thesis statement about being a leader

• Words with Friends Cheat
• Wordle Solver
• Word Unscrambler
• Scrabble Dictionary
• Anagram Solver
• Wordscapes Answers

Make Our Dictionary Yours

Sign up for our weekly newsletters and get:

• Grammar and writing tips
• Fun language articles
• #WordOfTheDay and quizzes

By signing in, you agree to our Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy .

We'll see you in your inbox soon.

Writing an Effective Leadership Essay: Tips and Examples

• DESCRIPTION woman writing with leadership essay definition
• SOURCE Westend61 / Getty Images
• PERMISSION Used under Getty Images license

Whether you’ve led a horse to water or led your team to a victorious championship, you’re probably more of a leader than you give yourself credit for. It turns out, college admissions officers want to hear about that horse and/or championship in your application essay. The leadership essay is one of the hallmarks of college essays, but what’s the right way to do it?

What Is a Leadership Essay?

A leadership essay is a subset of college application essays that help college admissions officers understand your previous experiences as a leader. While that might seem extremely specific, it comes with the understanding that leadership looks and feels different based on the person and situation.

To give you a real world example: The president is ostensibly the leader of the United States. However, the president has a whole cabinet of other leaders for every other aspect of running a country. You might not be a leader of foreign policy, but you might be a leader on the football field or within your community volunteer group.

Leadership Essay Ideas and Topics

While you might see a few variations, almost all leadership essays go back to two main forms:

• What is your leadership style?
• Describe a moment when you showed leadership.

There’s inherently a bit of overlap with both of these. You’ll likely give an example of a leadership moment when talking about your leadership style, and you’ll probably talk about your leadership style when talking about a leadership moment.

In either case, the school will want you to use anecdotal evidence that demonstrates the idea. Go with what feels right, whether that’s leading a club or team in school or leading some ducklings across a busy highway. Even if your experience sounds cliché, it’s unique because it involves you.

How To Write a Leadership Essay

Probably the biggest trap that people fall into is “Well, I’ve never been a leader.” Even if you’ve never held some sort of leadership position at school or had an official title, chances are pretty high that you have exhibited some form of leadership at some point in your life. Beyond that, the actual writing of the leadership essay is fairly straightforward.

Formatting Your Leadership Essay

Your leadership essay will include an introduction paragraph, one or more body paragraphs, and a conclusion. Depending on the word or page limits, you can almost treat this like a five-paragraph essay .

• Introduction - Capture the reader’s interest, define good leadership in relation to you, and directly address the given prompt
• Body paragraphs - Give some background information using anecdotes to describe your leadership style or moment
• Conclusion - End with a compelling statement about your leadership qualities and how you hope to apply them to your education, career, and the world in general

How Long Should a Leadership Essay Be?

The length of the leadership essay depends on what the college or application system says. Thankfully, this is the one part of the essay that you don’t need to question. Nearly every school will provide a word limit, typically ranging from 250 words (for supplemental essays) potentially all the way up to 1,000 words.

In the rare event that you don’t see an obvious word limit, stick to a maximum of about 500 to 600 words.

Tips for Writing a Leadership Essay

Unfortunately, we don’t know your personal life, and we certainly don’t know moments where you exhibited leadership. So we can’t write your essay for you, but we can give you some tips to at least guide your writing process.

Define Good Leadership Before You Start

Before you begin writing your essay, think about what qualities make someone a good leader, at least in your opinion. What great leadership qualities do you have? What makes a “good leader”? Make a list before you begin writing your essay. 

Leadership qualities can include:

• The ability to motivate others
• Personal integrity
• Placing a value on relationships with team members
• Prioritizing the larger good over any individual

Review your list and choose the qualities you want to highlight. Write your own definition of what makes someone a great leader as it relates to the quality you chose. It should be one or two sentences long. Use that definition as the backbone of your essay.

Tell a Story About Your Leadership

It’s time to turn that list of potential leadership qualities into something meaningful and interesting. The best way to do that is with an engaging narrative.

You should obviously state good leadership qualities, but that shouldn’t be your entire essay. Tell a story about your leadership.

• Did you face a specific challenge?
• How did you overcome that challenge?
• How has your leadership style changed over the years?
• Was there a specific moment or experience that caused that change?

Really ask yourself questions and dig into the concept of leadership as a real thing that has had real effects on your life.

Write With Your Own Voice and Style

Although you shouldn’t be super informal in college application essays, they are also designed to help you display your own voice and personality. College admissions officers want to learn about you, and your writing style is inherently a big part of that, whether that means using humor or puns, maintaining a unique level of sincerity throughout the essay, or being invitingly verbose.

Don’t Be Down On Yourself

Whether it’s your personal statement , a supplemental essay, or this leadership essay, avoid being too down on yourself. Admissions officers want to hear about all your successes, trophies, and kittens saved from trees. They really don’t want to read a whole essay about you saying you’re a bad leader.

