Leadership – Term Paper

What is a leader? What does it mean to be a leader? What qualities determine a leader?

Theodore Roosevelt (an American politician who was the 26th President of the United States, as a man was a great leader and drew distinction between being a leader and a boss.He said that People ask the difference between a leader and a boss. The leader leads and the boss drives. So, a leader must be dependable, self-confident, and able to take risk’s and responsibility for his people. The leader leads his team and does not drives it. To be a leader means to sacrifice your own ambition for teams sake. There is no doubt that every team has its own leader who inspires them, who they can follow,who leads them to victory but not everyone can be a leader because it’s tough to take responsibility for others and meet their challenges.

As the captain of my facultys football teams I seem to have good leading and organizational skills. Moreover, as I a tutor at our local church it is my duty to help children to develop their own leadership skills by organizing different activities and tasks to shape them as their own personalities. Let’s use Latin quotation to illustrate what I am trying to say: Docendo discimus (by teaching, we learn). I am confident that by teaching children leadership I can broaden my own skills. Developing my leadership is important part of my life as only strong well founded leadership can lead my team to success. I employ self-development, to broaden my inter personal skills, I visit conferences and seminars on leadership thanks to AIESEC (an international non-governmental not-for-profit organization), which regularly organizes seminars and conferences for young leaders. So what encourages me to believe that I am a good leader? I think my ability to work for benefit for our team and to persuade team members.My efforts to achieve a Global perspective to find way’s out of tough situations. I dare claim to have other important assets which define me as a leader: I am honest, and more importantly I am perceived as honest. I am used to discipline and getting things done and try to lead by example, I like to accept challenge.

Last year when I had to demonstrate my leadership qualities. That year our football team for the first time got to final. Everyone was over the moon we could not believe our success. But we had some serious problems.Our goalkeeper had injured his hand. The trauma was not really serious but in order to play in final he needed at least a week to recover and we had just 2 days . We were all afraid that he would not be able to play in final but he assured us that he would. Those two days we could think about anything but forthcoming match. The great day came we were on the pitch waiting for referee to give a sign. After first part of the match we understood that our keeper despite his best efforts, was not able to continue the game. We were all at a loss. As captain I could not afford to share my teams disappointment although I did.

I tried to cheer them up but I saw in their eyes they were despondent and full of doubts.

I wanted to play and score goals and be a hero but how could I place my own ambitions over team.I had to take place in our goal and defend it. When I told them of my decision doubt was replaced by puzzlement in their eyes but we had no alternative. This was the price of leadership and I could not let them down. I believe my sacrifice gave new energy to my team and made them play harder and better than usual. I was proud of them. I brought them back on our hard road to final. We won that game of course it was the merit of our team but it was pleasure for me to think that I had encouraged my team and contributed to our victory.

To sum up, people need a leader; they need someone who get them through hard times, someone who is able to take the challenge because as Bill Bradley said Leadership is unlocking peoples potential to become better.