What Leaders Really Do

ABSTRACT

This paper discussed various characteristics of being a leader followed by a personal analysis of characteristics of leader model. The job of a leader may be aspired by many but it is not something that can be carried out by all. The job of a leader may seem all perks and benefits but it is coupled with many critical situation handling. This paper review examines the Harvard Business Review by Kotter and identify the characteristics of leaders.

What Leaders Really Do

Introduction

Different people adopt different professions and to succeed in any profession it is imperative to for a person to adopt certain skills and qualities. Only those who become successful in adopting these qualities, trait or characteristics excel in that field. Some people possess natural ability, skills, characteristic and qualities to perform a certain task while others acquire or learn what they lack to succeed and proceed (Allen, 2008). Similarly, leadership is a phenomenon that requires a leader to possess certain qualities and characteristics to perform various tasks of leading people at its best. This paper will be discussing different characteristics of a leader then evaluating these characteristics.

Discussion

Leadership is the task of motivating, guiding, directing and leading others in the right direction in order to fulfill certain mutual aims and objectives. A leader through leadership role shows the right and correct path to his or her subordinates (Bass, 2005). Leadership provides subordinates a guidance with which they can bring improvement in their work. Every organisation has its own needs which it needs to fulfil in order to ensure that the company is doing well. It is important for the management to recognise those needs so that leaders can lead and manage the work in the same manner (Kotter, 1990). There are different demands that leadership has and these demands should be met even with the changes in the organisational requirements. The seven demands of leadership are as follows:

Visioning

Maximising Values

Challenging Experience

Mentoring

Building a Constituency

Making Sense of Experience

Knowing Self

Leader

A leader is an individual who has the role of leading others. A leader can be considered as the captain of the ship. He leads and guides his or her team members in the right direction. In order to perform this task well he needs to have certain characteristics (Bryman, 2006). In general it is said that a leader should possess few common qualities that lend a hand to him or her to perform the task well (Kotter, 1990). These qualities can be described in a summarized way in the form of following chart:

According to its definition, leadership is the ability to influence people, so much so that they end up putting all of their weight behind the pursuit of goals dictated by the leader. True leaders are the ones who command respect and trust from their followers, not because of their ability to reward or punish but because of their personality, character and their contribution in improving the lives of their followers (Collins, ...