Humility is definitely an important leadership trait, but there’s a fine line between being humble and being hurtful to yourself. Even if you’re normally prone to some self-deprecation, try to keep it at a minimum for this essay.

Leadership Essay Example

If you’re not sure where to start, take some time to brainstorm ideas. Even the weirdest idea can blossom into something neat. If you need inspiration, one of the best things is to look at other examples of leadership. That could be from your favorite show, a good nonfiction book about sailors, or the essay below.

• DESCRIPTION leadership essay example chart
• SOURCE Created by Karina Goto for YourDictionary
• PERMISSION Owned by YourDictionary, Copyright YourDictionary 

Leadership Essay Introduction Example

The introduction should pull the reader in while directly answering the prompt. When in doubt, try to start with something concrete over something abstract. Or as writers and writing teachers like to say: Show, don’t tell.

The room was filled with the gentle hum of microphones and video cameras, cut only by the occasional cough or cleared throat. It was easy to feel out of place in this room full of wood furniture, leather seats, and powerful men capable of changing not just my life, but an entire sector of television programming as we knew it. I had never thought of myself as a leader, but I also knew that this was about something bigger than me, something that I could actually influence.

Leadership Essay Body Example

The body is where you’ll get more into the details of your narrative and connect it to ideas of leadership. Try not to get too hung up on the exact wording of what makes a leader. That can get far too abstract. Let your story speak for you.

I took a deep breath and began to talk. I wasn’t known to have a particularly commanding or powerful voice, but people always seemed to listen, including these men with their name placards and tall seats. They had been ready to cut funding for public broadcasting, which included programming that they had never seen. I was simply someone who lived in a neighborhood and cared about children’s education, beyond just math and reading. All I could do was be honest.

Leadership Essay Conclusion Example

Your conclusion considers the broader effects of your leadership. How might your leadership evolve or change? How can you apply that leadership to your education, job, or community?

To me, leadership is about connection. I know that I have a voice and an immense dedication to emotional intelligence in children. My ability to focus on other people goes hand-in-hand with my ability to speak through a tiger puppet. Both are about closing gaps and bringing people closer to a basic understanding. I hope to use my leadership abilities within the field of psychology to build more connections between people and communities.

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 

A life lesson in Romeo and Juliet taught by death

Due to human nature, we draw conclusions only when life gives us a lesson since the experience of others is not so effective and powerful. Therefore, when analyzing and sorting out common problems we face, we may trace a parallel with well-known book characters or real historical figures. Moreover, we often compare our situations with […]

Ethical Research Paper Topics

Writing a research paper on ethics is not an easy task, especially if you do not possess excellent writing skills and do not like to contemplate controversial questions. But an ethics course is obligatory in all higher education institutions, and students have to look for a way out and be creative. When you find an […]

Art Research Paper Topics

Students obtaining degrees in fine art and art & design programs most commonly need to write a paper on art topics. However, this subject is becoming more popular in educational institutions for expanding students’ horizons. Thus, both groups of receivers of education: those who are into arts and those who only get acquainted with art […]

• How It Works
• Prices & Discounts

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.

Share this article

Achieve Academic Success with Expert Assistance!

Crafted from Scratch for You.

Ensuring Your Work’s Originality.

Transform Your Draft into Excellence.

Perfecting Your Paper’s Grammar, Style, and Format (APA, MLA, etc.).

Calculate the cost of your paper

Get ideas for your essay

A Blue Print for the best Leadership Essay

Leadership encompasses a variety of tenets. It includes leadership approaches or styles, leadership development, types of leadership, leadership principles, leadership values, and leadership theories. These are but a few concepts that any college student must be acquainted with to be able to complete an essay on leadership.

As complex as writing a leadership essay sounds, it is simple when you know how to write an essay about leadership. You must begin by understanding who a leader is and the entire concept of leadership.

When writing an essay about a leader, it is akin to writing a profile essay about a certain leader or yourself. Leadership essays for college require a special type of keenness. While there are many scholarly sources you can use, it takes expertise to knit together a great leadership essay introduction.

This guide helps you write the ?what is leadership? essay effectively. It also enables you to write the best nature of leadership essay. If you are stuck with choosing leadership essay topics, our guide has over 89 essay topics on leadership and ideas that you can use to brainstorm. From today on, write the best leadership essay conclusion. And if it is a leadership essay for a scholarship, admission, or personal statement, we have experts that can help. We also have proofreading and editing professionals to help edit and proofread your leadership thesis and dissertation.

Read on and see what we have for you.

What is a Leadership Essay?

A leadership essay is somewhat a unique assignment assigned to college and university students. It can be part of the admission or scholarship essays or part of the coursework. Naturally, it is an assignment assigned to students pursuing different courses such as business, management, human resource, organizational behavior, economics, psychology, or political science, among others. A leadership essay encompasses exploration:

• The concept of leadership
• Nature of leadership
• Stories on prominent leaders
• Leadership traits and qualities
• The link between leadership and development, success, performance, and improvement
• Leadership abilities
• Facts and events of an individual?s leadership experience

To write a good leadership paper, a student must begin by reading the essay prompt and the rubric. A student should then think critically and logically on what to include in their paper. Like other exceptional essays, a good essay on leadership must have credible facts from scholarly sources. The instructor/professor is always testing for your evaluation, assessment, analytical, and presentation skills.

