Free Essay about Qualities a Person Needs to Be an Effective Leader

According to political scientists, the major query in human affairs in Who shall rule? However, psychologists, who are less infused with political ideologies, believe that question should be rephrased to Who should rule? (Hogan et al., 1994). On many occasions, the answer is obtained during elections when political leaders, and business executives, such as CEOs are replaced, and also when university presidents retire. The question majorly concentrates on evaluating the leadership potential, as well as selecting a leader with the right qualities. In instances when organizations answer the question incorrectly, adverse effects are experienced that range from teams losing, armies being defeated, economies dwindling to nations failing. People define the leadership concept in many ways. However, Hogan et al., (1994) asserted that leadership encompasses persuading other people so that they can set aside for a defined period of time their personal differences and concerns, and in turn, join forces so that they can work together to pursue a common goal that is important for the welfare and responsibilities of the group. Therefore, leadership is persuasion, but not domination. The leader must be involved in the process of accomplishing the tasks assigned to the team or task group. As such, the leader plays a central role in influencing from a social perspective so that he/she harnesses the support and help from others with the aim of accomplishing a common task. However, it is worth mentioning that effective leadership only occurs when others are willing to participate and adopt for a certain period in accomplishing the group goals as their own. As such, leadership is concerned with building goal-oriented and cohesive teams. Also, leaders differ in their areas of specialty. For instance, Yukl et al. (1990) posit that leaders differ in fourteen categories, including supporting, planning and organizing, consulting, motivating, developing and mentoring, delegating, rewarding, problem-solving, informing, clarifying, managing conflicts, monitoring, team building, and networking. These actions that leaders undertake strongly differ owing to the fact that various leaders occupy different organizational levels, for example, Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) occupy a higher organizational level compared to departmental supervisors. As such, the relative importance of the leadership positions varies widely with the position with which a particular leader occupies within the organization. Leadership effectiveness on the other hand refers to how successful a leader is in terms of personal influence to a person or a group of people that eventually results in accomplishment of shared objectives and goals in a manner that is personally satisfying to the team members involved (Grint, 2005). Apparently, effectiveness is concerned with how leaders impact the bottom line of the organization in aspects such as profitability of the business unit, the market share that is gained in the process, as well as the quality of services or product that the company offers. This current paper will be instrumental in discussing the qualities that make an effective leader so that the organization effectively and efficiently meets its goals and objectives both in the short run and in the long term.

