t an island. Your personal statement should indeed be personal, but it’s better to remember that other people still have a stake in your journey. 

So, give other people their deserved credit wherever they contributed to your success. Credit others for their loyalty, hard work, and any insights they offer. This way, you will portray your leadership as inclusive and not a one-man army that gives all the credit to one man. 

Solve Problems

Lastly, your essay should focus on solving problems. There is no point in telling a long story if it doesn’t bring out this element. Why? Because leadership essentially solves other people’s problems. If this element is missing, then you were not leading. Most likely, you were merely occupying a position or exercising authority but not leading. 

Do you remember how you solved that issue on your team amicably? Did you negotiate peace between team members whose rift was threatening to tear the team apart? Then, tell it out because that is all the admission officers are looking for in the narrative. 

Leadership Essay Example

Nothing will power your leadership writing skills like a perfect example of leadership essay . This section has three excellent excerpts from the introductions, bodies, and conclusions of leadership papers. 

• Introduction 

The floor was full of press cameras and microphones ready to capture a critical event. The venue was filled with different types of furniture, leather seats, and the who-is-who in the media industry that could change the entire media industry. Until then, I never saw myself as a leader, although I knew that this event was bigger than me, a moment that I could positively influence for the benefit of everyone present.

Gaining experience is one of the pillars of growing up in one’s leadership journey. The reason is that leadership isn’t a theory or concept captured in the heads, arguments, or counterarguments of so-called leadership gurus. Instead, it’s about practical life engagements that solve people’s problems in the real world. Thus, experience is the best tool to provide leaders with the opportunities to face and solve problems, make sound decisions, and learn from their failures and successes. All great leaders cherish such experiences and use them to grow and develop their leadership. 

• Conclusion 

In my view, leadership is about solving problems and meeting people’s needs, period. That’s the big picture, and the rest are minor details. My ability to empathize with others and give them a helping hand instead of pointing fingers at them summarizes my leadership philosophy. I hope to use this drive to be on the solution side of life, to prescribe solutions instead of just describing and decrying problems. 

Final Word 

Do you want to boost your writing skills on the topic of leadership? We’ve created this post to give you valuable and practical insights to accelerate your leadership research and writing journey. We hope you will use them to compose a perfect essay on effective leadership .

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Leadership Essay for Students and Children

500+ words essay on leadership.

First of all, Leadership refers to the quality of leading people. Probably, it is one of the most important aspects of life. Above all, Leadership has led to the progress of human civilization . Without good Leadership, no organization or group can succeed. Furthermore, not everyone has this quality. This is because effective Leadership requires certain important characteristics.

Qualities of a Good Leader

First of all, confidence is the most quality. A leader must have strong self-confidence. A person lacking in confidence can never be a good leader. A person must be confident enough to ensure others follow him. The leader must have confidence in his decisions and actions. If he is unsure, then how can people have the desire to follow him.

A good leader must certainly inspire others. A leader must be a role model for his followers. Furthermore, he must motivate them whenever possible. Also, in difficult situations, a leader must not lose hope. How can a leader inspire people if he himself is hopeless?

Honesty is another notable quality of a leader. Honesty and Integrity are important to earn the love of followers. Above all, honesty is essential to win the trust of the people. Probably, every Leadership which loses trust is bound to fail. People will not work with full effort due to an immoral leader.

Good communication is a must for a good leader. This is because poor communication means the wrong message to followers. Furthermore, good communication will increase the rate of work. Also, the chances of mistakes by followers will reduce.

Another important quality is decision making. Above all, if a leader makes poor decisions then other qualities will not matter. Furthermore, good decision making ensures the success of the entire group. If the leader makes poor decisions, then the efforts of followers won’t matter.

A good leader must be an excellent innovator. He must display a creative attitude in his work. Most noteworthy, innovation is a guarantee of survival of a group or innovation. Without creative thinking, progress is not possible.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Real-Life Examples of Good Leadership

Mahatma Gandhi was an excellent example of a good leader. He was a staunch believer in non-violence. With his brilliant Leadership skills, he made the British leave India. Probably, this was the most unique independence struggle. This is because Gandhi got freedom without any violence.

Abraham Lincoln was another notable leader. Most noteworthy, he ended the slavery system in the United States. Consequently, he made many enemies. However, he was a man of massive self-confidence. His struggle against slavery certainly became an inspiration.

Sir Winston Churchill was a great patriotic Englishman. Most noteworthy, he led Britain in the 2nd World War. Furthermore, he was extremely inspirational. He inspired Britain to fight against Nazi Germany. His great communication motivated the entire country at a time of hopelessness.

To conclude, Leadership is required in probably every sphere of life. Good leadership is the door to success. In contrast, bad leadership is a guarantee of failure. Consequently, good leaders are what make the world go round.

FAQs on Leadership

Q.1 Which is the most important quality for being a good leader? A.1 The most important quality for being a good leader is self-confidence.

Q.2 Why Sir Winston Churchill is a good leader? A.2 Sir Winston Churchill is a good leader because he inspired Britain to fight in 2nd World War. Furthermore, his excellent communication also raised the motivation of his people.

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• How to Structure a Leadership Essay (Samples to Consider)

Leadership is a complex concept, but it’s essential for boosting your career. That’s why a leadership essay focuses on applying the theoretical models and concepts of successful management to real-life situations. 

If you don’t know where to start writing such a paper, please read on for professional tips!

What Is Leadership Essay?

A leadership essay is a paper that analyzes leadership concepts and their application to real-life situations that may involve everyday business management, crisis situations, and other scenarios. 

Every essay on leadership is about defining a concept. Then, it’s either comparing it to similar management tools or proving that it’s useful (or not).

While some students enjoy writing such papers, other learners hate them. The below samples will come in handy, no matter which group is yours.

What Does Leadership Mean to You? (Essay Sample)

It is one of the most popular topics for a leadership essay. If you need to write a paper like that, ask yourself:

• Who is a good leader?  
• What style do they use?  
• What are the situations when they might switch styles?

You may take a more personal approach to such an essay if your professor allows you to. In the example below, you will see the academic approach to this topic. It analyzes three leadership styles to discover which one corresponds to the meaning of leadership if one thinks of it as guidance and support.

Why I Want to Participate in a Leadership Program (Essay Sample)

It’s another example of a popular topic. Such papers often have a meaning beyond the classroom since they may decide whether you plan to participate in a specific program. It’s critical to make them as effective and compelling as possible.

A personalized approach is the best when it comes to essays like this. In the example below, you will see the paper that relies on individual beliefs and a personal life story to explain why it’s so important for the specific student to participate in the chosen program.

How to Write a Leadership Essay

Like every other essay, this paper has an introduction, several body paragraphs, and a conclusion summarizing your thoughts. (1) The most important part of the introduction is the final sentence,  aka  a thesis statement. That’s where you state your claim to prove or develop in your leadership essay.

Each body paragraph should correspond to the purpose of your essay. To ensure you don’t stray from the aim you’ve established in the thesis statement, write the topic sentences for all your paragraphs in the outline . In simple words, write the first sentence of every paragraph to define its development in advance and see if you cover everything you need.

And now, to the conclusion:

Its most essential element is thesis restatement or the first sentence of that paragraph. It’s not just paraphrasing your thesis; it’s also considering the new information you’ve discovered while writing the essay.

Structure :

• Introduction (End it with a thesis statement.)
• Body paragraphs (Each one starts with a topic sentence.)
• Conclusion (Start it with a thesis restatement.)

Understand the purpose of a leadership essay

When starting to write, think about why you’re creating this paper. Before you sit down and type the words, think about the ideas you want to convey and their meaning in your life:

Can this essay teach you to take responsibility? Or maybe will it help you understand how to be a leader in crisis situations? When you’ve answered the “why” question, begin outlining.

Build a strong thesis

Always start with your thesis statement. It will help incorporate your answer to that notorious “why” question into your essay. Once done, you can plan out the rest of the paper and start working on the body paragraphs as soon as you finish the introduction.

There’s another important tip —don’t rush into writing the conclusion before you finish everything else!

It might seem like a good idea to create a thesis statement and thesis restatement right off the bat. However, you’ll find yourself with more refreshing ideas after completing all the research and thinking necessary for the introduction and each body paragraph.

Decide on a structure; format accordingly

Even if your essay about leadership seems not so formal, and you can use personal pronouns, you still need a clear structure.

The best way to write any academic paper is to keep your introduction and conclusion as short as possible. (But no shorter than three sentences and four lines of text). 

Another important tip is to try making all your body paragraphs equal in length. That way, you’ll give the same attention to all the vital points of your essay.

Ready to Write Your Essay on Leadership Now?

Hopefully, this article has helped you understand the most critical elements of a leadership essay. 

Remember the structure, grammar, and appropriate academic style to create a top-level paper. Please don’t forget to answer the “why” question and remember  why  you’re writing. Then you’ll impress everyone with your results!

References:

• https://lsa.umich.edu/onsf/news-events/all-news/directors-blog/writing-leadership-essays.html
• Essay samples
• Essay writing
• Writing tips

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A Full Guide On How To Create Good Leadership Essay

Attempting a leadership essay isn’t such a daunting task, provided you have a grasp of the necessary information needed for a leadership paper. To write this special essay, you’ll need to redefine what exactly an essay on leadership is, how to choose the perfect topic, what should be in the content, and how to organize and structure the paper. Let’s delve deeper!

What Is A Leadership Essay?

A leadership essay is a well-formatted, organized and specialized type of formal writing which elaborates on a generic leadership topic or a superior human figure exercising a great influence on people and transmitting desire and optimism to achieve goals.

What Makes A Good Leader Essay?

There are some peculiarities needed to infuse in your write-up if, for example, you’re trying to learn how to write a leadership essay about yourself.

Also, if you’re just trying to produce leadership essays for college, then you’d first and foremost, learn  how to structure an essay , among other skills needed for this type of essay. Here are some qualities which can be found in a good essay about leadership.

• Choose a creative topic
• Avoid the passive voice (the active voice sounds stronger)
• Search for and study leadership essay examples
• Follow the appropriate essay style
• Focus on the essay structure
• Review the essay

How To Choose A Topic And Make A Great Title?

To choose a topic for a paper on leadership, you need to do some research on the concept of a leader (whether in the corporate industry, political society or even in the criminal world). You have to know the current leadership tendencies in organizational groups or society. You can choose to make a leader the point of your reference by explaining the consequences of their leadership abilities or inabilities.

In the body of your essay, don’t forget to mention several types of leadership styles and point out which one the subject portrays. Finally, you should not rule out making comparisons of famous leaders in the modern world or in history. An example of a great prompt for a leadership essay that deploys the comparison technique would be the leadership styles of President Trump and The Philippines’ Rodrigo Duterte as both leadership styles have been subjected to political reviews in recent times since their emergence as president of their respective countries.

Outline For A Leadership Essay

When writing a college or professional essay such as -long and short essays on leadership, planning is the key to perfection. The general outline for any essay, including leadership papers, include an introduction, the body paragraphs (which must be properly linked with transition words and/or phrases) and a recapitulating or finding-based conclusions. Here’s what your outline should look like:

Introduction

Knowing how to start a leadership essay depends on your introduction writing ability. The introduction is the gateway to the essay. Aided by punchy opening words, which are the hook, the purpose of the introduction is to draw the reader’s attention. The introduction presents the thesis statement and leaves the body paragraphs to sustain the reader’s interest.

Body Paragraphs

Having informed the readers of the topic of the essay in the introductory paragraph(s), the body paragraphs follow immediately.

Here, you can elaborate on the concept of leadership and do a meaningful interpretation of the subject – the topic or the thesis statement. Don’t forget to talk about your leadership philosophies and leadership experience in whatever capacity you might have found yourself in. Remember, people are more interested in personal experiences. They are great in helping to sustain readers’ attention.

Remember to state a thesis or hypothesis in the opening paragraphs – which is the intro. In each of the body paragraphs of the essay, try to relate your points to the thesis and use each point to prove its validity.

The conclusion is the end part of any well-structured essay. Its purpose is a no-brainer. You don’t want to leave your reader hanging by ending the essay cold turkey. Any standard essay without a conclusion is just as useless as an essay with no purpose. However, be careful not to present new ideas not mentioned in the body.

As mentioned, the conclusion serves to summarize the developed points, restate the thesis and/or present the findings. It is your last opportunity to create an impression on the reader, and this is where they take the message away. If your conclusion is weak, then we might say the essay’s objectives are not achieved.

What To Include In A Leadership Essay?

Here are some tips on what your leadership essay should include.

Your Definition Of A Good Leader And Why He Or She Is Important

Since your essay revolves around leadership and the traits of a good leader, you’ll need to define what it takes to be one. You may also take this opportunity to trash some common myths on what a leader is (i.e., a manager being confused for a leader).

For reference purposes, the concepts of leadership and being a good leader are explained:

Leadership is the quality of a leader and is that person capable of exercising a great influence on people and transmitting desire and optimism to achieve goals. A leader is a guide; someone with ideas and goals that can spread to a large group of people who still believe he or she can lead them in the right direction.

There are many types of leaders and therefore, of leadership since people generally always look for a person or group that shows them a direction to follow. You can find religious, political, social, or philosophical leadership. Leadership can be exercised in a traditional way. In many countries, there is a monarchy. The king or queen is a leader with limited political power, at least in western democracies, but still have the respect and consideration of the people. Their words continue to be heard and taken into account, especially in problematic times. There are other types of leadership that are not given by birth, such as legitimate leadership exercised by, for example, political leaders freely chosen by their people, or charismatic leaders.

In a way, charismatic leaders are what many understand as leaders since they are people who, by their way of behavior and characteristics, get many people to follow and adhere to their ideas. Some charismatic leaders can become legitimate leaders if they choose the path of politics. A traditional leader can also be charismatic. There have always been kings loved by his people more than others. But it can also be a person who prefers independent movements outside of power.

Charisma is the personal magnetism a person has. It is something very difficult to define but makes one capable of convincing others without too much effort, making people follow and trust the leading figure. Charisma can be used positively or negatively. The leaders of the most destructive sects are very charismatic people that are capable of convincing their followers of the eeriest ideas, including donating all their belongings or committing collective suicide.

Examples Of Your Leadership Style

In the content of your essay, you may consider giving an interpretation to your (or your chosen leader’s) leadership traits. Below are some examples of leadership qualities that separate a good leader from a bad leader.

What qualities are necessary for leadership

• Communication
• Emotional intelligence
• Strategic thinking
• Commitment and passion
• Knowledge and experience
• Leading by example
• Active listening
• Ability to enhance talent
• Setting goals and expectations
• People investment
• Discernment
• Concentration
• Positive attitude
• Problem-solving
• Self-discipline

Leadership Essay Example

To know how to do essay fast, you’ll need some ready-made essay examples for the sake of guidance and inspiration. You may find below a leadership essay written by Oliver Smith useful in your leadership paper.