Tips when Writing Leadership Essays for College

Creating a perfect leadership essay is easy when you follow these predetermined success-assured steps.

1. Choose a leadership Topic that interests you

When assigning leadership essays, most professors and instructors alike give prompts with a list of topics to choose from. Go for topics that impress you and ones that you can find great information from books, journals, credible websites, and other scholarly sources.

2. Research Online and Get enough insights

After selecting a particular topic, ensure that you go a step higher to conduct research online. Gather as much information from the available literature as possible. The research process, when writing leadership essays, helps in generating ideas for the introduction, body, and conclusion of the essay. It also helps define the scope of your essay and come up with a thesis.

3. Create an excellent thesis statement

Your thesis statement in your essay on leadership should reflect the outlook of the entire essay. Format it to feature your major argument in an intelligent and reasoned way. An excellent thesis statement defines a good essay any day.

4. Draft the Leadership Essay Outline

Every great essay begins with an outline. Creating an outline for your leadership essay helps you draft a blueprint for the entire essay. Outline what will go to the introduction, the thesis statement, and the background information.

5. Write your First Draft

With the arguments reflected on the outline, you can choose to use any format for the body paragraphs. A common approach is to use the PEEL writing strategy for coherence in your paragraphs. You can also use the Schaffer strategy. The choice is yours. Above all, ensure that facts from scholarly sources are cited in-text in MLA, APA, Harvard, or Chicago formats.

6. Edit, Proofread and Revise your Essay

After writing your essay, it is always great to edit and proofread. If you have no confidence in your leadership essay, you can hire someone to edit your leadership essays . If you are an MBA student, we can help you correct mistakes on your paper. Always submit a paper you are confident will pass Turnitin and get you great grades.

How to Begin a Leadership Paper - The Introduction

You are probably reading this because the question of ?how do I start my leadership essay?? is bothering you. Well, even though the question seems ambiguous, we have an answer for you right here.

Every great leadership essay has an excellent introduction. Your introduction should be well-written to the extent that it grabs the attention of the reader and entices them to stay through the end. Ideally, the introduction sets the mood of the entire paper.

As with other types of essays, a leadership essay can commence with a great essay hook or a grabber . It could be an anecdote, a statistic, quote, phrase, or a catchy word.

The hook should be preceded by a few sentences that act as the background to your essay. The aim of the background sentences, in the introduction, is to set the context of the essay.

The background is then followed by an excellent thesis statement . The thesis statement gives a sneak peek into your essay in a snapshot. It can either be one or two last sentences in the introduction. The thesis differs depending on whether the essay is descriptive, classification, narrative, argumentative, or persuasive essay.

If you follow these steps, you will write an outstanding essay on leadership. Make it count right from the beginning.

How to Ace a Leadership Experience Essay

When writing application essays, scholarship essays, or school transfer essays, you can be asked to write an essay about your leadership experience. It is always imperative to make your essay as unique as the Costco application essay. Here are some tips to use when writing your leadership essay:

• Begin by reading the leadership experience essay prompt to understand exactly what you are being asked to write about.
• Come up with an excellent essay hook for your essay. It could be an anecdote, a quote from a great leader, a simple statistic, or an observation?.
• Write the thesis of your leadership experience essay, which should cover the gist of the entire essay.
• Write the introduction of the essay as though it is to be published among the best sellers.
• Make sure each of the paragraphs outlines your leadership experiences. Each of the paragraphs should have leadership experience, illustrations, and examples.
• Keep the flow within the paper by using appropriate transitions.
• Avoid using jargon in your leadership essays. In most cases, simplicity wins the day, and after all, a successful leader expresses themselves in just a few words.
• If there are references used, be sure to cite the essay in APA, MLA, Harvard, or Chicago.
• Make the conclusion count. Restate the thesis and write a summary of the entire paper.
• Most leadership essays can be anything between 150 words to 2000 words. Depending on the essay prompt, always be sure to meet the word count.

Remember, if the leadership experience essay is a scholarship essay, personal statement, statement of purpose, or an admission essay, it should be written in the first person. Otherwise, you must stick to the third person, which is a preference in academic writing.

Leadership Essay Topics and Ideas you can choose for your Paper

Are you wondering about the best leadership essay topics? We have your back on this. Here are some essay topics on leadership to kick start your topic choice process. We answer the question of ?what are some essay topics on leadership??

