Essay about Understanding Leadership

Leadership is an important trait anyone can have. It is something you need to grow and nurture to become a greater version of yourself, and a greater version of yourself for the people around you. I have experienced a growth in my leadership this past year through different daily experiences and trials. A journey of growing leadership takes understanding leadership, understanding leadership within, strategic leadership, and communication skills.

Understanding leadership is the beginning foundation of your journey. Leadership is your ability to guide and influence others in a positive and helpful way. A leader has many characteristics. Leading takes positivity, kindness, empathy, gratitude, communication, and the ability to keep up with your responsibilities. Power, influence, and motivation are all deeply intertwined and rooted back to leadership. Power is the ability to direct a group of people or situations in a certain direction. Influence is the skill of having an effect on the people, mood, and behavior surrounding you. Communication is freely sharing words and information with others. These three abilities all require each other to occur successfully, and are needed traits in a great leader. Past historical leaders are lessons we can learn and develop from. These leaders hold beneficial traits, but can also have harmful characteristics. As leaders, we can use their beneficial traits and use them to grow ourselves, and also view their harmful characteristics as what not to do. Understanding leadership is a basic necessity in growing yourself and furthering your understanding leads the way to learning leadership within.

Each leader has a unique form of leadership within. I personally am social, respectful, truthful, kind, and studious. My leadership skills consist of empathy, listening, communication, and positivity. Personality traits and leadership skills build up what your leadership qualities are. Leaders all come with different weaknesses and strengths. I struggle with procrastination, laziness, and being impatient. On the other hand, I excel at problem solving, creativity, teamwork, and motivation. Stress and time management are all a part of the trials life gives you. The last time I experienced stress and had to use time management was after spring break when I had a lot of work due and beast week set up. I set off time to catch up with my work around the day and dedicated my leadership class to completing beast week posters. Leadership within is very unique to every person, and takes time to grow and understand. Growing your leadership goes hand in hand with using your leadership skills in an everyday strategic way.

Leadership not only benefits the people or situation around you, but can also aid you in your daily life and achievements. A goal is a desired outcome due to a person's effort and work. Everyone has goals in their lives, but setting an effective goal is not only more achievable but healthier for you. An effective goal is something that you can accomplish and work towards without overwhelming or overworking yourself. A successful way to achieve your goal is to set an action plan. When creating an action plan, you must consider what you need to accomplish your goal, the steps required, how much time is put towards it, and to give yourself a healthy work balance. In the past year I have been lucky to have many leadership experiences that have helped me discover my problem solving, decision making, and skills. My problem solving skills showed at Sunrise Sunset when we were on our scavenger hunt and my group was separated in half meaning I had to lead the lost half to the rest of the group. Decision making was developed during Beast Week posters when I had to make judgements and use my creativity to decorate posters for the hall. During D8, my skills of being social shined when I led my group through the different activities and encouraged them to get involved. Using your leadership abilities daily is important in developing them further and communication grows your leadership skills with the people around you.

Leadership requires us to work with and around others. Communication allows us to spread ideas and information to a large group. Effective communication takes honesty, friendliness, and patience. Harsh communication leads to others turning away from you and a sense of intimidation or fear. Every individual communicates in a unique way. My personal strengths in communication are honesty, openness, kindness, and advice. I struggle with interrupting and blocking out other opinions or advice. Holding yourself accountable for what you lack helps you improve those traits to better your communication skills. Leadership, communication, promotion, and marketing are all related and push towards better communication. Leadership is the ability to guide the people around you. Communication grants you the skill to spread ideas. Promotion encourages or pushes people towards a better goal or aim. Marketing delivers or presents needs and ideas to a group of people. These factors all work together as different qualities to better your communication and ability as a leader. They all require each other to be able to improve. Communication is essential in influencing your surroundings in a positive beneficial way as a leader.

A successful leader is born from understanding leadership, understanding leadership within, using strategic leadership, and evolving communication skills. Understanding leadership forms the building blocks for future skills to work up from. Leadership within gives you the ability to learn from your strengths and weaknesses, and provides an opportunity to improve. Strategic leadership puts your skills and abilities to the test through your everyday life and hardships. Communication spreads your positivity and leadership skills to the people and environment around you. Everyone has what it takes to be an amazing leader. All it takes is some nurturing and a journey of growth.