Writing a leadership essay should be easy. A good essay on leadership starts from the hook, and the thesis statement in the introduction. The points developed in the body paragraphs help affirm the hypothesis. Finally, the conclusion offers the reader a summary through the restatement of the essay’s main idea.

As required for every essay type, your essay on leadership has to follow a definite style and format. Examples are MLA, APA, Chicago and AP styles. Take your time in choosing a creative but new topic and also in writing the content. By following this guide, everything should be as perfect as possible.

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Essays About Effective Leadership: Top 6 Examples and Prompts

Effective leadership is an essential trait that all people should strive to develop; here are 6 examples and topic ideas essays about effective leadership .

Many qualities make an inspiring and effective leader, such as vision, focus, and motivation. Like other skills, effective leadership can be innate or learned and practiced. When writing about leadership, include the strengths of an effective leader and how these qualities positively impact their team. You can also discuss weaknesses that can make a poor leader and how to combat these issues.

Here are 6 examples and 10 essay prompts to get you started on your next essay.

1. What Makes an Effective Leader? by Tony Gill

2. a guide to becoming an effective leader by yashi srivastava , 3. leadership: 5 practices of effective leaders by yvette gyles, 4. 6 characteristics of an effective leader by lauren landry, 5. six leadership lessons by order of the peaky blinders by andrew denton mbe, 6. leadership and the quest for certainty by keith grint,  1. what is effective leadership, 2. what does effective leadership look like in the corporate industry, 3. what to avoid to become an effective leader, 4. habits of an effective leader, 5. studying the mindsets of effective leaders, 6. effective leadership and its benefits to an organization, 7. indicators of strong and effective leadership, 8. poor leadership vs. effective leadership, 9. real-life examples of effective leadership, 10. how perception creates effective leadership.

“Work at using leadership styles that do not come naturally, styles that you find difficult. By becoming a well-rounded leader, it is easier to adapt your leadership technique for different situations.”

Gill uses a research-based approach to answer the central question of his essay. He looks at various sources that tackle the topic of effective leadership and stitch them together to make a comprehensive guide to effective leadership.

“Leadership is not a mystical quality, and anyone can become a more effective leader by developing some important skills.”

The author, Yashi Srivastava, defines what differentiates leaders from managers first. Then, she provides some dos and don’ts of an effective leader and how people could apply them in different situations. 

“Whereas as leaders, we need to be concerned about creativity and innovation, making positive changes, and seeking to challenge and push boundaries.”

Gyles specializes in leadership training for companies, so her approach to the essay is geared more toward company leaders. Nevertheless, it’s highly educational for all those interested in learning effective leadership meant for dealing with various people and guiding people to a direction or goal.

“Effective leaders don’t avoid the hard truths. Instead, they take responsibility for their decisions, maintain optimism, and focus on charting a new course of action.”

Landry’s essay focuses on her six top characteristics of an effective leader. Some of these characteristics are what you’d expect to see in an essay like this. Entries like transparency are less common but equally important in practicing effective leadership.

“Rolling your sleeves up with everyone else not only sets an example, it makes people want to follow you.”

Fiction mirrors life, and it’s one of the best sources to learn lessons that are otherwise too complex or vague to see in real life. Despite his penchant for crime and violence, Thomas Shelby is undeniably one of the most influential leaders on TV. This essay details the leadership skills used by a 1920s gangster character and how you can use them in modern life to become an effective and inspiring leader.

“Leadership is often associated with certainty; indeed, it is sometimes reduced to the decision-making process such that anything which smacks of uncertainty is categorized as weakness or a failure of leadership.”  

Grint’s essay on leadership explores the factors around leaders’ certainty or confidence. Of course, not all leaders have a clear answer to a problem, which is fine. The important thing is that they have a mindset to look for solutions and a modicum of honesty about their lack of uncertainty.

10 Essay Prompts on Effective Leadership

It’s your turn to express and explore your view of effective leadership. Use these prompts to work out your approach or steps to effective leadership. Here are ten prompts about effective leadership to help you get started on your essay.

Defining effective leadership is one way to explore your understanding of the idea. Remember that your definition of effective leadership could vastly differ from the other essays you’ve read. It’s also a great starting point for new people who want to warm up to the habit of writing essays about leadership.

Essay writing tip: If you’re new to writing essays, consider simplifying your essay. Try shortening it down to a five-paragraph essay .

You can find many leaders in the corporate industry, but some are more effective than others. Use this prompt to work out how you envision effective leadership in the corporate world. You can also apply the same idea to other fields, like at school, among friends or peer groups, or in the family. Consider carefully the field or organization you’d like to use for the essay.

You may have personal experience with a person who could have been an effective leader if not for their bad habits. You might have been that person and realized how your bad habits had held you back from practicing effective leadership. This is your chance to write about your experience, whether via observing someone else or through personal growth.

Practicing effective leadership goes beyond having direction and a vision for the organization. Becoming an effective leader also takes time and patience. Use this prompt to discuss the habits of great leaders and how these habits make them effective in their leadership.

Get into the mind of a leader and explore how such a person might become more effective in their leadership. This topic may involve discussing various people, whether real-life persons or fictional characters. Research how they think, handle their role and manage the people they lead.

Understanding the benefits of effective leadership is one of the best ways to drive someone to practice and adopt it. Use this prompt to detail how an effective leader boosts morale, productivity, motivation, communication quality, and confidence in the people they lead. It applies to all organizations, like businesses, teams, and networks.

How do you know whether a person’s leadership style and approach are effective or not? Use this essay topic to discover the different methods of measuring effective leadership. Read about the different measurements and indicators of leadership used in corporations and organizations.

Leaders can be good, mediocre, or bad in their leadership approaches and styles. This essay prompt will push you to compare bad leadership and effective leadership. You can also add methods of improving one’s leadership style to become more effective.

You can find a lot of excellent leaders throughout history. This idea focuses on discussing different leaders, their leadership styles, and levels of effectiveness.

Interpersonal skills are vital to great leadership. Perception of others’ feelings and thoughts can help you become an even better and more effective leader. Discuss how intuitiveness positively affects one’s leadership style. 

Check out our list of great essay writing topics for students for more topics to improve your writing.

Maria Caballero is a freelance writer who has been writing since high school. She believes that to be a writer doesn't only refer to excellent syntax and semantics but also knowing how to weave words together to communicate to any reader effectively.

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What is leadership?

All leaders, to a certain degree, do the same thing. Whether you’re talking about an executive, manager, sports coach, or schoolteacher, leadership is about guiding and impacting outcomes, enabling groups of people to work together to accomplish what they couldn’t do working individually. In this sense, leadership is something you do, not something you are. Some people in formal leadership positions are poor leaders, and many people exercising leadership have no formal authority. It is their actions, not their words, that inspire trust and energy.

Get to know and directly engage with senior McKinsey experts on leadership

Aaron De Smet is a senior partner in McKinsey’s New Jersey office, Carolyn Dewar is a senior partner in the Bay Area office, Scott Keller is a senior partner in the Southern California office, and Vik Malhotra and Ramesh Srinivasan are senior partners in the New York office.

What’s more, leadership is not something people are born with—it is a skill you can learn. At the core are mindsets, which are expressed through observable behaviors , which then lead to measurable outcomes. Is a leader communicating effectively or engaging others by being a good listener? Focusing on behaviors lets us be more objective when assessing leadership effectiveness. The key to unlocking shifts in behavior is focusing on mindsets, becoming more conscious about our thoughts and beliefs, and showing up with integrity as our full authentic selves.

There are many contexts and ways in which leadership is exercised. But, according to McKinsey analysis of academic literature as well as a survey of nearly 200,000 people in 81 organizations all over the world, there are four types of behavior that account for 89 percent of leadership effectiveness :

• being supportive
• operating with a strong results orientation
• seeking different perspectives
• solving problems effectively

Effective leaders know that what works in one situation will not necessarily work every time. Leadership strategies must reflect each organization’s context and stage of evolution. One important lens is organizational health, a holistic set of factors that enable organizations to grow and succeed over time. A situational approach  enables leaders to focus on the behaviors that are most relevant as an organization becomes healthier.

Senior leaders must develop a broad range of skills to guide organizations. Ten timeless topics are important for leading nearly any organization, from attracting and retaining talent  to making culture a competitive advantage. A 2017 McKinsey book, Leading Organizations: Ten Timeless Truths (Bloomsbury, 2017), goes deep on each aspect.

How is leadership evolving?

In the past, leadership was called “management,” with an emphasis on providing technical expertise and direction. The context was the traditional industrial economy command-and-control organization, where leaders focused exclusively on maximizing value for shareholders. In these organizations, leaders had three roles: planners (who develop strategy, then translate that strategy into concrete steps), directors (who assign responsibilities), or controllers (who ensure people do what they’ve been assigned and plans are adhered to).

What are the limits of traditional management styles?

Traditional management was revolutionary in its day and enormously effective in building large-scale global enterprises that have materially improved lives over the past 200 years. However, with the advent of the 21st century, this approach is reaching its limits.

For one thing, this approach doesn’t guarantee happy or loyal managers or workers. Indeed, a large portion of American workers—56 percent— claim their boss is mildly or highly toxic , while 75 percent say dealing with their manager is the most stressful part of their workday.

For 21st-century organizations operating in today’s complex business environment, a fundamentally new and more effective approach to leadership is emerging. Leaders today are beginning to focus on building agile, human-centered, and digitally enabled organizations able to thrive in today’s unprecedented environment and meet the needs of a broader range of stakeholders (customers, employees, suppliers, and communities, in addition to investors).

What is the emerging new approach to leadership?

This new approach to leadership is sometimes described as “ servant leadership .” While there has been some criticism of the nomenclature, the idea itself is simple: rather than being a manager directing and controlling people, a more effective approach is for leaders to be in service of the people they lead. The focus is on how leaders can make the lives of their team members easier—physically, cognitively, and emotionally. Research suggests this mentality can enhance both team performance and satisfaction.

In this new approach, leaders practice empathy, compassion, vulnerability, gratitude, self-awareness, and self-care. They provide appreciation and support, creating psychological safety so their employees are able to collaborate, innovate, and raise issues as appropriate. This includes celebrating achieving the small steps on the way to reaching big goals and enhancing people’s well-being through better human connections. These conditions have been shown to allow for a team’s best performance.

More broadly, developing this new approach to leadership can be expressed as making five key shifts that include, build on, and extend beyond traditional approaches:

• beyond executive to visionary, shaping a clear purpose that resonates with and generates holistic impact for all stakeholders
• beyond planner to architect, reimagining industries and innovating business systems that are able to create new levels of value
• beyond director to catalyst, engaging people to collaborate in open, empowered networks
• beyond controller to coach, enabling the organization to constantly evolve through rapid learning, and enabling colleagues to build new mindsets, knowledge, and skills
• beyond boss to human, showing up as one’s whole, authentic self

Together, these shifts can help a leader expand their repertoire and create a new level of value for an organization’s stakeholders. The last shift is the most important, as it is based on developing a new level of consciousness and awareness of our inner state. Leaders who look inward  and take a journey of genuine self-discovery make profound shifts in themselves and their lives; this means they are better able to benefit their organization. That involves developing “profile awareness” (a combination of a person’s habits of thought, emotions, hopes, and behavior in different circumstances) and “state awareness” (the recognition of what’s driving a person to take action). Combining individual, inward-looking work with outward-facing actions can help create lasting change.

Introducing McKinsey Explainers : Direct answers to complex questions

Leaders must learn to make these five shifts at three levels : transforming and evolving personal mindsets and behaviors; transforming teams to work in new ways; and transforming the broader organization by building new levels of agility, human-centeredness, and value creation into the entire enterprise’s design and culture.

An example from the COVID-19 era offers a useful illustration of this new approach to leadership. In pursuit of a vaccine breakthrough, at the start of the pandemic Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel increased the frequency of executive meetings  from once a month to twice a week. The company implemented a decentralized model enabling teams to work independently and deliver on the bold goal of providing 100 million doses of vaccines in 12 months. “The pace was unprecedented,” Bancel said.

What is the impact of this new approach to leadership?

This new approach to leadership is far more effective. While the dynamics are complex, countless studies show empirical links among effective leadership, employee satisfaction, customer loyalty, and profitability.

How can leaders empower employees?

Empowering employees , surprisingly enough, might mean taking a more hands-on leadership approach. Organizations whose leaders successfully empower others through coaching are nearly four times more likely to make swift, good decisions and outperform other companies . But this type of coaching isn’t always natural for those with a more controlling or autocratic style.

Here are five tips to get started  if you’re a leader looking to empower others:

• Provide clear rules, for example, by providing guardrails for what success looks like and communicating who makes which decisions. Clarity and boundary structures like role remits and responsibilities help to contain any anxiety associated with work and help teams stay focused on their primary tasks.
• Establish clear roles, say, by assigning one person the authority to make certain decisions.
• Avoid being a complicit manager—for instance, if you’ve delegated a decision to a team, don’t step in and solve the problem for them.
• Address culture and skills, for instance, by helping employees learn how to have difficult conversations.
• Begin soliciting personal feedback from others, at all levels of your organization, on how you are experienced as a leader.

How can leaders communicate effectively?

Good, clear communication is a leadership hallmark. Fundamental tools of effective communication  include:

• defining and pointing to long-term goals
• listening to and understanding stakeholders
• creating openings for dialogue
• communicating proactively

And in times of uncertainty, these things are important for crisis communicators :

• give people what they need, when they need it
• communicate clearly, simply, and frequently
• choose candor over charisma
• revitalize a spirit of resilience
• distill meaning from chaos
• support people, teams, and organizations to build the capability for self-sufficiency

Learn more about our People & Organizational Performance Practice .

Is leadership different in a hybrid workplace?

A leader’s role may look slightly different in remote or hybrid workplace settings . Rather than walking around a physical site, these leaders might instead model what hybrid looks like, or orchestrate work based on tasks, interactions, or purpose. Being communicative and radiating positivity  can go a long way. Leaders need to find other ways to be present and accessible, for example, via virtual drop-in sessions, regular company podcasts, or virtual townhalls. Leaders in these settings may also need to find new ways to get authentic feedback. These tactics can include pulse surveys or learning to ask thoughtful follow-up questions that reveal useful management insights.

Additional considerations, such as making sure that in-person work and togetherness has a purpose, are important. Keeping an eye on inclusivity in hybrid work  is also crucial. Listening to what employees want, with an eye to their lived experience, will be vital to leaders in these settings. And a focus on output, outcomes, results, and impact—rather than arbitrary norms about time spent in offices— may be a necessary adaptation in the hybrid era .

How should CEOs lead in this new world?

Just as for leadership more broadly, today’s environment requires CEOs to lead very differently. Recent research indicates that one-third to one-half of new CEOs fail within 18 months.