• The ability of women in leadership to successfully steer progress and success in organizations.
• Role of leaders in the community
• Charismatic, transformational, and transactional leadership
• Characteristics of a good leader
• Features of supportive leadership
• Leadership and Power
• Women in leadership
• Breaking the glass ceiling
• Role of ethics in leadership
• Gender differences in leadership
• Importance of team leadership in virtual teams
• Role of leaders in group formation
• How leadership brings diversity in an organization
• Corruption among public leaders
• Are leaders made or born?
• Can situations define a leader?
• Leadership succession and its importance in organizations
• Do you consider yourself to be a leader or a follower?
• An example of a 21 st -century exemplary leader
• Challenges leaders face
• Importance of listening for leaders
• Are transformational leaders better than transactional leaders?
• How to improve leadership skills
• Great leaders should be great communicators
• Who do you look up to as a leader?
• Importance of self-confidence among leaders
• Which leader do you admire? Please write a letter to of gratitude for their influence on your life
• The importance of leadership in schools
• Historical leaders
• Think of a leader you admire and list three of the qualities that make him or her a good leader. Which quality do you share with him or her? Which quality could you improve upon?
• How can you improve your own leadership skills?
• Role of military leadership
• Do entrepreneurs need to be leaders?
• An integrative theory of leadership
• The impacts of national culture on corporate and public leadership
• Leadership and organizational development
• How leadership affects the morale of employees
• Does leadership competence define the organization of choice for employees
• The link between leadership and organizational citizenship behavior
• Leadership and organizational loyalty
• Variation of leadership behavior depending on the culture
• Leadership processes and self-identity of followers
• Leadership style and organizational commitment
• The prospective of future leadership
• Role of strategic leadership
• The Influence of democratic leadership on Employee performance: A case in Saudi Public Sector
• Business leadership and culture
• The normative approach to business leadership
• Comparative analysis of the world?s greatest military leaders
• Understanding combat leadership
• Role of military leaders in strategy and policy implementation
• Meyers Briggs Type Indicator best for military leadership
• Understanding the art of command in military leadership
• How school leadership works
• Does the leadership styles of a school principle define the success of a school?
• Are collaborative school leaders successful?
• The role of power, culture, and people in educational leadership
• Leadership and policy implementation
• Leadership style of educators
• School leadership in the 21 st century
• Teacher leadership for professional resilience
• Qualities of exceptional school leaders
• How professional school leaders deal with dilemmas
• Leadership and the glass ceiling
• The performance of indigenous communities in political leadership
• Sustainable environmental leadership
• Corporate leadership
• The psychology of leadership
• African-American women executives and organizational leadership
• Ethics as the heart of leadership
• Servant leadership
• Leadership challenges in virtual teams
• Leadership development and growth
• Evolving human resource practices in succession planning
• Contemporary issues of leadership
• Leadership investment
• Importance of leadership for nurses
• Are leadership traits inherent, or can people be molded into good leaders?
• Are meetings the only effective way for sound leaders to disseminate information?
• Compare and contrast the effectiveness of dictatorial and servant leadership
• Explore the church leadership approach
• The foundation of biblical leadership
• Compare business and political leadership
• The bureaucratic structure of government and their impact on leadership in the public domain
• Best leadership styles for diverse teams
• Impacts of technology and social media on the leadership style of millennial leaders
• Compare and contrast formal and informal leaders
• The leadership philosophy of great leaders
• Critical analysis of leadership styles and organizational culture that enables the implementation of a proposed local project of advancing the Nursing practice

Contact us for the best topics and help with your MBA leadership essays or essays for school on leadership. Our professional essay writers can always help.

Top 30 Leadership Qualities to Include in a Leadership Essay

As a student undertaking a leadership course, completing an essay, term paper, or a research paper on leadership is mandatory. When asked to write an essay on leadership, it would be best if you used some of the leadership traits.

The common traits include

• Transparency
• Conscientious
• Excellent communication
• Decision-Making Skills
• Problem-solving capacity
• Accountability and responsibility
• Delegation and empowerment
• Emotional intelligence
• Creativity and innovation
• Decisiveness
• Unselfishness
• Dependability

These are some of the powerful traits of successful leaders . Of course, there are many other traits that you can research and include in your leadership essays. Effective leaders need to be very tactical when influencing their followers. They need to foster teamwork where necessary and use their wisdom to solve conflicts among the followers. It is great to have empathy or fit in the shoes of a leader when writing your leadership essay. Sometimes, even as simple as a biography essay, a leadership essay needs to be well-organized such that there is flow and a good explanation of the traits is inevitable.

Help with Writing Leadership Essay for College

You might have read the entire article but still cannot comprehend how to write a leadership essay. It is always time to get a great leadership essay sample to understand how one is written. If, even with the leadership essay example, you cannot write the essay, you need help.

Related Reading: Descriptive essay writing process and topics .

Luckily, we have writers for hire who write various types of essays on leadership. The leadership essays we can help with include: narrative, how-to, compare and contrast, classification, exemplification, descriptive, persuasive, argumentative, and reflection essays on leadership.

You can pay our paper writers to write the best leadership essays for school. If you are doing an MBA leadership essay, you can always consult with our writers for the best insights and advice.

Even with this ultimate guide for writing a leadership, things can get thick. Getting help with writing college essays is not illegal. Get a great homework helper or an assignment helper from our website to help you write a custom leadership essay, today!

