Leadership Qualities Essay: Characteristics of Effective Leaders

This essay delves into the critical qualities of effective leadership, emphasizing the importance of vision, commitment, courage, integrity, and the ability to motivate and encourage others. It highlights how good leaders possess a clear understanding of their goals, display confidence, and demonstrat...Read More

Running head: LEADERSHIP QUALITIES
Leadership Qualities
Name of the University:
Name of the Student:
Author Note:

1LEADERSHIP QUALITIES
Leadership refers to the human resources that provide objectives and operational
inaccuracies and inspire and mobilize and guide the workforce. They also provide a concept of
the organizational goal to the subordinates. The following essay wishes to illustrate upon the
qualities of a good leadership. Leadership is essential for any organization. The leaders of an
organisation influence the behaviour of the workforce and help the employees to realise the
organisational goals. Also, an effective leadership in an organization helps in the communication
process of the organization (Landis, Hill & Harvey, 2014, p.97). Leadership also helps in motivating
the employees by making them more confident and guiding them rightly towards the
organisational goals ensuring better production by them (Black, 2015, p.54). Leadership provides a
work morale and an essence of teamwork among the employees. However, researches have
established that there are multiple factors that ensure good leadership. The essential ones are
discussed in the essay.
Primarily good leadership needs vision and commitment. A good leader must be unique
and innovative in orientation. A leader must possess a clear idea about the task and should be
able to foresee the outcome and further needs to plan accordingly and strategically. A vision is
futile without the required commitment. Therefore, upon planning a leader must adhere to the
plan and needs to strategically plan the steps and further commit to them. This further requires
mind-set and attitude. Also it needs confidence and the profound understanding of the concept.
The leader must know what his ideas are and what it can result into (Copeland, 2014, p.105).
Secondly, the leader must be courageous enough and should believe in himself. It
basically refers to the maturity, proficiency and a strong stance. If the leader does not have
confidence upon his idea and is not confident enough to actually give that idea a shape and
establish it, then nobody else will believe in the idea and help him to make that happen (Daft,

2LEADERSHIP QUALITIES
2014, p.29). Leaders have a clear conception of what the idea is and what are the steps to be taken.
Therefore they are aware of the risks to be taken and are confident enough to take them. They
also possess the ability to solve any problems that may arise while making the idea reality.
Another important feature is integrity. The most important thing for a leader is to
remember his or her duties and must be equal to the whole of the group. Commitment towards
the duties show responsibilities and also portrays the morale of the administrator. Moreover,
moral practices within the group motivates the employees and contributes to good teamwork
(Morsten et al. 2014, p.447-462).
One other requirement is the ability to manage stress and enthusiasm. Negative attitude
does not qualify as a leadership quality. A leader must be positive and zealous in his attitude.
High energy is needed to deal with the pace of work and also to deal with the array of difficulties
that will be presented while working. Moreover, a positive attitude shows acceptance and will to
accept any ideas that may be within view (Zehir et al., 2014, p.1365-1375).
Further, a leader should be competent. This does not only refer to the technological
competency but also to the problem solving ability. That is, to be able to modify or recreate or
invent newer ways to a particular problem as per the situational need (Shamir & Eilam-Shamir, 2018,
p.51-76).
Lastly, the leader should be able to motivate and encourage and mobilize the employees.
A person will be called a good leader if they can mobilize and motivate the people and
channelize their energy into the right way. A leader is a person whom the employees look up to.
Therefore, a leader must be a good guide (Giltinane, 2013, p.137-139). Moreover, he must know his
employees to motivate them better. This requires being compassionate and empathetic. Also this

3LEADERSHIP QUALITIES
helps the leader to create and promote the sense of teamwork. A good teamwork also ensures
better production.
The leadership traits are something that an individual must possess. However, it is often
debated that the leadership qualities can be learned as well. This cannot be denied as well. With a
zeal to learn and encouragement from the seniors a good leader can be created. Therefore, to
conclude, the success of a good leadership depends upon the ability to achieve a goal through
implementation of strategic steps and proper execution of the same. Also, it depends upon high
morale, enthusiasm, positive attitude, teamwork and ability to innovate.

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References:
Black, S. A. (2015). Qualities of effective leadership in higher education. Open Journal of Leadership, 4(02), 54.
Copeland, M. K. (2014). The emerging significance of values based leadership: a literature review. International
journal of leadership studies, 8(2), 105.
Daft, R. L. (2014). The leadership experience. Cengage Learning.
Giltinane, C. L. (2013). Leadership styles and theories. Nursing Standard, 27(41).
Landis, E. A., Hill, D., & Harvey, M. R. (2014). A synthesis of leadership theories and styles. Journal of
Management Policy and Practice, 15(2), 97.
Mortensen, J., Lichty, L., Foster‐Fishman, P., Harfst, S., Hockin, S., Warsinske, K., & Abdullah, K. (2014).
Leadership through a youth lens: Understanding youth conceptualizations of leadership. Journal of
Community Psychology, 42(4), 447-462.
Shamir, B., & Eilam-Shamir, G. (2018). “What’s your story?” A life-stories approach to authentic leadership
development. In Leadership Now: Reflections on the Legacy of Boas Shamir(pp. 51-76). Emerald
Publishing Limited.
Zehir, C., Müceldili, B., Altindağ, E., Şehitoğlu, Y., & Zehir, S. (2014). Charismatic leadership and organizational
citizenship behavior: The mediating role of ethical climate. Social Behavior and Personality: an
international journal, 42(8), 1365-1375.