What helps top performers thrive today? To find out, McKinsey led a research effort to identify the CEOs who achieved breakaway success. We examined 20 years’ worth of data on 7,800 CEOs—from 3,500 public companies across 70 countries and 24 industries. The result is the McKinsey book CEO Excellence: The Six Mindsets That Distinguish the Best Leaders from the Rest (Scribner, March 2022). Watch an interview with the authors for more on what separates the best CEOs from the rest .

Getting perspective on leadership from CEOs themselves is enlightening—and illustrates the nuanced ways in which the new approach to leadership described above can be implemented in practice. Here are a few quotes drawn from McKinsey’s interviews with these top-level leaders :

• “I think the fundamental role of a leader is to look for ways to shape the decades ahead, not just react to the present, and to help others accept the discomfort of disruptions to the status quo.” — Indra Nooyi , former chairman and CEO of PepsiCo
• “The single most important thing I have to do as CEO is ensure that our brand continues to be relevant.” — Chris Kempczinski , CEO of McDonald’s
• “Leaders of other enterprises often define themselves as captains of the ship, but I think I’m more the ship’s architect or designer. That’s different from a captain’s role, in which the route is often fixed and the destination defined.” — Zhang Ruimin , CEO of Haier
• “I think my leadership style [can be called] ‘collaborative command.’ You bring different opinions into the room, you allow for a really great debate, but you understand that, at the end of the day, a decision has to be made quickly.” — Adena Friedman , CEO of Nasdaq
• “We need an urgent refoundation of business and capitalism around purpose and humanity. To find new ways for all of us to lead so that we can create a better future, a more sustainable future.” — Hubert Joly , former chairman and CEO of Best Buy

What is leadership development?

Leaders aren’t born; they learn to lead over time. Neuroplasticity refers to the power of the brain to form new pathways and connections through exposure to novel, unfamiliar experiences. This allows adults to adapt, grow, and learn new practices throughout our lifetimes.

When it comes to leadership within organizations, this is often referred to as leadership development. Programs, books, and courses on leadership development abound, but results vary.

Leadership development efforts fail for a variety of reasons. Some overlook context; in those cases, asking a simple question (something like “What, precisely, is this program for?”) can help. Others separate reflections on leadership from real work, or they shortchange the role of adjusting leaders’ mindsets, feelings, assumptions, and beliefs, or they fail to measure results.

So what’s needed for successful leadership development? Generally, developing leaders is about creating contexts where there is sufficient psychological safety in combination with enough novelty and unfamiliarity to cultivate new leadership practices in response to stimuli. Leadership programs that successfully cultivate leaders are also built around “placescapes”—these are novel experiences, like exploring wilderness trails, practicing performing arts, or writing poetry.

When crafting a leadership development program, there are six ingredients to incorporate  that lead to true organizational impact:

• Set up for success:
• Focus your leadership transformation on driving strategic objectives and initiatives.
• Commit the people and resources needed.
• Be clear about focus:
• Engage a critical mass of leaders to reach a tipping point for sustained impact.
• Zero in on the leadership shifts that drive the greatest value.
• Execute well:
• Architect experiential journeys to maximize shifts in mindsets, capabilities, and practices.
• Measure for holistic impact.

A well-designed and executed leadership development program can help organizations build leaders’ capabilities broadly, at scale. And these programs can be built around coaching, mentoring, and having people try to solve challenging problems—learning skills by applying them in real time to real work.

What are mentorship, sponsorship, and apprenticeship?

Mentorship, sponsorship, and apprenticeship can also be part of leadership development efforts. What are they? Mentorship refers to trusted counselors offering guidance and support on various professional issues, such as career progression. Sponsorship is used to describe senior leaders who create opportunities to help junior colleagues succeed. These roles are typically held by more senior colleagues, whereas apprenticeship could be more distributed. Apprenticeship  describes the way any colleague with domain expertise might teach others, model behaviors, or transfer skills. These approaches can be useful not only for developing leaders but also for helping your company upskill or reskill employees quickly and at scale.

For more in-depth exploration of these topics, see McKinsey’s insights on People & Organizational Performance . Learn more about McKinsey’s Leadership & Management  work—and check out job opportunities if you’re interested in working at McKinsey.

Articles referenced include:

• “ Author Talks: What separates the best CEOs from the rest? ,” December 15, 2021, Carolyn Dewar , Scott Keller , and Vik Malhotra
• “ From the great attrition to the great adaptation ,” November 3, 2021, Aaron De Smet  and Bill Schaninger
• “ The boss factor: Making the world a better place through workplace relationships ,” September 22, 2020, Tera Allas  and Bill Schaninger
• " Leading agile transformation: The new capabilities leaders need to build 21st century organizations ," October 1, 2018, Aaron De Smet , Michael Lurie , and Andrew St. George
• " Leading Organizations: Ten Timeless Truths ," 2017, Scott Keller  and Mary Meaney
• “ Leadership in context ,” January 1, 2016, Michael Bazigos, Chris Gagnon, and Bill Schaninger
• “ Decoding leadership: What really matters ,” January 1, 2015, Claudio Feser, Fernanda Mayol, and Ramesh Srinivasan

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Anyone Can Learn to Be a Better Leader

• Monique Valcour

You just have to put in the work.

Occupying a leadership position is not the same thing as leading. To lead, you must be able to connect, motivate, and inspire a sense of ownership of shared objectives. Heightening your capacity to lead others requires being able to see how you think and act, and how your behavior affects others. Leading well requires a continuous journey of personal development. Yet people in leadership roles often eschew the long and challenging work of deepening self-insight in favor of chasing after management “tools”— preferably the “quick ’n’ easy” kind, such as personality type assessments that reduce employees to a few simplistic behavioral tendencies. Tools can be handy aids to good leadership. But none of them can take the place of fearless introspection, feedback seeking, and committed efforts to behavioral change for greater effectiveness and increased positive impact on others.

When you’re an individual contributor, your ability to use your technical expertise to deliver results is paramount. Once you’ve advanced into a leadership role, however, the toolkit that you relied on to deliver individual results rarely equips you to succeed through others. Beware of falling into the logical trap of “if I can do this work well, I should be able to lead a team of people who do this work.” This would be true if leading others were akin to operating a more powerful version of the same machinery you operated previously. But it’s not; machinery doesn’t perform better or worse based on what it thinks about you and how you make it feel, while humans do .

• MV Monique Valcour is an executive coach, keynote speaker, and management professor. She helps clients create and sustain fulfilling and high-performance jobs, careers, workplaces, and lives. moniquevalcour

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• Published December 1, 2023
• 9 Minute Read

12 Characteristics of a Good Leader

Leaders shape our teams, organizations, communities, and world.

We need good leaders to help guide us and make the essential decisions, big and small, that keep things moving forward.

Our society is usually quick to identify a bad leader, but how can you identify a good one? What would most people say are the qualities of a good leader?

What Good Leadership Looks Like

Based upon our decades of research and experience working with leaders at thousands of organizations around the world, we’ve found that the best leaders consistently possess certain fundamental qualities and skills. Here are 12 essential leadership traits.

12 Essential Leadership Qualities

• Self-Awareness
• Communication
• Learning Agility
• Collaboration

TIP: Download an action guide & summary of these essential characteristics of a good leader in PDF format to keep this list of leadership qualities at your fingertips as a reminder.

1. Self-Awareness

While this is a more inwardly focused trait, self-awareness and humility are paramount qualities of leadership. The better you understand yourself and recognize your own strengths and weaknesses, the more effective you can be as a leader. Do you know how other people view you and understand how you show up at work and at home? Take the time to learn about the 4 aspects of self-awareness and how to strengthen each component.

Treating people with respect on a daily basis is one of the most important things a leader can do. It helps ease tensions and conflict, fosters trust, and improves your effectiveness.  Creating a culture of respect  is about more than just the absence of disrespect. Respectfulness can be shown in many different ways, but it often starts with showing you truly value others’ perspectives and making an effort to build belonging in the workplace — both critical components of supporting equity, diversity, and inclusion.

3. Compassion

Compassion is one of the most powerful and important acts of leadership. It’s more than simply showing empathy or even listening and seeking to understand — as compassion requires leaders to act on what they learn. After someone shares a concern or speaks up about something, they won’t feel truly heard if their leader doesn’t then take some type of meaningful action on the information, our researchers have found. This is the core of compassionate leadership , and it helps to build trust, increase collaboration, and decrease turnover across organizations.

Motivating others and garnering commitment are essential parts of leadership. Purpose-driven leaders ensure they connect their team’s daily tasks and the values of individual team members to the overall direction of the organization. This can help employees find meaning in their work — which increases engagement, inspires trust, and drives priorities forward. You’ll want to communicate the vision in ways that help others understand it, remember it, and go on to share it themselves.

5. Communication

Effective leadership and effective communication are intertwined . The best leaders are skilled communicators who can communicate in a variety of ways, from transmitting information and storytelling to soliciting input and using active listening techniques . They can communicate well both orally and in writing, and with a wide range of people from different backgrounds, roles, levels, geographies, and more. The quality and effectiveness of communication among leaders at your organization will directly affect the success of your business strategy, too.

6. Learning Agility

Learning agility is the ability to know what to do when you don’t know what to do. If you’re a “quick study” or are able to excel in unfamiliar circumstances, you might already be learning agile. But anybody can foster and increase learning agility through intentional practice and effort. After all, great leaders are really great learners.

7. Collaboration

The most effective leaders can work with a variety of colleagues of different social identities , locations, roles, and experiences. As the world has become more complex and interconnected, good leaders find themselves spanning boundaries and learning to work across various types of divides and organizational silos. When leaders value and embrace collaboration, whether within their teams or cross-functionally, several benefits arise — including increased innovation, higher-performing teams, and a more engaged and empowered workforce.

8. Influence

For some people, “influence” may sound unseemly. But as a leader, you must be able to influence others to get the work done — you cannot do it all alone. Being able to persuade people through thoughtful use of appropriate influencing tactics is an important trait of inspiring, effective leaders. Influence is quite different from manipulation, and it needs to be done authentically and transparently. It requires high levels of emotional intelligence and trust.

9. Integrity

Integrity is an essential leadership trait for the individual and the organization. It’s especially important for top-level executives who are charting the organization’s course and making countless other significant decisions. Our research has found that leader integrity is a potential blind spot for organizations , so make sure you reinforce the importance of honesty and integrity to managers at all levels.

10. Courage

It can be hard to speak up at work, whether you want to voice a new idea, provide feedback to a direct report, or flag a concern for someone above you. That’s part of the reason courage is a key leadership trait — it takes courage to do what’s right! Leaders who promote high levels of psychological safety in the workplace enable their people to speak up freely and share candid concerns without fear of repercussions. This fosters a  coaching culture that supports courage and truth-telling . Courage enables both team members and leaders to take bold actions that move things in the right direction.

11. Gratitude

Being thankful can lead to higher self-esteem, reduced depression and anxiety, and better sleep. Sincere gratitude can even make you a better leader. Yet few people regularly say “thank you” in work settings, even though most people say they’d be willing to work harder for an appreciative boss. The best leaders know how to show frequent gratitude in the workplace .

12. Resilience

Resilience is more than the ability to bounce back from obstacles and setbacks — it’s the ability to respond adaptively to challenges. Practicing resilient leadership means you’ll project a positive outlook that will help others maintain the emotional strength they need to commit to a shared vision, and the courage to move forward and overcome setbacks. A good leader focuses on resilience, both taking care of themselves and also prioritizing leading employee wellbeing , too — thereby enabling better performance for themselves and their teams.

Download a PDF action guide and summary of these characteristics of a good leader, so you always have a visual reminder available of these 12 qualities of good leadership.

Develop the Characteristics of a Good Leader in Yourself & Others

Our 3 core beliefs about leadership & leadership development.

At the Center for Creative Leadership (CCL)®, we’ve been researching the qualities of a good leader and the role of leadership for over 5 decades. Here are 3 of our core beliefs about good leaders and effective leadership.

Good leaders are made, not born.

First, we believe that leaders are made, not born. Put another way, leadership is a skill that can be developed . Good leaders are molded through experience, continued study, intentional effort, and adaptation. So you can strengthen any of these 12 characteristics of a good leader, if you’re open to growth, use your experiences to fuel development , and put in the time and effort toward self-improvement.

Similarly, organizations can help their people hone these top leadership qualities by providing ample opportunities for training, offering support for learning from challenges, and providing access to coaching and mentoring programs .

Leadership is a social process.

It’s also essential to recognize that  leadership is less about one strong or charismatic individual, and more about a group of people working collectively to achieve results together . If you demonstrate several of the characteristics of a good leader, but fail to grasp this key point, chances are you won’t get very far on your own. You may be well-liked and respected, but it will be challenging to accomplish team or organizational goals. At CCL, we like to say that the  outcomes of leadership are about creating direction, alignment, and commitment, or DAC , within a group.

Good leadership never stops.

Also, we believe that leadership isn’t a destination, it’s a journey   — it’s something that you’ll have to work at regularly throughout your career, regardless of what level you reach in your organization or what industry you work in. Different teams, projects, and situations will provide different challenges and require different leadership qualities and competencies to succeed. So you will need to be able to continue to apply these leadership characteristics in different ways throughout your career. Just continually keep learning and growing, and you’ll be an agile learner with a long career .

We Can Help You Develop the Qualities of a Good Leader

Organizations can strengthen leadership qualities and foster deeper levels of engagement at work through providing a variety of on-the-job learning experiences, mentoring, and formal development opportunities. At CCL, we have many award-winning leadership solutions with clients around the world, and we’d be honored to work with you and your organization as well.

But individuals don’t have to wait to begin strengthening these leadership characteristics within themselves. If you decide you want to work proactively on developing your leadership qualities and skills,  download our action guide & visual summary  of this content. And get our tips on how to  convince your boss to make an investment in you  and your future. We’re here to support you every step of the way on your journey to becoming a better leader!

Ready to Take the Next Step?

After you download the 12 Characteristics of a Good Leader , keep on learning and growing: never miss our exclusive leadership insights and tips — subscribe to our newsletters to get our research-based articles, webinars, resources, and guides delivered straight to your inbox. 

Keep these qualities of a good leader top of mind in the future: download a PDF summary of this article as an action guide and visual reminder of the leadership qualities to nurture in yourself, on your team, and at your organization in the future.

This article was written by our Leading Effectively staff, who analyze our decades of pioneering, expert research and experiences in the field to share content that will help leaders at every level. Subscribe to our emails to get the latest research-based leadership articles and insights sent straight to your inbox.

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What to explore next.

With over 30 pages of insights gleaned from our research, this collection of resources includes actionable tips and team discussion questions to help you become a (better) leader with a focus on compassion, wellbeing, and belonging.

This introduction to our leadership philosophy explains how direction, alignment, and commitment (the elements of our DAC framework) are key in how leadership works, connecting exponential potential with collective progress.