Gradecrest is a professional writing service that provides original model papers. We offer personalized services along with research materials for assistance purposes only. All the materials from our website should be used with proper references. See our Terms of Use Page for proper details.

• Walden University
• Faculty Portal

Writing a Paper: Thesis Statements

Basics of thesis statements.

The thesis statement is the brief articulation of your paper's central argument and purpose. You might hear it referred to as simply a "thesis." Every scholarly paper should have a thesis statement, and strong thesis statements are concise, specific, and arguable. Concise means the thesis is short: perhaps one or two sentences for a shorter paper. Specific means the thesis deals with a narrow and focused topic, appropriate to the paper's length. Arguable means that a scholar in your field could disagree (or perhaps already has!).

Strong thesis statements address specific intellectual questions, have clear positions, and use a structure that reflects the overall structure of the paper. Read on to learn more about constructing a strong thesis statement.

Being Specific

This thesis statement has no specific argument:

Needs Improvement: In this essay, I will examine two scholarly articles to find similarities and differences.

This statement is concise, but it is neither specific nor arguable—a reader might wonder, "Which scholarly articles? What is the topic of this paper? What field is the author writing in?" Additionally, the purpose of the paper—to "examine…to find similarities and differences" is not of a scholarly level. Identifying similarities and differences is a good first step, but strong academic argument goes further, analyzing what those similarities and differences might mean or imply.

Better: In this essay, I will argue that Bowler's (2003) autocratic management style, when coupled with Smith's (2007) theory of social cognition, can reduce the expenses associated with employee turnover.

The new revision here is still concise, as well as specific and arguable.  We can see that it is specific because the writer is mentioning (a) concrete ideas and (b) exact authors.  We can also gather the field (business) and the topic (management and employee turnover). The statement is arguable because the student goes beyond merely comparing; he or she draws conclusions from that comparison ("can reduce the expenses associated with employee turnover").

Making a Unique Argument

This thesis draft repeats the language of the writing prompt without making a unique argument:

Needs Improvement: The purpose of this essay is to monitor, assess, and evaluate an educational program for its strengths and weaknesses. Then, I will provide suggestions for improvement.

You can see here that the student has simply stated the paper's assignment, without articulating specifically how he or she will address it. The student can correct this error simply by phrasing the thesis statement as a specific answer to the assignment prompt.

Better: Through a series of student interviews, I found that Kennedy High School's antibullying program was ineffective. In order to address issues of conflict between students, I argue that Kennedy High School should embrace policies outlined by the California Department of Education (2010).

Words like "ineffective" and "argue" show here that the student has clearly thought through the assignment and analyzed the material; he or she is putting forth a specific and debatable position. The concrete information ("student interviews," "antibullying") further prepares the reader for the body of the paper and demonstrates how the student has addressed the assignment prompt without just restating that language.

Creating a Debate

This thesis statement includes only obvious fact or plot summary instead of argument:

Needs Improvement: Leadership is an important quality in nurse educators.

A good strategy to determine if your thesis statement is too broad (and therefore, not arguable) is to ask yourself, "Would a scholar in my field disagree with this point?" Here, we can see easily that no scholar is likely to argue that leadership is an unimportant quality in nurse educators.  The student needs to come up with a more arguable claim, and probably a narrower one; remember that a short paper needs a more focused topic than a dissertation.

Better: Roderick's (2009) theory of participatory leadership  is particularly appropriate to nurse educators working within the emergency medicine field, where students benefit most from collegial and kinesthetic learning.

Here, the student has identified a particular type of leadership ("participatory leadership"), narrowing the topic, and has made an arguable claim (this type of leadership is "appropriate" to a specific type of nurse educator). Conceivably, a scholar in the nursing field might disagree with this approach. The student's paper can now proceed, providing specific pieces of evidence to support the arguable central claim.

Choosing the Right Words

This thesis statement uses large or scholarly-sounding words that have no real substance:

Needs Improvement: Scholars should work to seize metacognitive outcomes by harnessing discipline-based networks to empower collaborative infrastructures.

There are many words in this sentence that may be buzzwords in the student's field or key terms taken from other texts, but together they do not communicate a clear, specific meaning. Sometimes students think scholarly writing means constructing complex sentences using special language, but actually it's usually a stronger choice to write clear, simple sentences. When in doubt, remember that your ideas should be complex, not your sentence structure.

Better: Ecologists should work to educate the U.S. public on conservation methods by making use of local and national green organizations to create a widespread communication plan.

Notice in the revision that the field is now clear (ecology), and the language has been made much more field-specific ("conservation methods," "green organizations"), so the reader is able to see concretely the ideas the student is communicating.

Leaving Room for Discussion

This thesis statement is not capable of development or advancement in the paper:

Needs Improvement: There are always alternatives to illegal drug use.

This sample thesis statement makes a claim, but it is not a claim that will sustain extended discussion. This claim is the type of claim that might be appropriate for the conclusion of a paper, but in the beginning of the paper, the student is left with nowhere to go. What further points can be made? If there are "always alternatives" to the problem the student is identifying, then why bother developing a paper around that claim? Ideally, a thesis statement should be complex enough to explore over the length of the entire paper.

Better: The most effective treatment plan for methamphetamine addiction may be a combination of pharmacological and cognitive therapy, as argued by Baker (2008), Smith (2009), and Xavier (2011).

In the revised thesis, you can see the student make a specific, debatable claim that has the potential to generate several pages' worth of discussion. When drafting a thesis statement, think about the questions your thesis statement will generate: What follow-up inquiries might a reader have? In the first example, there are almost no additional questions implied, but the revised example allows for a good deal more exploration.

Thesis Mad Libs

If you are having trouble getting started, try using the models below to generate a rough model of a thesis statement! These models are intended for drafting purposes only and should not appear in your final work.

• In this essay, I argue ____, using ______ to assert _____.
• While scholars have often argued ______, I argue______, because_______.
• Through an analysis of ______, I argue ______, which is important because_______.

Words to Avoid and to Embrace

When drafting your thesis statement, avoid words like explore, investigate, learn, compile, summarize , and explain to describe the main purpose of your paper. These words imply a paper that summarizes or "reports," rather than synthesizing and analyzing.

Instead of the terms above, try words like argue, critique, question , and interrogate . These more analytical words may help you begin strongly, by articulating a specific, critical, scholarly position.

Read Kayla's blog post for tips on taking a stand in a well-crafted thesis statement.

Related Resources

Didn't find what you need? Email us at [email protected] .

• Previous Page: Introductions
• Next Page: Conclusions
• Office of Student Disability Services

Walden Resources

Departments.

• Academic Residencies
• Academic Skills
• Career Planning and Development
• Customer Care Team
• Field Experience
• Military Services
• Student Success Advising
• Writing Skills

Centers and Offices

• Center for Social Change
• Office of Academic Support and Instructional Services
• Office of Degree Acceleration
• Office of Research and Doctoral Services
• Office of Student Affairs

Student Resources

• Doctoral Writing Assessment
• Form & Style Review
• Quick Answers
• ScholarWorks
• SKIL Courses and Workshops
• Walden Bookstore
• Walden Catalog & Student Handbook
• Student Safety/Title IX
• Legal & Consumer Information
• Website Terms and Conditions
• Cookie Policy
• Accessibility
• Accreditation
• State Authorization
• Net Price Calculator
• Contact Walden

Walden University is a member of Adtalem Global Education, Inc. www.adtalem.com Walden University is certified to operate by SCHEV © 2024 Walden University LLC. All rights reserved.

• 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

Recent Posts

• Writing the “Why Should Abortion Be Made Legal” Essay: Sample and Tips
• 3 Examples of Enduring Issue Essays to Write Yours Like a Pro
• Writing Essay on Friendship: 3 Samples to Get Inspired
• What Is Nursing Essay, and How to Write It Like a Pro

Transformational Leadership Essay

Introduction.

In any organization, the focus is based on yielding high profits. The key to this lies in the leader, who in turn inspires the staff. Leadership in an organization is usually classified into different categories based on the style the leader uses.

Different leadership styles are used to attain desired goals, but Bass (2006) pointed out in his work that the secret to an organization that is effective in achieving its goals lies in the use of transformational leadership. A leader usually uses power and influence to exercise authority. In transformational leadership, however, the idea is to emphasize influence to manage the teams and bring them aboard to understand the leader’s vision.

What Is a Transformational Leader?

Transformational leadership can be defined as implementing new ideas through adopting a more flexible and universal method of influencing and continually ameliorating those around them. This type of leadership calls for the leader and the staff to improve one another’s motivation levels.

Motivational leaders bravely work towards making the staff realize the need for higher ideas and their vision for the organization’s future. Transformational leaders naturally role model their followers and pass their enthusiasm by clearly letting them visualize their ideas and what he is doing, and by outlining their genuine personal beliefs, he shows the followers that he has these values. Transformational leaders can achieve these results by possessing certain qualities and characteristics.

Transformational leaders understand their abilities and confidently stand firm on their beliefs. Confidence in their abilities keeps them motivated and helps them connect emotionally to the organization. They have high levels of self-determination, which helps them attain a sense of direction for the organization and, in turn, influence the followers, and together they propel the organization in the right course.

They possess self-drive, which helps them to visualize themselves as achievers who do not have to rely on luck to achieve good results. It is this understanding of self that helps them to transform those around them (Chammas, 2010).

Another characteristic of effective transformational leaders is seen in their ability to understand those around them and particularly those under them. Transformational leaders carefully understand and purposefully influence and motivate the staff to understand the goals. Together, they are working toward attaining that goal since he assists them in realizing its intended worth.

This requires the transformational leader to have the right communication skills to relay their vision to the point of winning the willingness of the followers such that they, too, are excited and have the drive to achieve the desired change. Transformational leader fully understands what they hope to achieve, and the process of carefully relaying the intent to the followers requires idealized influence, which ensures the followers are not resistant to the idea.