Want to set yourself apart as a leader? Arm yourself with these 6 essential skills. Our global research study found that organizations will need these 6 key qualities that their leaders presently lack.

Do you know how to effectively communicate at work? It's the core of everything we do, and yet many of us have significant room for improvement. Get our top tips for leaders.

Stepping into a management role requires a fundamental shift of identity. Learn how to be an effective boss and succeed in your new role with our leadership tips for first-time managers.

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Leadership: what makes a good leader essay sample, example.

Though people who manage others are often self-serving, true leaders want those they work for to accomplish team goals. According to Meredith Moore Crosby from Leverette Weekes , “The jump from individual contributor to leader is a mindset shift to care about the broader organization outside of daily responsibilities. Leaders take on challenges instead of waiting for assignments. Leaders build organizations and help managers understand their function. Leaders study the organization and contribute beyond their role by developing managers” (Council, Forbes Coaches). Unlike managers, leaders are more holistic workers rather than micromanagers.

Leaders, besides wanting their teams to succeed, are also visionaries. Alan Zimmerman, with a PhD in Communication, notes that, “Many people would argue that the best CEO (maybe not the best person) of the 20th century was Jack Welch, the former chairman of General Electric . When asked for his thoughts on leadership, he echoed the same sentiment. Leadership starts with vision” (“Leaders Are Visionaries”). Real leaders seek to challenge the norm and look for fresh ideas in their sphere of work. Through these visions, they inspire their subordinates.

And speaking of inspiration, leaders are known to be profound inspirers. They can easily increase the morale of a group, and push those that are downtrodden towards a common goal. As leadership coach Kris McCrea Scrutchfield says, “A leader creates a path forward with people using curiosity to hear ideas from their perspective. They inspire themselves and others to be the best they can be while stretching beyond what’s comfortable. Being a leader begins from within, not outside ourselves” (Council, Forbes Coaches). Commonly, leaders begin by being self-inspiring. They know how to motivate themselves, and from this basis, they know how to motivate others.

In addition to motivation, leaders act as guides. Instead of being forceful with directions, leaders help others understand what they need to do complete certain tasks without being oppressive. They have the best in mind for their team, and want to bring out the best out of every individual. Another part of being a guide is that leaders are continuously examples of what to be within a company, an organization, or a team. This means that leaders need to be ethical, well-mannered, and diligent in order to impress upon his or her staff.

Despite all the amazing qualities leaders possess, they cannot do without self-assessment. According to the University of Notre Dame, “Knowing your areas of weakness does not make you weak; on the contrary, it allows you to delegate to others who have those abilities, in order to achieve the common goal. Rather than clinging to the false belief that they can do it all, great leaders hire people who complement, rather than supplement, their skills. Working on your areas of weaknesses will improve your leadership ability – and recognizing them makes you more human” (“What Makes an Effective Leader”). The worst thing for a leader is to get egotistic about his or her position, and to believe he or she can do it all, or that being in a position is all that matters.

Leaders come in all shapes and sizes, but there are several qualities that form what a great leader is. Commonly, competent leaders desire those under him or her to succeed, are visionary in their work and goals, are inspiring to the masses, guide others towards an end point, and are proficient in self-assessment. As mentioned before, there are many other characteristics that comprise great leaders. However, these are the main ones that appear in the majority of shining examples of leaders.

Works Cited

Council, Forbes Coaches. “What Makes A Good Leader? Key Differences Between Management And Leadership.” Forbes , Forbes Magazine, 21 Nov. 2017,

Zimmerman, Alan. “Leaders Are Visionaries.” https://www.drzimmerman.com/leadership-motivation/leaders-are-visionaries.

“What Makes an Effective Leader.” Notredameonline.com , www.notredameonline.com/resources/leadership-and-management/what-makes-an-effective-leader/#.W5o1Mp9fjCI.

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How to Write Leadership Essay in College

Table of contents

If there is one skill that is revered across educational institutions and organizations, it is leadership.

Being the boss or in a position of power is not enough to make you a good leader. Effective leadership comes from the impact you have on people, the respect you garner, and how you manage to walk the talk.

Owing how important the role leadership plays in our personal and professional life, it’s no surprise that students are asked to write leadership essays in college.

The purpose of this assignment is to get them to understand the concept of leadership, reflect on their own experiences, or even assess the leadership style of a prominent leader. Apart from writing skills, this assignment also puts students’ critical thinking skills to the test.

This article will tell you what goes into a good leadership outline, along with 12 practical essay writing tips.

12 Tips on How to Write a Good Leadership Essays

If you think you can go ahead and write an essay on your favorite leader, you are mistaken - grade 5 is long gone.

Leadership essay writing is a lot more layered. It requires you to demonstrate your understanding of the concept excitingly and back it up with solid examples and research.

Don’t panic. Here are 12 tips to help you write powerful and effective leadership essays.

Brainstorm interesting topic ideas

If you are fortunate, you will be given a specific leadership essay topic to write on, but most of the time, students are given the flexibility to come up with a topic of their choice.

Leadership essays need to be personal. By the end of it, the reader needs to understand your leadership abilities. Now you can throw light on that aspect of yourself by recounting your leadership experiences, relating it to the leadership style of a prominent leader, or even comparing two leaders. Regardless of your chosen topic, it’s important to connect it back to yourself.

So, start with enlisting potential topic ideas that would help you throw light on your leadership abilities. Don’t rush through this step - take your time to pick a suitable topic.

Think out-of-the-box

Surprise your audience by thinking of innovative topics and ideas for your leadership essay.

Plain and dull essays are predictable and can get boring after being overused by multiple students for their multiple essays. Your professors can also feel that you are trying to play it safe by not thinking outside the box and giving you an average grade for your essay.

Extraordinary and new ideas get the attention they deserve, and your readers are more likely to find them interesting and get hooked on your essay right at the beginning.

Hook the reader

The introductory paragraph is a crucial one as it lays the foundation for the rest of the essay. Does your introduction entice the reader to know more, or does it induce yawns? It all depends on how you choose to begin your essay.

It’s essential to start with a bang and write an interesting hook from the first sentence. A good hook is written in 1 - 2 sentences and manages to get the reader interested. You can start with a funny experience, raise a startling question, or state an interesting fact - there are various ways to begin your leadership essay and capture the reader’s attention.

Use active voice

“I performed the task with great precision” vs. “The task was performed with great precision” - what is more impactful in the context of leadership essays? The former one.

Unlike an essay or any other academic paper, leadership essays are meant to be personal. They are supposed to be about you. As you share your perspective or experiences, you should use an active voice to make a more significant impact and ensure your message reaches the reader.

Follow the format

Adhere to your academic institution's standards for formatting and styling your leadership essay because, first and foremost, your professors would want to see that you have tackled how to format your essay.

Secondly, it is always good practice to format your essays for an excellent structure and a good presentation of the content in the essay. Some institutions are very strict about their formatting standards and can choose to cancel or give unsatisfactory grades to students who do not follow their specific formatting guidelines.

Avoid cliches

Generally, in leadership essays, cliches are most commonly used to describe the person in the essay at large. Avoiding these set cliches will do you and your essay good.

Cliches like “leaves no stones unturned,” “ahead of the curve,” etc., have been used so much by students that they have become weak, lost their meaning, and have minimal effect on the essays.

Your professors are looking for originality and creativity, whereas an essay full of cliches will appear lazy and uncreative.

Select good references

Leadership holds a variety of sub-topics that addresses the quality of leadership, the style and attitudes that leaders have, historical references of the lifework of distinguished leaders, or how certain leaders influenced events.

That’s why researching is key for a thorough leadership essay. With credible sources and references to take inspiration and quotes from, your leadership essay will gain authority and stature. Each method, skill, or event can be further detailed through helpful resources such as Google Scholar, JSTOR, etc.

Ask questions

Ask yourself questions while re-reading your essay to identify any missing pieces you may have overlooked.

Asking questions also address your essay's efficiency and will help you figure out what your readers could ask while reading your essay. You can then confront each of these questions and create a more precise understanding for your readers.

Share anecdotes

Another element that can really strengthen your leadership essay and take it from good to great is anecdotes.

Yes, don’t shy away from sharing anecdotes and personal experiences related to leadership. It adds credibility to your writing and justifies the points you have made. It can be humorous or life-changing, but sharing anecdotes helps keep readers invested and adds immense value to the essay.

Here’s a helpful video by Matthew Singleton on how you can use anecdotes while writing essays

Focus on key qualities

We know how effective leadership constitutes certain key traits and qualities such as empathy, collaboration, good listener, visionary, ownership, decision-making capabilities, delegation, communicator, and more.

Your essay needs to reflect some of these traits. Instead of choosing to enlist all these traits and not focussing on either of them well, it’s important to first choose which are the traits you want to explore in your essay and then work towards highlighting them while writing.

Get feedback

It is always better to have more than one pair of eyes to read and evaluate your essay. Getting feedback on your writing is crucial for the betterment of your essay, as the limitations and problems that you may not have realized while writing your essay can be identified by a fresh set of eyes or a new perspective.

These errors or misses can be rectified, resulting in a quality, no-error leadership essay.

Edit and proofread

A leadership essay requires attention to detail, a set organized structure, and a logical flow of sentences. Editing your essay and proofreading it will overcome any misses that may come your way.

As you proofread, you can double-check the leader’s name and designation, dates, sources, factual, spelling, and grammatical mistakes, punctuation errors, out-of-place references, and transition flows.

So, now you know that leadership essays are not as ‘vanilla’ as they sound. They need to be descriptive and logical while capturing your leadership abilities.

If you don’t have the time to write a compelling leadership essay or doubt your writing skills, don’t worry. We at Writers Per Hour are pleased to write an essay for you that will get you noticed.

From choosing a suitable topic to outlining and writing a thoughtful leadership essay from scratch, our writing experts promise to deliver precisely what you need - high-quality essays that meet your budget and deadlines.

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627 Leadership Essay Topics & Examples

Looking for leadership essay topics to write about? Being both an exciting research area and a practical skill, leadership is definitely worth exploring!

• 🔝 Top 10 Essay Topics

📃 Leadership Essay: How to Write

• 🏆 Best Essay Examples
• 👍 Interesting Essay Topics
• 🎓 Simple & Easy Essay Titles
• 📌 Controversial Title Ideas
• 🥇 Good Topics to Write

✍️ Leadership Essay Topics for College

❓ leadership essay questions.

In your leadership essay, you might want to take a look at the sphere of government or elaborate on the role of leadership in business organizations. Here we’ve gathered most catchy leadership title ideas together with leadership essay examples. There are also useful tips on writing your introduction, conclusion, and formulating a thesis statement.

🔝 Top 10 Leadership Essay Topics

• Leadership as a research area and a practical skill
• Theories of leadership
• Functional leadership theory
• Autocratic and democratic leadership styles: compare and contrast
• Task-oriented leadership style: the key features
• Measuring leadership: the main approaches
• Gender and leadership in Western countries
• The concept of leadership: myths and misunderstandings
• Emotional intelligence and leadership: the connection
• Leadership in non-human animals

While writing a leadership essay, you may struggle with the subject, structure, titles, and other components. Don’t worry – these tips will help you to write the best leadership paper!

Tip 1. Choose your subject area first. If your professor did not provide specific topics, you would need to select one on your own. In order to do this, you may focus on an area of leadership that sounds interesting to you.

For example, if you consider working in the hospitality sector in the future, write about leadership in hotels or restaurants. Alternatively, you can browse leadership essay topics online and see if that gives you any clarity.

Tip 2. Narrow down the topic. To ensure that your essay earns high marks, you should avoid choosing an area of leadership that is too broad.

A college level paper should offer enough details and depth to receive an excellent grade. For instance, instead of overviewing a bunch of leadership styles, focus on how certain styles impede or facilitate teamwork. This will give you enough to talk about while limiting the scope of your essay.

Tip 3. Don’t confuse leadership with management! This is a common mistake that students make while writing leadership essays. Although the two concepts overlap, leadership is more about beliefs and vision, whereas managerial work is focused on specific tools and techniques.

Thus, a leader may or may not be a manager. To get more familiar with the subject of leadership, research various leadership styles, such as transformational, autocratic, and servant leadership.

Tip 4. Pay attention to the structure. In a great essay, ideas are always well-organized and follow one another in a logical sequence. First, write an introduction where you present your topic and thesis.

Then, write the main body, where you explain the key concepts and the relationships between them by reviewing relevant research evidence.

Lastly, write a conclusion summarizing your key points. A good leadership essay conclusion should also show how the information can be applied in practice.

Tip 5. Seek to answer any questions that readers might have. For your essay to show excellent depth, you need to address the points that might be interesting to readers in connection with your subject area.

For example, if you are reviewing a particular leadership style, you might want to discuss in which settings it would be useful and what are some of its limitations.

To make this part easier, you could search for leadership essay questions online to clarify what kind of answers readers expect you to cover.

Tip 6. Explain the importance and relevance of your paper. Because leadership is focused on effective strategies that can be applied in real life, you need to provide examples of how your essay may be used to support future practice and research.

Can leaders use the information you provided to improve their relationships with other employees? Can the proposed strategies influence performance?

Think about the potential uses of your research, as well as any gaps that are yet to be studied. Highlighting areas for future research will show your tutor that you are genuinely interested in the subject while also helping you plan for future essays.

We hope that these leadership essay tips will make it easier for you to write an outstanding paper! Make sure to check our website for sample essays on leadership!