To do so, the leader must also be willing to actively involve them in chatting the way forward towards attaining the goal. After they agree on the right course of action, the transformational leader again provides inspirational motivation to keep them going and excite their minds to have the urge to achieve the task.

After the transformational leader purposefully develops the ideas and effectively influences the staff to yearn to attain the goal, it only marks the beginning of the process. The work of the transformational leader is to keep the staff focused on the vision continually, help them stick to the agreed course of action to attain the vision, and continually be actively involved in influencing more and more colleagues to support the vision.

The importance here is to make sure that the staff clearly understands the vision the leader has for the organization’s future and make sure that they will support the course and keep abreast with the importance of the task even in years to come. The staff should not just be involved in doing their assigned job but engage in the job because they realize the importance of the outcome of the job.

The last characteristic of transformation leadership is a combination of three qualities requiring the transformational leader to think outside the box. According to Chammas (2010), a transformational leader is not afraid to evaluate the organization’s traditions and make changes without interfering with its core business.

This requires that they come up with innovative and creative ways that align with their vision for the organization. In their pursuit of change, they are seen as ignoring the present and yearning for a better future. A factor that works with this is their willingness to embrace innovations and ideas.

The transformational leader encourages others to develop new methodologies and innovations that align with attaining the vision. They do so as to keep abreast with the changing times and to demonstrate that they understand that new challenges in the future need new solutions.

Therefore, they encourage suggestions and offer appraisals for the best ideas. The third point on the same is that the transformational leader takes up their role as the advisor and the guide of the team. Their role here is to assist the whole team through the operations. This requires that they understand that each individual has their own personal strengths and weaknesses in given areas.

The leader also considers the individual’s level and will to adjust to new ideas. By understanding the readiness levels, the leader can establish the right timing for implementing the new ideas so that the resistance is minimal. The ability to forge ahead and achieve a new, transformed organization depends on the transformational leader’s influence levels on the staff and developing them in the areas needed to achieve a new organization.

Transformational leadership has proven effective by far compared to other leadership styles. This is due to its influential nature that seeks to have both the leader and the follower develop each other, and together they work towards attaining a vision and, in turn, a new organization.

The benefits of adopting transformation leadership are clearly felt in the outcomes. Transformation leadership increases the influence at the topmost leadership level. This, according to Cox (2010), is because transformational leaders act as role models to other employees in the organization and hence are obeyed, and their method of dealing with people is respected. The result is an organization where there is solid unity between the leader and the employees, giving rise to an atmosphere of mutual trust and effective communication.

This means that the executive is given a hearing by other staff. Therefore the implementation of ideas is fast, and the environment at the workplace is not tense or hierarchical. This is because more emphasis is placed on developing each other instead of arguing about bureaucracy. The leader concentrates on guiding the staff through the vision instead of spending most of the time trying to unite opposing groups in an organization. Results are achieved quickly once all the staff are on board and working passionately.

Another benefit of transformational leadership is seen in how the leader oozes the charisma and excitement they have to perform their duty. The rest of the staff can read clearly the leader’s aspirations, and consequently, they follow in trying to achieve the vision too. The energy possessed by transformational leaders is said to be a major contributor to the other staff’s willingness to join in because they are inspired by their leader’s genuine vision of taking the organization to a whole new level.

A successful and effective organization is able to be realized through two important aspects; a leader who has a clearly defined vision for the organization and staff who have the will to assist and work together towards the realization of that goal. Transformational leaders are enthusiastic about their vision and through their ability to bring other staff on board, realizing the vision becomes very easy and hence a successful and effective organization (Cox, 2010).

A major benefit of transformational leadership is how it can guide the employees bit by bit in achieving a change in the organization. They do this by gradually explaining and influencing the employees and taking them through the step-by-step process of attaining the desired change.

They can visualize the changes the organization should hope to achieve, e.g., introducing a new product, new operating methods, new technology adjustments, etc. They then embark on a mission to carefully engage the employees to understand their feelings toward the desired change. According to Xenitelis (2010), they do this by employing tactical approaches to reveal their thoughts on the same and involve them directly in defining the desired change.

They then attempt to make that necessary adjustment to make the employees clearly understand why the change is important and what it hopes to achieve. After the necessary change is made to propel the vision, the transformational leader then guides the process and ensures that everyone is on board. The leader keeps a constant check by evaluating the process as it continues and hence makes the necessary changes.

This step-by-step engagement of the process proves very successful and is the most effective way for the organization to realize changes. It is also an effective way of avoiding resistance to change which is usually a major hindrance to organizational progress. Its effectiveness is seen especially when the organization wishes to launch a new product or desires to make a complete change in its operating processes (Xenitelis, 2010).

Employees in an organization led by a transformational leader always feel the challenge to keep their energies going because they are inspired by the leader. This fosters a feeling of taking one’s duties and responsibilities personally and yearning to perform one’s tasks to the best of their abilities. This sort of inspiration by the transformational leader encourages the employees to come up with new ways of doing things.

Creativity and innovativeness amongst the employees are encouraged, which, in turn, brings out the individual’s full potential while still addressing the issue of self-development. The benefits of such a working environment trickle down to the organization, which has employees with self-fulfillment and give their best, and their creative input is enjoyed; hence the organization’s effectiveness is realized (Stewart, 2006).

Bass, one of the pioneers of transformational leadership, pointed out that the application of this style of leadership helps the employees push their abilities to levels they never thought they could reach. In addition to transformational leadership uniting and ensuring people agree Bass pointed out that it fosters a working culture where moral force flourishes, and therefore the level of employee turnover is kept at a minimum.

Employees who understand that the organization they are working for encourages them to give their creativity and allows them to develop to levels they never thought they could achieve are likely to stick with the organization for long. The benefits of such a working culture are realized in the organization’s success in achieving its vision since the costs associated with employee turnover and retention are cut, as well as the benefits of developed and satisfied employees (Bass, 2006).

Transformational leadership brings forth culture and climate in an organization whereby success is bound to prosper. When a transformational leader takes into consideration the abilities and needs of each employee individually and shares their genuine vision clearly and elaborately, it brings forth a culture of honesty and receptiveness.

The employees feel that their input is respected and credit awarded for their ideas. This, in turn, gives rise to a working environment where there is job satisfaction, and consequently, due to the absence of commotion, the environment is stress-free.

The employees are always in high spirits, and their motivation to work hard is on top; hence they freely express their abilities to improve in certain areas, and the areas where they are strong are emphasized. An organization’s success is bound to be realized in such a stress-free working culture with high motivation levels. Job satisfaction is high and personal abilities are given consideration.

Transformational leadership is beneficial in that it can help an organization cut costs. Through the transformational leader’s ability to connect with the employees and give them a chance to understand the task at hand, including allowing their ideas and creativity, job satisfaction is achieved, which means employees do not feel the need to leave the organization hence the reduced employee turnover. This, in a major way, saves the organization high costs associated with losing employees and having to employ new ones.

In a transformational leadership organization, the employees are given a chance to concentrate on areas they are strong in; hence, the unnecessary costs of training the employees in unfamiliar areas are reduced. This also goes for the fact that the employees are given a chance to develop, and as they work harmoniously, they teach each other by sharing ideas. Hence, in-training employees is unnecessary in most cases (Stewart, 2006).

Transformational Leadership: Conclusion

In conclusion, effectiveness in an organization highly depends on the leader’s ability to have a vision, build consensus with the employees, and adjust his leadership style to fit the vision and guide the whole team toward the desired direction.

Transformational leadership considers all this by having the leader clearly understand the direction he wants to propel the organization, influencing the employees, and making them understand how important the change is. Then together, they engage in the process.

Transformational leadership combines the right employees and the right motives. It inspires creativity and motivation in achieving a smooth flow of processes which, in the long run, ensures an effective organization that delivers its results and is consistent in achieving the desired changes.

Reference List

Bass, M. and Riggio, E. (2006) Transformational Leadership. New York, Routledge.

Chammas, A. (2010) Leadership Characteristics for Organizational Transformation Success, Transformational Leadership , vol. 12, no. 6, pp. 16-27.

Cox, R. (2010) The Benefits of Transformational Leadership . Web.

Stewart, J. (2006) Transformational Leadership: An Evolving Concept Examined through the Works of Burns, Bass, Avolio, and Leithwood , Canadian Journal of Educational Administration and Policy. vol. 27, no. 56, pp. 1-19.

Xenitelis, M. (2010) Transformational Leadership , Management. vol. 43, no. 12, pp. 11 -17.

• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2023, October 28). Transformational Leadership Essay. https://ivypanda.com/essays/transformational-leadership/

"Transformational Leadership Essay." IvyPanda , 28 Oct. 2023, ivypanda.com/essays/transformational-leadership/.

IvyPanda . (2023) 'Transformational Leadership Essay'. 28 October.

IvyPanda . 2023. "Transformational Leadership Essay." October 28, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/transformational-leadership/.

1. IvyPanda . "Transformational Leadership Essay." October 28, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/transformational-leadership/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Transformational Leadership Essay." October 28, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/transformational-leadership/.

• Transformational Leadership and Business Change
• Transformational and Transactional Leadership
• The Benefits of Transformational Leadership
• Charismatic and Transformational Approaches
• Transformational Leadership Style: Benefits for Women
• Transformational Leaders Influence on Performance
• The Application of Transformational Leadership in the UAE
• Transformational Leadership Theory and Personality
• Transformational Leadership and Management Skills
• "The Influence of the Transformational Leader" by Tucker and Russell
• Asia Pacific Breweries as an International Business
• Alain Limited' Management and Strategy
• Strategic Planning Essay
• The Field of Organizational Learning and Its Theories
• The Training Techniques of the Hudson Hotel in New York City