🏆 Best Leadership Essay Examples

• Nelson Mandela Leadership Style Mandela’s fight for democracy and fulfilment of the majority will was also seen in his efforts to reconcile Libya with the rest of the world.
• Reed Hastings’ Leadership Style: Netflix CEO’s Strategy Since the work of a leader is crucial for the performance of the whole enterprise, it is essential to analyze the leadership style of a particular business leader through the perspective of his or her […]
• Google Democratic Leadership Style – Compared to Amazon Applying behavioural leadership style theories in Bezos and Schmidt’s case reveals that the Amazon CEO is an autocratic leader while the Google CEO is a democratic leader.
• Transformational Leadership Essay This requires the transformational leader to have the right communication skills to be able to relay the vision they have to a point of winning the willingness of the followers such that they too are […]
• Frederick Douglass Leadership Personality Traits Report (Assessment) The book was so humorous that he feared that he would be enslaved again for the weaknesses that he portrayed in the American lifestyle and how he was able to trick them with the attire […]
• Leadership Case Study This is mainly achieved through setting a pace in serving as a role model and creation of a working environment that allows members of the organization or employees to feel honored as part of the […]
• Barack Obama’s Charismatic Leadership In Obama’s Case, the sparkle and invisible energy as defined by Rao pushed him to the presidency and continues allowing him some loyal following albeit the fact that some are being disappointed by the slow […]
• Mahatma Gandhi’s Leadership This report is an analysis of the behaviour and leadership style of Ghandi, the transactional and transformative aspects of his leadership and the way he used the power he had to help India gain Independence.
• Bernard Arnault’s Leadership One of Arnault’s leadership styles entails identifying brands that are preferred in the market and working on enhancing the quality of these brands. Bernard Arnault is a visionary leader who has helped LVMH to attain […]
• Teamwork and Leadership From diversity to team hierarchy, many factors influence the eventual output of the team, affecting the leader, team members’ performance, and client’s satisfaction.
• Foundations of Army Leadership BLC This paper examines the foundation of Army leadership, focusing on its levels and leaders’ characteristic features.
• Esther’s Leadership Qualities Essay The book of Ester narrates the story of a young Jewish woman who rose to the thrones of power but also reveals the life of the Jews under the Persian reign.
• School Leadership The multi-levelled pedagogic school leaders highly determine the mode of teaching students in schools and the effective application of the learning process.
• Starbuck Company Case: Howard Schultz Leadership Style Hence, he spends a lot of time with staff and guarantees that the company helps employees to grow both financially and intellectually.
• Leadership in Organization Leadership is applicable in the nurturing and development of constructive behavior patterns and organizational culture. Charismatic leadership is appropriate for the development of followers.
• Google Company’s Situational Leadership The current CEO of Google, Larry Page, is a considered a great leader because of his ability to apply situational leadership skills in resolving some of the problems that threaten the success of the company.
• Foundation of Army Leadership Essay The Army leaders therefore, need to be swift, adaptive, and multi-skilled both in the country and across the world. This ensures obedience of the Army to the authority of the President and his authority from […]
• Management and Leadership: Nokia Corporation The approach of the company is to have an innovative and outstanding teamwork; though the company has a departmental approach, the company ensures that it has teams in all sections that are mandated and empowered […]
• King T’Challa’s Leadership in “Black Panther” However, because Black Panther needed the help of the Jabari, he had to suppress some feelings of pride and act in the interest of his people.
• Toyota’s Culture and Leadership Strategy Toyota’s Leadership and Culture Irrespective of numerous difficulties, the company is still one of the leaders of the industry. To understand the essence of the lean leadership, it is crucial to consider some peculiarities of […]
• Ken Lay’s Leadership and Enron Company’s Downfall An analysis of Lay’s ethical conduct outlined below is conducted through the prism of Kidder’s ethical checkpoints, the principles of moral sensitivity, moral judgment, moral motivation, moral character, as well as the CEO’s power and […]
• Comparison of Leadership and Management In leadership, the leader uses his charisma and influence to elicit the help and support of the followers to achieve goals.
• Ethical Leadership: Martin Luther King All individuals were expected to consider his actions and embrace the idea of morality. Through the use of a positive community culture and empowerment tactics, King managed to model such desirable behaviors.
• Mercedes Company: Leadership and Management Essentials The idea behind theoretical investigation is to obtain enough background information on leadership styles, which might be applied to analysing the performance of Mercedes Benz in the light of the theory’s implications on the practice […]
• Nelson Mandela’s Leadership in the “Invictus” Film The film “Invictus” is a 2009 drama and biography that depicts the challenging initiative of Nelson Mandela to unite the country with the help of sport.
• The Leadership of Mao Zedong For example, the Great Leap Forward policy resulted in a food crisis that led to the death of many Chinese people. Mao was assertive in the development and implementation of his policies.
• Warren Buffett’s Leadership in Berkshire Hathaway The analysis is conducted within the appropriate business context after the examination of the history, structure, and organizational culture of Berkshire Hathaway.
• Leadership Style: Reflection and Analysis The concept of leadership is an essential part of the modern world due to the fact that it is one of the key determinants of successful management.
• Servant Leadership Research Paper | Term Paper In the context of organizations, leading entails the leader consolidating the efforts and resources of the organization and focusing on the future by setting up a vision for the organization which it intends to achieve […]
• Howard Schultz’s Leadership Style: Strengths and Weaknesses These results are in a large part due to his leadership style which can be characterised as transformational, the strengths of which are openness to new ideas and creativity, and among the weaknesses can be […]
• Leadership: Portfolio Project I will start by conducting a comprehensive analysis of my background in order to understand the factors that might have defined my leadership qualities in one way or the other.
• Leadership Self-Assessment Essay To a butcher, the organizational goals of increased productivity, the input of both the individual and groups in the organization remains invaluable. To this end, the strengths and weaknesses that are inherent in my style […]
• Meg Whitman – Leadership Style: What Do People Do When They Are Leading? This is due to the fact that it influences the extent to which employees are committed to attainment of the set organizational goals.
• Leadership Evaluation: Sir Richard Branson By the early 1990s, the airline had become the centerpiece of Branson’s interests and the capital needs of the airline made it necessary for him to acquire more capital.
• Autocratic Leadership Versus Participative Theory It will also critically analyse the effectiveness of both participative and autocratic leadership styles in an organisation to determine the most appropriate style to be adopted for the success of an organisation.
• Marriott International Leadership This paper aims to present the analysis of the prevalent leadership style typical of executives and directors in Marriott International; to discuss the connection between the leadership style and ethical practices; to determine possible ethical […]
• Walt Disney and Henry Ford Leadership Styles Disney devoted his time to art and had a dream of becoming a leader in the animation business. The employees started to fear him and could avoid the lobby whenever Disney was passing.
• Bill Gates’s Leadership and Impact on Organization This problem grew out of the practice that was common in Microsoft to challenge the ideas of one another, doubt them, and put them to the test.
• Conrad Hilton Leadership Styles and Principles Leaders in this category want to transcend the basic needs of a human being and to have a sense of life success.
• Participative Leadership: Strengths and Weakness The paper gives an overview of the approach, followed by the strengths and weakness of participative leadership. Organizational leadership, more so the approach of leadership is critical to the performance of an organization.

🎓 Simple & Easy Leadership Essay Titles

• Leadership in the hospitality industry His success in business has been attributed to the manner in which he attends to details such as research and collection of information, provision of clean and high quality products and services, and the logical […]
• Delta Airlines Company’s Traditional and Digital Leadership The aviation industry is one of the most performing sectors of the economy, generating considerable revenues to the respective airline companies across the globe.
• Leadership in the Management Practice: “Our Iceberg Is Melting” by John Kotter The resultant effect is that the taskforce charged with the responsibility of implementing change does not achieve the intended objective According to Kotter, developing a clear vision is critical in the process of implementing change.
• The Model of Primary Leadership Skills Theo was more successful in the role of manager of the new facility’s development than he was as the operations director because he needed to lead various groups of people that would help him to […]
• Organizational Culture & Leadership: Whirlpool Corporation At the heart of the discussion of management and leadership are the concepts of goal setting and results. Common to both managers and leaders is the focus on the results they produce, which are based […]
• Mark Zuckerberg’s Leadership Style Shareholders have complained about his leadership and failure to increase the stock price of Facebook, and others have claimed he is socially inept and too young and immature to be a CEO of a multi-billion […]
• Elon Musk’s Leadership Style and Accomplishments His business acumen is exemplified by his massive successes that he has achieved, mainly as the CEO of Space X and Tesla Motors, as well as other businesses, including Neuralink, the Boring Company, and Open […]
• Servant Leadership in Indian Culture and Hindu Religion The basis of this approach is the reorientation of the values of the leader, who considers the empowerment of followers as a means and goal of his activity.
• Leadership and Personality Traits of Hovard Schultz Schultz was able to look at the business from the client’s point of view and considered the client’s needs when expanding Starbucks across the globe.
• Relationship between Leadership and Management Additionally, it is apparent that the only constant in the business world is change, and for this reason, for employees to be sure of coping with such changes, there is need for them to acquire […]
• Democratic Leadership Styles and Patient Outcomes Democratic leadership positively impacts patient outcomes as it influences nurses to participate in all processes of the organization and contribute to its development.
• Orpheus Orchestra’s Leadership and Organizational Practices The orchestra satisfies the needs of every member. This permanent leadership encourages every member to be part of the orchestra.
• Leadership Behavior: Ratan Tata and Emotional Intelligence This shows that Ratan Tata, as a leader, was not eager to compete but rather searched for options to expand the market through acquiring businesses.
• Nursing: Leadership Development Plan I utilize the nursing process and evidence-based practice to work collaboratively with the core team, including the patient, staff members, primary care provider, registered nurse care manager, and patient support technician, and expanded team, including […]
• Martin Luther King Jr.’s and Malcolm X’s Leadership Styles Thesis: Martin Luther King and Malcolm X were both charismatic leaders, but the latter was more of a transformational leader as well because of his idealistic views and his ability to inspire his followers to […]
• Leadership Style of Richard Branson This means then they should have the will to use the power they possess together with the employee to execute innovative ideas brought forwards by the employees According to Branson, another quality of a leader […]
• James Madison’s Leadership Qualities It is only through humble submission as evidenced by the willingness to listen to the admonition and suggestions of a superior that the qualities of a good leader can be established in the person’s heart […]
• Effective Leadership: What It Means It is very imperative to bring a change in the organization and only successful leaders can bring this change in their organization and their team.
• Lieutenant Colonel Hal Moore’s Leadership Hal Moore’s courage to fight on despite the odds that had afflicted his men was the major driving factor that led to the victory of his group over the Vietnamese.
• Leadership at The New York Times Newspaper Wisdom comes in handy when the leader is balancing the interests of shareholders such that the leader’s actions lead to the common good.
• Jim Jones Leadership Traits In essence, Solomon says that the core element of leadership is trust, which can make the group members to increase their commitment and devotion to the group.
• Red Bull Project’s Effective Leadership Measures However, the product failed to create wave in the market as expected and it is believed that the main cause of the failure was lack of proper leadership.
• Colonel Novak’s Effective Leadership Behavior In the case of Colonel Novak, he strived to spent time with the individuals in his unit at work and when off duty portraying consideration as effective leadership behavior. In addition, effective leadership is the […]
• Thyressa Williams’ Leadership Interview One of the most important aspects of leadership, according to the interviewee, is the ability to recognize and acknowledge talent amongst the people a leader is working with.
• Leadership Theory and Practice via an Account of BP’s Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill From the perspective of a rig operator, one of the morality issues that seem to be inherent at BP is the failure to follow the right procedures in making the rig machinery.
• Leadership and Management In the analysis of leadership and management approach within the non-for-profit sector, success in management and leadership revolves around complex approaches to the management of human services.
• Leadership Skills of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum’s It is possible to argue that Sheikh Mohammed was trained to be a leader because this is one of the traditions adopted in such dynasties.
• Hatshepsut’s Leadership and Accomplishments She was the leader of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt and ruled with the help of the two-year old Thutmose III.
• Leadership Motivation: Anita Roddick, Founder of Body Shop Specifically, the treatise adopts a reflective research in exploring the components of leadership and management such as transformational leadership, amanagerialism’, and organizational realities in the management style of Anita Roddick who founded the Body Shop.
• Leadership Style of Bill Clinton: What Can We Learn? To have a good understanding of Bill Clinton, we shall have a review and a brief description of his biography in order to understand about the background of Bill Clinton right from the time he […]
• Women’s Features in Administrative Leadership The idea of the “glass ceiling” was put forward in the 1970s and tried to explain the reasons it is quite so complicated for women to be promoted as leaders.
• Leadership Philosophy and the Theories of Leadership These theories are the trait theory of leadership, behavioral theory of leadership, and the contingency theory of leadership. In line with the chosen personal leadership philosophy that urges the leader to show empathy, the trait […]
• Astro Airlines: Burton’s Leadership Style While the company had every chance to be transformed from a small-scale business into a large corporation, Burton did not use the opportunities that he had as the head of the company.
• JC Penney & Ron Johnson: The Failed Leadership Following the failure of Ron Johnson’s vision and strategy, the new CEO, Ulman, faced the challenge of attempting to incorporate and revert to the strategy that had been in place before Ron Johnson’s tenure.
• Leadership at YouTube: Susan Wojcicki Educated at Harvard and the University of California, Wojcicki was involved in the founding of Google and was the person behind Google’s acquisition of YouTube in 2006.
• Leadership Action Plan To begin with, I will join a toastmaster that can support my communicational and leadership goals. For instance, the decision to join a toastmaster will support most of my needs.
• The Action-Observation Model: Leadership Discussion In the beginning, I tried to persuade some volunteers to agree with their assignments since they were helping to spread awareness of a good cause; however, as arguments started occurring, I decided that the best […]
• Level 5 Leadership, Humility, and Will A Level 5 leader has the ability of the initial levels of leadership. Collins describes the humility of a Level 5 leader has the ability to give credit to others.
• Mark Zuckerberg: Leadership Style on Practice Mark Zuckerberg is a bright example of how young people can become good leaders using their passion, desire to work, and attention to the details and people and prove that transformational leadership is a unique […]
• Leadership Issues: The Case of CEO Gary Kelly of Southwest Airlines One of Gary’s key strengths as chairman and CEO of Southwest Airlines is predicated upon the capacity to use servant leadership style to foster organizational growth and development.

📌 Controversial Leadership Title Ideas

• Nelson Mandela: Speeches and Leadership Nelson Mandela is, undoubtedly, one of the strongest and the most inspiring political leaders of the 20th century, the embodiment of the human spirit’s limitless possibilities.
• Leadership of Jerry Yang, Co-Founder of Yahoo The creation of Yahoo is the story of the hobby and knowledge of two Yang people who wanted to make the Internet more convenient.
• Leadership Through Effective Communication At the phase of implementation of the business strategies, effective communication is essential in helping leaders to control and monitor the implementation of strategies to meet the desired goals and objectives.
• Corporate Governance and Corporate Social Responsibility A fundamental theme of corporate governance is the nature and extent of responsibility and accountability of specific individuals in the corporation’s hierarchy, and mechanisms that attempt to eliminate or mitigate the problems that arise due […]
• The Role of Civic Leadership Jeremy points out that a democratic leadership allows for cooperation in all aspects of decision making and that the leader’s decision is not unilateral as he or she has to depend on the input of […]
• Leadership and Motivation – Carlos Ghosn The purpose of this paper is to present a discussion of theories and concepts of leadership in current multinational businesses using the leadership style of Carlos Ghosn as a benchmark for effective leadership in the […]
• Proactive Leadership: Importance and Characteristics This paper will focus on proactive leadership, the importance of proactive leadership, and the characteristics of proactive leaders. For example, when a team leader is late on product shipment or delivery of products, they try […]
• Leadership Styles, Traits in a Nursing Professionals The leadership styles that are being utilized by my group members are servant leadership, charismatic leadership and transactional leadership.
• Leadership and Diversity Discussion A transformational leader should be ready to lead initiatives that make the organization work significantly different than it was before and convince the rest of the members and leaders to adopt them.
• Consolidated Products Managers’ Leadership Styles The leader determines the focus of the work of the entire team, interacts with personnel, affects the psychological climate and other aspects of the work environment.
• Leadership Styles of Yahoo, Blackberry, and Google Using the identified characteristics of transactional and transformational leadership styles in the literature review, the paper attempts to specify the leadership styles that each of the three organizations deploys using the primary data from the […]
• The Charismatic Leadership of Steve Jobs at Apple In this form of leadership style, leaders have full control over the operations of an organisation and have clear visions that they communicate to their followers. In conclusion, ethical leadership is necessary for the success […]
• Critical Examination of Strategic Leadership Guided by these introductory statements, this research paper aims at exploring the concept of strategic leadership with particular interests in exploring the characteristics of strategic leadership, the contextual factors, both internal and external that has […]
• The leadership of Amazon This is essential in counteracting the effect of competitors and adopting products and services that address the needs of customers and the market exhaustively.
• James D. Sinegal’s Leadership Analysis The present report aims to analyze Sinegal’s leadership from the perspective of traits theories and leadership and skill-based models. In their work, Judge, Bono, Ilies, and Gerhardt tested the use of the Big Five personality […]
• Ho Ching’s Leadership at Temasek Holdings In addition to her past experiences, she has legitimate power in Temasek Holding that allows her to influence her followers with the help of company rules.
• Mohammed Al Abbar: Leadership Project As a result, in order to explore the leadership style, approach, and views of Mohammad Al Abbar, it is necessary to begin with his personal, as well and professional backgrounds as the sources of his […]
• Reflective Practice in Leadership This model has made me understand that I need to orient myself to the organisational culture and values cherished by my subordinates to enable me to have beneficial exchanges with my subordinates.
• A Revolutionary Model of Leadership When the father of Ricardo Semler left his company in the early 80s, he never imagined that his son would transform Semco to be a leading and one of the best-known companies across the globe.
• The Five-Star Hotels Operational Management They will be discussed on the historic hotel to provide useful information for the improvement of the effectiveness and efficiency of the operations of the hotel.
• Organizational Leadership and Strategic Positioning for Shangri-la Hotels Shangri-La Hotels is classified among the strongest and iconic leaders in the luxury hotel space in Asia and it has been successful in other places in Europe and around the world.
• Nursing Leadership and Personal Skills The issues of leadership and management have been taken to mean the same thing. They govern the responsibilities of a nurse and determine the steps to take in various situations.
• Apple Inc.’s Leadership Effectiveness, Competitive Advantage, and Growth Strategy Apple Inc.’s current success can be attributed to the organization’s effective management and leadership abilities to quickly adapt to a highly dynamic business environment.
• Biblical Leadership and Ministry For the church to be more effective in fulfilling the commands in God’s word the leaders should have a spirit that is sensitive and satisfied.
• Leadership Case: Arthur Burton’s Behavior Burton paid a lot of attention to hiring employees, and he tried to make sure that novice employees would-be professionals who could use their creativity to contribute to the development of the company.
• Maxine Clark’s Leadership at Build-A-Bear Workshop How might her personality influence her behaviour as the CEO of Build-A-Bear? Maxine Clark is the founder and CEO of Build-A-Bear Workshop.
• Leadership Concepts in the “Seabiscuit” Drama Film The movie is the adaptation of the book about Seabiscuit, the thoroughbred racehorse that remains a legendary manifestation of the American dream.
• Tesla’s Strategic Plan for Leadership in Energy Sector The purpose of this report is to analyze Tesla’s strategic plan of technological leadership in the energy segment to strengthen its competitive position.
• Leadership Theories in the Automotive Industry At the same time, the changes in the industry and the economic environment of the recent years have led to the situation where the leaders of the field lost their definitive advantage and faced a […]
• “The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership” by John Maxwell The law of process considers the fact that for a leader to achieve their goals, a process is clearly laid developed and followed, a step by step process is vital for success as one leads […]
• Transformational Leadership in Hotel Industry This research strives to contribute to the understanding of the functions of level three leaders in the hotel industry. The study’s contribution helps to shed light on the context of L3Ls in the hotel industry […]
• Personality and Leadership Style Relationship According to his approach and tests, stable and introverted people are phlegmatic, stable and extroverted are sanguine, unstable and introverted are melancholic, and unstable and extroverted are choleric.
• Chicago Bulls 1995-96 Championship: Team Leadership The coach of the team during the period was Phil Jackson. To begin with, the managers of the team identified the right players to support the targeted expectations.
• Importance and Role of Leadership in Globalization Leadership can be considered to be the provision of a vision to the people whom one has authority over and pushing through the understanding of the vision and the achievement of its goals for the […]
• Leadership Styles in the UK, USA, and Japan To the managers, the subordinates’ ability to be responsible means a lot for the firm and for their own ability to manage it.
• The Impact of School Governance on School Leadership The traditional school system in most states and territories took the form of the old public administration with school governance highly centralized in the Ministry of Education and the Education Department.
• Jamie Oliver and Leadership in the Food Industry He has a strong mastery of the market and the exact requirements of the customers to be his businesses end up matching the needs of the customers.
• Leadership Personality & Achievement: TELMEX and Carlos Slim Leadership is one of the most researched studies, and research on leadership has gained importance due to the contributions of leaders on the organizational achievements. Finally, research examines the accomplishment of organizational transformation through leadership’s […]
• The Concept of Laissez-Faire Leadership Style The manager does as little directing as possible and empowers employees. Employees must determine goals, make decisions, and solve problems themselves.
• Costco Company’s Business Diversity, Ethics, Leadership Colleagues and investors would easily dismiss the dreams of co-founders James Sinegal and Jeffrey Brotman for the reason of failing to follow the conventional and counter-intuitive strategies. The competitors fail to realize that Costco’s success […]

🥇 Good Leadership Topics to Write

• Leadership and Organisational Change
• Culture and Leadership in a Safe Industrial Environment
• Leadership, Its Requirements, Roles and Objectives
• Workplace Management Styles: Autocratic Leadership
• Carlos Slim: Leadership Styles and Personality
• Alvis Corporation’ Leadership Information
• Leadership in “The Hunger Game” Movie
• Contingency Theory of Leadership
• Daimler-Chrysler Merger: Leadership Issue
• Leadership Styles in Organizations with Different Age Groups
• Chapter 6 of Northouse’s Leadership: Theory and Practice
• Bad Leadership: Causes and Effects
• Warren Buffet’s vs. Bernard Madoff’s Leadership Styles
• Reflection on an Interview on Leadership
• Leadership Challenges in the Church
• Leadership SMART Goal: Effective Communication
• John Terrill’s Leadership Style at DGL International
• Democratic vs. Autocratic Leadership Styles
• Mandela’s Leadership
• Success Factors and Leadership Strategies: Southwest Airlines and Emirates Airlines
• Dr. Maya Angelou and Her Leadership Abilities
• Leadership and Constitution
• The Importance of Leadership in Shaping the Direction an Organization
• Leadership: Alan Keith
• Pros and Cons of the Four Major Styles of Leadership
• Marissa Ann Mayer: Leadership and Motivation
• Leadership and Organizational Psychology of Vince Lombardi
• Leadership Internal and External Challenges
• Singapore Mass Rapid Transit Company’s Leadership Style
• The Leadership and Communication Style of Angela Ahrendts
• Regional Strategies for Global Leadership
• Charismatic Leadership
• Impact of Gender Difference on Leadership Styles
• Organizational Motivation and Leadership in Workplace
• Modern Leadership: Trends and Challenges
• Authentic Leadership in Healthcare
• Leadership Qualities in Nursing
• Concept of Leadership and Safety
• Ann Fudge’s Leadership Lessons
• Leadership of Climber Arlene Blum
• Martin Luther King and Winston Churchill’s Leadership Styles
• Healthcare: Organizational Structures & Leadership
• Leadership Challenge: Who Gets the Project?
• The Ship Board: Management Styles and Leadership
• The Political Leadership Conception
• Kofi Annan Leadership Traits
• Transformational Leadership at Virgin Group
• Quality Management Systems
• Educational Leadership in School
• Leadership: Role, Benefits, and Limitations
• GlaxoSmithKline’s Leadership Management Framework
• Attitude Reflects Leadership: a Look at Leadership in your Professional Portfolio
• Transformational and Transactional Leadership
• Leadership in Diabetes Management
• Instructional Leadership
• The Significance of Strong Leadership in Business Organization
• Leadership at Qatar National Bank
• Leadership, Trustworthiness, and Ethical Stewardship
• Gene C. McKinney: Biography and His Leadership
• Professional Development Plan: Developing Leadership
• Nursing Leadership Skills Development
• Women in Top Leadership Positions
• Leadership in Sports Analysis
• Leadership on Boeing Analysis
• Leadership Role-Play Activity for Students
• Mary Barra’s Leadership at General Motors
• Relationship of Problem Solving to Leadership
• Leadership Style and Employee Motivation: Burj Al Arab Hotel
• Incompetent Management and Destructive Leadership
• Ethics Code in School Leadership
• Social Change and Servant Leadership Models
• Andy Garafallo’s Recipe in Leadership Theory and Practice
• Leadership Styles: Abraham Lincoln and Adolf Hitler
• Leadership: Johari Window and Transactional Analyses
• Team Leadership in “Apollo 13” by Ron Howard
• Elizabeth Bloomer Ford’s Leadership Development
• Transformational Leadership and Management Skills
• Public Safety Leadership Styles and Tools
• Autocratic, Democratic, Free-Rein, Coaching Leadership
• Jeff Bezos’s Leadership and the Amazon Revolution
• Warren Buffett’s Leadership Style in Business
• Mountain West Health Plans Company’s Leadership Styles
• School Leadership: Concepts and Evidence
• Leadership is Action and Not Position
• Leadership and Its Approaches: Strengths and Weaknesses
• Leadership Styles and Theories
• Relationship between Power and Leadership
• Culture Effects on Leadership Styles and Behavior
• Leadership Ideals of Robert Nardelli Under Various Trait Theories
• Lesson Plan ‘The Concept of Leadership’
• Leadership and Motivation Theories, Principles and Issues
• Maxwell’s 21 Irrefutable Laws of leadership
• Ethical and Unethical Leadership in Healthcare
• Constructive Criticism in Leadership
• Leadership, Power, Corruption in Today’s Politics
• Leadership: Encouraging the Heart and Generosity
• Leadership in Quality Management
• Leadership Styles: Nelson Mandela and Margaret Thatcher
• Team Leadership: Essential Features & Problems
• Environmental Leadership Program (ELP)
• The Main Characteristics of Servant Leadership
• Leadership Commitment Statement on Prevention of Workplace Violence
• Personal Leadership Style Analysis
• Personal Leadership Development Plan
• Modern Nurse’s Role: Leadership
• Leadership Approaches in Prison
• Future-Ready Leadership Strategies in the New Age
• Gates and Buffett: Global Leadership and Management
• The Leadership Qualities of Tony Blair
• Leadership Experience Critique
• Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi: Leadership Analysis
• Nursing Team Leadership in a Dialysis Center
• Organizational Structures and Leadership in Hospitals
• Leadership Challenges During Public Health Crisis
• Carly Fiorina’s Leadership at Hewlett-Packard Company
• Ricardo Semler’s Leadership at Semco Partners
• Leadership: Top Talent Retention
• Leadership in a Working Environment
• Leadership in the Early Childhood Field
• Leadership Input to the Community Development
• Leadership Models: Problem Solving Analysis
• George Washington: Servant Leadership and Communication
• Workplace Diversity and Challenges of Leadership
• Scholarship, Practice and Leadership
• International Business Machines: Leadership Development
• Steve Jobs and Tim Cook Leadership Styles Comparison
• Organisational Performance and Leadership
• Mandela’s Leadership: Long Walk to Freedom
• Thomas Hobbes and John Stuart Mill’ Views on Leadership
• Steve Jobs’ Leadership Style
• Organizational Behaviour and Leadership
• “Twin Cities” Strategic Management & Leadership
• The Impact of Leadership Styles on Organizational Effectiveness
• Theories of Situational and Participative Leadership
• Experience with Negative Leadership
• Business Ethics in Multinational Corporations
• Leadership Management in the Hospitality Industry
• The Chartered Management Institute Leadership and Management
• The Concept of Leadership in Organizational Success
• A Leadership Development Plan’s Analysis
• The Servant Leadership Concept
• Leadership in the “Saving Private Ryan” Film
• Personal and Organizational Leadership
• Zappos Organization’s Leadership and Objectives
• Leadership Fostering Collaboration Within the Department of Juvenile Justice
• Barack Obama: Ambassador Leadership Style
• Emirates Airline HR Department: Leadership and Its Effect
• Leadership and Management as Applied to Criminal Justice Organizations
• My Leadership Achievements and Services to Our Community
• Effective Leadership: Character and Personal Growth
• Coaching Leadership: Presence and Pressure Concepts
• Social Change, Leadership, and Advocacy Comparison
• Oprah Winfrey’s Leadership Traits and Virtues
• Youth Leadership Development
• Advantages and Limitations of Online Leadership
• Ogilvy and Mather Worldwide Company: Charlotte Beers’ Leadership
• Ursula Burns Leadership Style in Xerox Company
• Leadership and Organisational Change in MCFC
• Insomniac Games Inc.: Development of Leadership Strategy
• Leading Innovation and Change Management
• Mohandus Gandhi’s leadership
• The Importance of Strategic Leadership in the Global Business Environment
• Leadership in Early Care and Education
• Leadership Traits
• Transcendental Leadership and Total Quality Management Theories
• “Organizational Culture and Leadership” by Schein, Edgar H.
• Servant Leadership of Jeff Bezos
• Bedside Shift Reporting: Essentials of Nursing Leadership and Management
• The Volkswagen Group: Global Leadership and Management
• Leadership Styles: Democratic and Collective
• Nursing Leadership and Management
• Public Leadership and Its Qualities
• The Art of Leadership
• The Brexit Decision: Leadership and Culture
• Radical Leadership at Semco by Ricardo Semler
• Donald Trump: Leadership Ability
• Delta Airlines: Corporate Governance and Leadership Issues
• Leadership of Bill Gates and Meg Whitman
• Sergey Brin: Leadership Process and Organizations in Context
• Self-Awareness Importance in Effective Leadership
• Leadership Self-Assessment and Improvement Plan
• Positive Behaviour Leadership Model in Teaching
• Personal Leadership Action Plan
• Personal Vision Statement in Organizational Leadership
• Principal Leadership Style Role in Teacher Performance
• House of Fraser Company: Leadership and Managing Change
• Tim Cook’s Leadership Transformation and Action Logics
• Leadership Concepts in the “Coach Carter” Film
• Leadership Impact on Healthcare Delivery
• Ontology and Epistemology in Leadership Research
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• Does Leadership Affect Employee Commitment Management?
• Does Despotic Leadership Harm Employee Family Life?
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• Are the Differences Between Management and Leadership?
• Does Leadership Style Impact on Projects Team Member Performance?
• Can Responsible Leadership Affect Work-Life Balance?
• Does Decentralized Leadership Influence the Performance?
• What Are the Key of Leadership Skills That Can Not Learn From?
• What Are the Critical Factors in Understanding the Nature and Dimensions of Leadership?
• How Does Leadership Emerge in a Group That Has No Common History?
• What Are Charismatic Leadership?
• How Bad Does Leadership Affect the Organization?
• How Are Culture and Leadership Linked?
• Does Cartel Leadership Facilitate Collusion?
• What Is the Role of Machiavellianism in the Relationship Between Authentic Leadership and Morality?
• Does Leadership Make a Difference?
• How Are Leadership and Management Similar?
• Are Leadership Fairness, Psychological Distress, and Role Stressors Interrelated?
• How Does Ethical Leadership Influence Employees?
• How Does Leadership Work in Different Gangs?
• Can Servant Leaders Fuel the Leadership Fire?
• Are Leadership Mentoring Programs Beneficial?
• Can Transactional Leadership Keep Your Team in Shape?
• How Does Authentic Leadership Influence Employee Proactivity?
• What Are the Differences Between Management and Leadership?
• What Leadership Behaviors and Management Systems Support?
• What Are Niccolo Machiavelli’s Ideas on Effective Leadership?
• Can Leadership Theory Improve Leadership Quality?
• What Is the Relationship Between Leadership Type and Organization Performance?
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2023, November 9). 627 Leadership Essay Topics & Examples. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/leadership-essay-examples/

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What Makes A Good Leader: Essay Hints

Table of Contents

In this essay, you need to discuss the essential qualities needed for becoming an effective leader. In fact, different situations require different types of leadership styles, so it may be hard to choose the qualities that define good leaders admired by people from bad ones.

Besides, there are common misconceptions about their role. In this article, we will try to answer the question of “what makes a good leader essay” and give you some recommendations about the aspects you should focus on.

Essay structure and key points to cover

Wondering what the best way to approach an essay on leadership qualities is? Leadership essays can be written in the expository style and structured to include different subtopics:

• Discussion of major leadership theories.
• Personality traits defining great leaders.
• Leadership styles and how they work.
• Leadership principles and core values.
• Examples of leaders in different spheres of society.
• People you consider to be leaders in your life.
• Leadership skills you have.

It’s important to demonstrate an original personal understanding of leadership concept and provide impressive illustrative examples taken from today’s real life or history. That’s the best thing to do when reviewing various leadership qualities.

What are the qualities of a good leader: essay ideas

When we take an in-depth look at history, we see countless leadership qualities that were adopted by both good and bad leaders. When writing what are the qualities of a good leader essay, you should focus on the characteristics and strengths of a leader, and how they help influence and motivate other people along with achieving own goals.

These are emotional and behavioral characteristics of well-known leaders that helped them succeed:

• Vision – effective leaders have exciting ideas, they usually are forward-looking, and have excellent strategic planning skills.
• Communication – communicating ideas clearly and concisely is essential to ensure teamwork towards the same goal.
• Integrity – they are honest and can always tell the truth in any situation.
• Confidence – they dare to take risks to achieve their goals and never give up.
• Responsiveness – good leaders value their team, listen to people they lead, and quickly change their behavior to match different situations.
• Determination – good leaders are passionate about what they do and can motivate people by demonstrating their own commitment.
• Empathy is the most important skill which allows to create strong bonds of trust and build successful teams.

Tips on writing a winning essay on leadership

When working on what makes a good leader essay, students should follow certain basic steps.

• Research relevant sources on the internet to get a better understanding of the concept, read a lot, and make notes of interesting ideas which can be used in your paper.
• Brainstorm ideas to write about, formulate a strong thesis statement and create a detailed working outline. Organize information in a logical order.
• Start writing a draft with an introduction. Engage readers with a hook – provocative question, anecdote, stunning fact, convincing statistics. Introduce a subject, providing relevant background information. End introductory paragraph with a specific thesis that sums up your ideas.
• Devote separate body paragraphs to specific points supporting the main argument. Begin paragraphs with topic sentences, presenting key points, give detailed explanations, and provide additional evidence and examples. Include appropriate citations with proper referencing. Sum up and demonstrate how each paragraph contributes to the logical argument.
• Create a convincing conclusion to wrap up the paper’s key points.
• Revise the first draft , make improvements in content, logic, and sentence structure. Edit to improve word choice and clarity.
• Proofread the final version – fix minor errors and typos. Create references list and check the formatting of the entire paper.

The use of a leadership essay sample

Still not sure that you can write a good leader essay that will impress your readers? Read biographies of famous people who played crucial roles in human history, created big successful businesses, managed large corporations to learn which qualities contributed to their success.

Besides, you may want to check out some good paper examples.

Find out how powerful papers on this topic are structured and what interesting points they cover. Use essay samples as templates or models to follow.

See this short sample paragraph which discusses one of the leadership qualities for inspiration.

Empathy, an ability to recognize other’s feelings and perspectives and understand other people’s needs is crucial in leadership. Being empathetic means you can step into another person’s world and this character trait is essential for success due to several reasons. It’s impossible to effectively lead people you don’t understand. You can effectively motivate and influence someone if you know their feelings. Empathy is one of the keys to successful leadership because it helps build relationships with people they lead and create an environment of open communication. Luckily, empathy is natural for humans and we can even learn to be more empathetic and demonstrate this ability to people around us.

No time to write your essay on leadership? We’ve got plenty of time here! Our writers strive to help you out. Click the button faster and get yourself a perfect essay with no struggle!

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Great Leader Essay

Leadership is not a notion but a quality in itself. It is easy to be the boss and give orders but equally difficult to be a part of the process and lead it. As a leader, you should know the pros and cons of each of your team members and simultaneously ensure that your team keeps on growing. And remember, as a leader, it becomes your job to maintain unity in your team and ensure that your team is guided by mutual respect. Here are a few sample essays on great leader.

100 Words Essay on Great Leader

A good leader is very much needed in this world . The greatest quality that any leader can have is vision, the ability to see the future of their organisation or team, its capability, and what it will take to achieve that position. The ability to convey the vision to others holds the same importance as having a vision. This means maintaining a positive view of the organisation, helping team members stay focused, motivated, and engaged, and remembering the field they are working in. A good leader should also have critical thinking towards his work and be mindful about the opinion of their own team members.

200 Words Essay on Great Leader

Based on several qualities such as determination, perseverance, charisma, over time, we have found that several leaders have taken over a place in the hearts of the people by not only sympathising with them but empathising as well. Unless and until you put yourself into the shoes of others, you won't be able to relate to their situation. Thus, the situation itself would remain unaddressed and the problem unsolved. Mahatma Gandhi didn't lead India to its freedom by wearing his lawyer's cloak and enjoying the money that he earned. He understood that to make people do what you want, you must step in their shoes and that is exactly what he did.

Nelson Mandela knew that there had to be someone who would raise their voice to address the discrimination against Blacks, and he took the responsibility into his own hands. The position you stand in doesn't give you the qualities of a great leader, but the qualities you imbibe and the way you implement decisions are what is needed.

A good leader must undoubtedly motivate their supporters. A leader must serve as an example for his subordinates. Additionally, they ought to inspire them whenever possible. A leader must also maintain hope in trying times.

500 Words Essay on Great Leader

Let us delve deeper into the details of a few great leaders of all times who have not only inspired us to date but will keep on doing so in future as well.

Gandhi | Let us begin the journey with Mahatma Gandhi or Mohan Das Karamchand Gandhi, whose knowledge and great endeavours led India to its long-desired freedom. What makes him different from others is his fight using non-violent methods and how these methods themselves were quite persuasive in favour of India. His resilience, determination and willpower sustained him through all thick and thin. The Civil Disobedience movement, the Dandi March and the Non- cooperation movement are examples of his efforts. Despite being a popular leader, he excelled in academics as well. And thus, knowledge combined with empathy earned him the title of 'Father of the Nation' .

Nelson Mandela | Next on the list is the African leader Nelson Mandela, whose 'Long walk to Freedom' is not unknown to the world. Mandela's fight and determination had also led him behind bars, yet not even for a second did his determination dwindle. Mandela appealed to the masses, not because he was a philanthropist or a politician, but because he understood their needs and issues and addressed them with utmost sincerity. His long struggle against apartheid earned him the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993. Mandela did not just fight evil from the outside and had first-hand experience with it.

Martin Luther King Jr. | Martin Luther King Jr. did not just have a dream but had the vision of putting it into reality, which is what he worked for. Like Gandhi's beliefs and ideals, Martin Luther King Jr. was a Civil Rights Activist who envisioned an equal world and thus fought for the rights of African-Americans. His vision was not blurred, and his resilience was not unstable. Though America is still struggling with these anti-black sentiments, the percentage has declined to a very low level. Luther's dream is slowly and gradually taking the shape of reality.

Lincoln | The 16th President of the United States of America, Abraham Lincoln , cannot be left off the list. His fight against slavery and his leadership in the Civil war all have been successful to get America a united front. Lincoln's name has often come coupled with democracy because he gave this idea for the world to follow to date.

Mother Teresa | In this list, next comes the name of the Nobel Peace Prize winner Mother Teresa , whose selflessness, empathy and dedication won over the hearts of everyone. Mother Teresa worked for the vulnerable, the orphans and those whose own families had been denied help. She has been called 'Mother' because of her pure love and dedication towards all.

Though not elaborated upon, many other leaders have inspired the world. Napoleon Bonaparte, George Washington, Winston Churchill, Julius Caesar, and Dalai Lama are other prominent names of world-renowned leaders.

Qualities Of Great Leaders

The one thing that makes great leaders amazing is that they want their people to grow into better people, which makes them better employees. They encourage employees to participate in discussions, submit their ideas, and learn new skills.

Great leaders are very clear with their vision and incredibly focused on achieving that vision. They know how to make decisions at the right time and move towards the goal.

Great leaders indirectly create loyal customers by creating an environment for employers to shine. A great leader who understands sharing of ideas, collaboration and transparency will automatically create a culture for employees where they will be able to please the customers.

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Key Qualities of Good Leader

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More From Forbes

The importance of self-leadership, and how it makes you a great leader.

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The Importance of Self-Leadership, and How It Makes You A Great Leader

A common trend in corporate America is to promote great individual contributors to leadership positions. However, these individuals need more training to be great leaders. Even with traditional leadership training, self-leadership is often ignored, explaining why most leaders struggle to succeed.

Honing self-leadership skills lets individuals see their teams more holistically. It helps them use a coaching leadership style and set boundaries effectively. It also helps them see their teams as well-rounded people, not worker bees. And even if these skills aren’t innate, you can still learn them. But first, let’s define self-leadership.

What is Self-Leadership?

Leading oneself is critical to personal and professional success, especially in today’s fast-paced world. Self-leadership influences and directs one’s thoughts, behaviors, and actions to achieve desired goals. Great leadership is built upon this foundation.

Self-leadership is about taking ownership of your life and consciously shaping your journey. Success lies in you. You must build the mindset, skills, and discipline to unlock your potential.

Think about the inspiring leaders you know in business, politics, or your personal life. What sets them apart is their unchanging ability to motivate and guide themselves. They can do this even when faced with adversity. These leaders are masters at managing themselves, which is the greatest skill. Because of that, they can make informed choices. They stay strong in hard times and work steadily towards their goals.

When you step into a leadership role, you must realize that the first thing is to lead yourself. You must be aware that the journey ahead may not be easy. It can be riddled with hurdles and setbacks. When these setbacks emerge, seeing them as a setup for a comeback makes you a great leader.

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Great leaders don’t buckle under pressure. People look up to them, and they must rise to the occasion. They step forward with innovative solutions to navigate obstacles. But that doesn’t mean they know it all. As a leader, it helps to lean on outside influences. These include friends, colleagues, coaches, and trustworthy mentors. You don’t have to make every decision on your own. Seek knowledge and education. Surround yourself with quality people. They will readily support you when times are tough.

The Power of Self-Directed Thinking

Self-leadership's core is managing your thoughts and internal dialogue. How you talk to yourself daily greatly affects your beliefs, emotions, and actions. Your mind is wired to react to events in your life, so your inner monologue directly affects your actions.

Imagine you face a big challenge. Your inner voice is full of doubt. It criticizes your abilities and warns of potential failure. Now imagine that you instead approach the same challenge with self-belief. You know the risks but focus on the opportunities for growth and success.

The difference in outcomes between those two mindsets can be staggering. Research conducted by Oxford University has shown that positive self-talk reduces stress and depression. It also boosts physical and mental health and even lengthens life. Changing your internal monologue from negative to positive or even neutral builds motivation, resilience, and courage, key ingredients for self-leadership.

The Importance of Self-Leadership When It Comes to Being a Great Leader

There's only one way to see self-leadership. It's the prerequisite for leading others well. After all, you can’t lead others unless you first lead yourself.

Self-leadership is not about controlling people or bossing them around. It's about intentionally taking charge of and creating your desired life. It’s about setting goals for yourself and influencing your emotions and behavior to reach them. It’s about leading by example. When leaders with great self-leadership are the decision-makers, engagement and collaboration numbers soar, and productivity and employee loyalty improve. Because, we all know, people don’t quit jobs; they quit bosses.

Benefits of Self-Leadership to You and Your Organization

Leading oneself may seem personal. However, the benefits of strong self-leadership skills go far beyond one person. Self-awareness, discipline, and intention are key to your career growth and the whole organization's success.

Employers increasingly seek out candidates who have mastered self-leadership. They recognize that these skills make teams more efficient, productive, and inspired.

For starters, self-leadership makes you a more efficient, productive worker. You can prioritize tasks. You limit distractions and stay laser-focused on your goals. In the end, it benefits you and contributes to your team's overall output and performance. Senior leaders can count on you to get the job done right without constant supervision.

In addition, self-leadership helps you stay motivated. It also helps you stay accountable, even when facing challenges. You’ve developed the mental toughness and grit to push through obstacles. Learn from setbacks, and continue striving towards your goals. This unwavering drive is infectious, inspiring those around you to up their game.

Your proactive, disciplined approach helps you build relationships. This, in turn, helps you get along with your colleagues. They see you as reliable and competent. You're a team player. They can count on you to contribute and pull your weight. This camaraderie and mutual respect are the bedrock of high-performing, cohesive organizations.

In the end, the best leaders have first mastered leading themselves. By being self-aware and making your own decisions, you become accountable for your actions. You motivate yourself to push forward and build your self-regulation and communication skills. This way, you achieve both your development goals and your organization’s goals. And that’s the true power of self-leadership.

Becoming Your Own Leader: The Path to Fulfilment

One of the key benefits of self-leadership is the sense of agency and control it offers. Guiding your actions brings purpose and fulfillment. It allows you to take complete ownership of your life to make choices that truly match your strengths and aspirations. By mastering self-leadership, you become the author of your own story. You stop being a passive character controlled by external forces.

With improved self-leadership, your team leadership skills improve as you start seeing your employees through the lens of increased emotional intelligence. You’re more equipped to set boundaries, communicate expectations, and leverage team strengths through increased awareness of self and team.

Communicating with executive stakeholders and leadership becomes more productive as your self-awareness, communication, and decision-making skills improve through self-leadership development.

A “bad day” occurs less frequently when you lead yourself first, as you have equipped yourself with the skills to manage your experiences. Emotional intelligence guides how you react to situations. Setting boundaries ensures respect and collaboration. Communication minimizes doubts and unifies the team.

Self-leadership doesn’t mean perfection; it’s accepting that when you make mistakes, you recognize them as learning opportunities to reach your goals rather than letting them define you. You’ll become a transformed person and an even better leader by cultivating the right mindset and skills.

Leadership starts with self. A leader’s struggles, personality, and life aren’t checked at their office door when they clock in. Learning to lead oneself is critical to being a great leader for other people and organizations. Mastering this skill is a continuous process as you learn and grow, and it is well worth the effort for your teams, companies, and yourself.

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The Politics of Pessimism

Why so many American leaders are advancing a new kind of nihilism

It had been clear for years that China was rising and rising—building rail lines and airports and skyscrapers at a rate that put the United States to shame, purchasing the favor of poorer countries, filling the world with its wares—when, in April 2014, I happened upon a bit of news. CNBC , citing a “new study from the world’s leading statistical agencies,” reported that China’s rapidly growing economy would rank first in the world, surpassing the United States’, by as soon as the end of the year. Our century-plus reign as the world’s wealthiest nation was over, or about to be. What a run we’d had!

But the study, which used debatable methodology, turned out to be wrong. It interested me less than something else I learned when I began poking around the internet to put it in some sort of context. I discovered that most Americans thought that China already had become our economic superior. And they’d thought that—erroneously—for several years.

In 2011, Gallup polled Americans on the question of whether the United States, China, the European Union, Japan, Russia, or India was the leading economic power in the world. More than 50 percent answered China, while fewer than 35 percent said the United States. Those numbers held when Gallup did the same polling the next year and the next and in 2014, when the portion of Americans choosing China rose to 52 percent and the portion choosing America dipped to 31 percent. That’s a whopping differential, especially considering its wrongness.

China’s economy still lags behind ours, although Americans have been reluctant to recognize that. In 2020, when China was pilloried as the cradle of the coronavirus pandemic, 50 percent of Americans indeed saw our economy as the mightier of the two. But that rediscovered swagger was short-lived. In 2021, 50 percent gave the crown back to China. Last year, Americans saw the economies as essentially tied.

From the May 1888 issue: What is pessimism?

A fundamental misperception of global affairs by Americans isn’t surprising. Too many, if not most, of us are disinclined to look or think beyond our shores. But this particular misperception startled and fascinated me: We’d traditionally been such a confident, even cocky, nation, enamored of our military might (and often too quick to use it), showy with our foreign aid, schooled in stories—true ones—about how desperately foreigners wanted to make new lives here and what extraordinary risks they took to do so. We saw ourselves as peerless, and we spoke a distinctively American vocabulary of infinite possibility, boundless optimism, and better tomorrows.

American dream. American exceptionalism. Land of opportunity. Endless frontier. Manifest destiny. Those were the pretty phrases that I grew up with. We were inventors, expanders, explorers. Putting the first man on the moon wasn’t just a matter of bragging rights—though it was indeed that, and we bragged plenty about it. It was also an act of self-definition, an affirmation of American identity. We stretched the parameters of the navigable universe the way we stretched the parameters of everything else.

That perspective, obviously, was a romanticized one, achieved through a selective reading of the past. It discounted the experiences of many Black Americans. It minimized the degree to which they and other minorities were shut out from all of this inventing and exploring. It mingled self-congratulatory fiction with fact. And it probably imprinted itself more strongly on me than on some of my peers because of my particular family history. My father’s parents were uneducated immigrants who found in the United States exactly what they’d left Southern Italy for: more material comfort, greater economic stability, and a more expansive future for their children, including my father, who got a scholarship to an Ivy League school, went on to earn an M.B.A., and became a senior partner in one of the country’s biggest accounting firms. He put a heated in-ground pool in the backyard. He put me and my three siblings in private schools. He put our mother in a mink. And he pinched himself all the while.

It was nonetheless true that the idea of the United States as an unrivaled engine of social mobility and generator of wealth held sway with many Americans, who expected their children to do better than they’d done and their children’s children to do even better. That was the mythology, anyway. Sure, we hit lows, but we climbed out of them. We suffered doubts, but we snapped back. The tumult of the late 1960s, Richard Nixon’s degradation of the presidency, and the gas lines, international humiliation, and stagflation of Jimmy Carter’s presidency gave way, in 1980, to the election of Ronald Reagan, who declared that it was “morning again in America” and found an abundance of voters eager to welcome that dawn, to reconnect with an optimism that seemed more credibly and fundamentally American than deviations from it.

I don’t detect that optimism around me anymore. In its place is a crisis of confidence, a pervasive sense among most Americans that our best days are behind us, and that our problems are multiplying faster than we can find solutions for them. It’s a violent rupture of our national psyche. It’s a whole new American pessimism.

Well, maybe not entirely new. In Democracy in America , published in 1835, Alexis de Tocqueville noted a perpetually unsatisfied yearning in Americans, who, he wrote, “are forever brooding over advantages they do not possess.” He found Americans unusually attuned to their misfortunes, and that made (and still makes) sense: With big promises come big disappointments. Boundless dreams are bound to be unattainable.

Even in periods of American history that we associate with prosperity and tranquility, like the 1950s, there were rumblings and disenchantment: Rebel Without a Cause , The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit . And the late 1960s and early ’70s were an oxymoronic braid of surgent hope for necessary change and certainty that the whole American enterprise was corrupt. There were headstrong and heady demands for dignity, for equality, for justice. There were also cities on fire and assassinations. But the overarching story—the general trend line—of the United States in the second half of the 20th century was progress.

Read: The patron saint of political violence

Then, in 2001, the Twin Towers fell. In 2008, the global economy nearly collapsed. By 2012, I noticed that our “shining city on a hill,” to use one of Reagan’s favorite terms for the United States, was enveloped in a fog that wouldn’t lift. In June of that year, Jeb Bush visited Manhattan; had breakfast with several dozen journalists, including me; and mused about the country’s diminished position and fortunes. Perhaps because his political life was then on pause—he’d finished his two terms as Florida governor and his 2016 presidential campaign was still years away—he allowed himself a bluntness that he might not have otherwise. “We’re in very difficult times right now, very different times than we’ve been,” he said, and while that was already more downbeat than mainstream politicians’ usual prognostications, his following words were even darker: “We’re in decline.”

In the years that followed, I paid greater and greater heed to evidence that supported his appraisal, which mirrored my own. I was struck by how tempered and tentative President Barack Obama seemed by the second year of his second term, when he often mulled the smallness, not the largeness, of his place in history, telling David Remnick, the editor of The New Yorker , that each president is just “part of a long-running story. We just try to get our paragraph right.” “Mr. President,” my New York Times colleague Maureen Dowd wrote in response, “I am just trying to get my paragraph right. You need to think bigger.”

Of course, when Obama had thought bigger, he’d bucked up against an American political system that was polarized and paralyzed—that had turned “hope and change” into tweak and tinker. Obama’s longtime adviser David Axelrod told the Times ’ Michael Shear: “I think to pretend that ‘It’s morning in America’ is a misreading of the times.”

That was in 2014, when I registered and explored the revelation that so many Americans thought China was wealthier than we were. Around the same time, I also noticed a long memo by the prominent Democratic political strategist Doug Sosnik in Politico . He observed that for 10 years running, the percentage of Americans who believed that the United States was on the wrong track had exceeded the percentage who thought it was on the right track. “At the core of Americans’ anger and alienation is the belief that the American dream is no longer attainable,” Sosnik wrote. “For the first time in our country’s history, there is more social mobility in Europe than in the United States.”

That “first time” turned out to be no fleeting aberration. Since then, the negative markers have multiplied, and the negative mood has intensified. The fog over our shining city won’t lift. Almost every year from 2000 to the present, the suicide rate has increased. A kind of nihilism has spread, a “rot at the very soul of our nation,” as Mike Allen wrote last year in his Axios newsletter summarizing a Wall Street Journal /NORC poll that charted both the collapse of faith in American institutions and the abandonment of tradition and traditional values. Only 38 percent of respondents said that patriotism was very important, in contrast with 70 percent of respondents from a similar Journal /NBC survey a quarter century earlier, in 1998.

To recognize those dynamics is to understand America’s current politics, in which so many politicians—presidential candidates included—whip up support less by talking about the brightness of the country’s future than by warning of the apocalypse if the other side wins. They’re not clarions of American glory. They’re bulwarks against American ruin.

This essay was adapted from the forthcoming The Age of Grievance .

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How Hitler Used Democracy to Take Power

A dolf Hitler never won a majority in a free and open national election. He never received more than 37% of the vote in a free and open national election, but he argued that 37% represented 75% of 51%, and demanded political power. It was the political calculus by which the Nazi leader disabled, then dismantled, the Weimar Republic. Hitler exploited his 37% to gridlock legislative processes, to cudgel or crush the political opposition, and ultimately to undermine the country’s democratic structures. When Hitler had vowed in court, in September 1930, to destroy democracy through the democratic process, a judge asked, “So, only through constitutional means?” Hitler replied crisply, “Jawohl.”

Hitler exercised his constitutional right to free speech and freedom of assembly to hold rallies across the country and spew invective in all directions—against Bolsheviks, social democrats, immigrants, Jews, even fellow rightwing nationalists. He chided the ruling elites. If God had intended aristocrats to run the country, Hitler said at one rally in fall 1932, “we’d all have been born with monocles.” He vowed to make Germany great again. He promised a Third Reich bigger and better than the previous two. 

Hitler fomented outrage and discontent. He endorsed a public referendum backing the “Liberty Law,” proposed legislation that called for the abrogation of the Treaty of Versailles. The German signatories to the treaty were to be executed for treason, along with any government official who implemented the treaty’s provisions that included onerous reparation payments. It was reported, falsely, that the German government was drafting German teenagers and selling them into slavery abroad to service reparation debts. Hitler sowed lies and hatred, and harvested votes.

When he entered the race for president, in spring 1932—the only time Hitler ran for public office—he lost by six million votes, securing just 36.77% of the electorate. Hitler went to court to have the election results overturned amid claims of voter fraud, but the judge dismissed the case out of hand.

Hitler had more success with the legislative branch of government. The Nazis first entered the 600-member Reichstag in 1926 when they secured twelve seats in national elections. “We come not as friends and not as neutrals,” the brash, 32-year-old Reichstag delegate Joseph Goebbels warned at the time. “We come as mortal enemies.” 

The Nazis remained an insignificant, back-row minority until September 1930, following the crash of 1929, when they surged tenfold in Reichstag elections, then doubled that number in July 1932 elections. With 230 brownshirt delegates with swastika armbands, representing 37.3% of the electorate, Hitler commanded the country’s largest political movement. Social democrats trailed with 21%, and the communists with 14%. A dozen other centrist and rightwing political parties filled the remaining seats in the Reichstag’s vast glass-domed and wood-paneled plenary hall.

The country’s largest political party generally had claim to the chancellorship, but President Paul von Hindenburg was concerned by Hitler’s divisive politics, hate mongering, and antisemitism. In private, Hindenburg said that if he were to appoint “that Bohemian corporal” to any position, it would be as Postmaster General, “so he can lick me from behind on my stamps.” Hindenburg told Hitler to his face that he would never appoint him chancellor “for the sake of God, my conscience, and the country.”

Undeterred, Hitler resorted to obstructionist politics. When he leveraged his 37% to gridlock the Reichstag, he forced Hindenburg to rule by “emergency decree,” a power guaranteed the president  under Article 48 of the Weimar Constitution. Between December 1930 and April 1931, the Reichstag had enacted 19 pieces of legislation, with Hindenburg issuing only two Article 48 decrees. By the end of 1932, there were 59 “emergency decrees” compared with only five pieces of legislation. Writing in December 1932, a Time correspondent dryly observed that the German government appeared to be trying to “out-Hitler Hitler.”

Hitler had essentially and surprisingly quickly transformed a democratic republic into a constitutional dictatorship. Reichstag delegate Goebbels had  observed a few years earlier, “The big joke on democracy is that it gives its mortal enemies the tools to its own destruction.” Finally, on January 30, 1933, Hindenburg relented, agreeing to appoint Hitler chancellor to overcome the legislative gridlock and restore democratic procedures. We all know what followed.

Back in the 1980s, as a graduate student at Harvard University, I was a teaching assistant for Dr. Richard M. Hunt in his core curriculum course, Literature and Arts C-45, that explored the moral dilemmas faced by the average German during the Weimar and Nazi eras. Harvard undergraduates facetiously dubbed an earlier incarnation of Hunt’s  course, “Krauts and Doubts.”

In helping explain the Weimar Republic’s tilt into fascism, I used to cite an observation by Hans Frank, Hitler’s private attorney, who helped engineer the strategy to disable democratic processes through constitutional means. Frank became complicit in Germany’s wartime atrocities, including the murder of millions of Jews, for which he was hanged.

“The Führer was a man who was possible in Germany only at that very moment,” Frank observed while awaiting trial in Nuremberg after the war. Had Hitler come a decade later “when the republic was firmly established,” Frank said, it would have been impossible for him to have seized power. Had he come a decade earlier, the German people would have returned to the Kaiser. As it was, Frank said, Hitler came “at exactly this terrible transitory period” when the monarchy was gone and the thirteen-year-old republic was not yet secure.

I invoked the Frank temporal formula to contrast the fragility and ultimate failure of the thirteen-year-old Weimar Republic with the two centuries that Americans—more than ten generations—had had to forge the democratic values and processes that elevated the United States to a shining example for the world. Thirty years on, that contrast and claim seem frighteningly naïve.

As we approach the 250 th anniversary of our nation’s founding, in July 2026, our republic appears to be plagued by the myriad ills that doomed Weimar—political fragmentation, social polarization, hate-filled demagoguery, a legislature gridlocked by partisan posturing, and structural anomalies in voting processes. The electoral college makes it possible, though highly improbable, that a political leader could come to power with just 37% of the popular vote, unless, of course, a third candidate could siphon significant numbers of voters from the two leading candidates.

It has been said that the Weimar Republic died twice. It was murdered and it committed suicide. There is little mystery to the murder. Hitler vowed to destroy democracy through the democratic process—and he did. An act of state suicide is less easily explained, especially when it involves a democratic republic replete with constitutional protections like freedom of expression, due process, and public referendum. As the November presidential election approaches, it is perhaps worthwhile to reflect on the lessons of Weimar and the potential consequences of electing a calculating and calibrating demagogue who promises to make the country great again.

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