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An effective leader has both cultural and emotional intelligences. The paper commences with emotional intelligence. Firstly, leaders should have a great deal of self-awareness. This is an important aspect of emotional intelligence showcased by effective leaders. This quality enables them to know themselves with a great amount of precision and accuracy (Goleman, 2004). Ideally, a self-aware leader has a profound comprehension of his or her emotions, drives, needs, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Also, leaders who are self-aware are neither unrealistically hopeful nor critical. As such, they should balance these dimensions. Instead, they need to be honest with others and unto themselves. Ideally, effective leaders need to be self-aware so as to recognize how their feelings affect them, and in turn, how they affect others, especially on job performance aspects. For instance, leaders who perfectly know that they cannot work with tight deadlines because it brings out their worst on them plans their time effectively so that they avoid instances where they can get caught by the deadlines. As such, they formulate a timetable that captures all the tasks that need to be accomplished both at a personal and group level. In addition, highly self-aware leaders are in a position to work with a very demanding customer by understanding how the client impacts their mood and aspects that will lead to their frustration. For this reason, they are able to deal with the clients very effectively. Also, self-awareness extends to the leaders comprehension of their goals and values. Ideally, a leader who is self-aware has well-defined and set goals and objectives both on a personal and organizational level. Therefore, he knows where he is headed to and the reason why. Therefore, for leaders to be self-aware, they need to appraise and assess oneself. This quality is vital for all leaders as it enables them to speak openly and accurately, and thereby making them possess self-confidence, as well as a self-deprecating sense of humor that is vital for the leadership of a group of individuals. Therefore, this quality is paramount for leadership effectiveness as it enables the leaders to comprehend and recognize other peoples moods, drives, emotions, and moods, as well as their effect on others. Secondly, effective leaders should have self-regulation. Ideally, this is related to biological impulses that in turn drive their emotions. It is worth mentioning that leaders cannot do away with emotions, but they can make an effort of managing them (Goleman, 2004). Self-regulation is just like an inner conversation, which is an aspect of emotional intelligence that allows leaders to be free of their feelings so that they may not affect the operation of the job adversely. A leader who has a great deal of self-regulation may have bad moods along other adverse emotional impulses, but he effectively finds methods to control and in some occasions channel them into positive ways that will be useful instead of being destructive. For instance, the leader will never shout at his employees or peers. Instead, whenever he finds a mistake, he calmly points it out and even recommends viable courses of action. Self-regulation matters a lot to becoming an effective leader because it is vital to controlling ones emotions and feelings, and therefore, be in a position to act on reasonable impulses. In turn, this creates an environment of fairness and trust. A leader who has adopted and practices this self-awareness paradigm ensures that the work environment is cool, for himself, and the group. In consequence, infighting and politics are considerably diminished, and in turn, the productivity and performance of the team increases. As such, this makes acts as a magnet for talented individuals who are never tempted to leave owing to the constructive work environment. Also, self-regulation is vital for an organizations competitiveness. It enables the leader to adapt to market changes. In instances when the leader makes a move for a merger or acquisition, the move makes a positive impact rather than a negative one because the leader is able to form viable relations with the business partners. In instances when this cannot be readily achieved, the leader through his self-regulatory skills finds ways to make the merger or acquisition work. Thirdly, motivation is also an important quality for effective leaders. It also falls within the precincts of emotional intelligence. In essence, it is one trait that all effective leaders should have. The quality enables them to achieve beyond their own expectations, as well as others. Motivation is primarily geared towards achieving what the leader has set, and therefore, the leader takes actions that will in turn motivate the employees (Farh et al., 2012). An effective leader has to identify the source of motivation for his team or employees. Effective leaders have recognized and identified that most team members and workers are motivated using external factors, including a big salary or timely wage increment or even an employees status within the enterprise (Goleman, 2004). As such, effective leaders should also consider providing opportunities for growth and career advancement for its employees. Also, appreciating the efforts the workers have put to achieve the goals is an important move to motivate the workers. For instance, recognizing the employee of the month through handing gifts or even bonuses ensures that they work harder, and thereby improves the performance and productivity of the employees (Goleman, 2013. People who are highly motivated remain optimistic, and therefore, ensures that they are in course to achieve the set goals and objectives. In those cases, the qualities of self-regulation are combined with achievement motivation in order to overcome depression and frustration that may be experienced after a failure or setback (Goleman, 2013).

Also, executives for to be effective, they should intend to recognize and develop high degrees of motivation in their teams need to consider the level of motivation by looking at how the employees are committed to the company. In essence, workers who are committed to the corporation feel more committed to it. Also, they are more likely to stay with the organization even when they are pursued hunters who offer a lot of money. As such, motivation translates to strong leaders. Ideally, when they set their goals high, the leaders will also do the same for the entire organization. Also, optimism, encompasses an organizations commitment, and is key to effective leadership. Fourthly, empathy is an important component of effective leaders. Within the dimensions of emotional intelligence, empathy is the quality that can be easily identified. In the case of leadership, it does not have to revolve around being okay because everyone will try to please another, thereby making action difficult to partake. As such, the empath quality considers the feelings of the employees, as well as other factors, in the process of making decisions based on intelligence (Peterson, 2011). According to Peterson (2011), empathy is an important component of effective leadership primarily because of the increasing number of organizations who use teams, the rapid growth and trend in globalization, as well as the increasing need to retain talent. Also, effective leaders need to comprehend the viewpoints of each member of the team so as to ensure that a common consensus has been reached. Fifthly, leaders require social skills. These pertain to a leaders capability of managing relationship with others. Social skills are based on a friendship with a purpose, and for leaders to be effective, they need to move people in the direction the desire. Socially skilled leaders are necessary for the effective running of an organization primarily because it creates a wide circle of acquaintances, and are in a position to find a common ground for people within the team, and thereby making it possible to achieve predetermined goals and objectives. Ideally, social skills are derived from the emotional intelligence qualities that have been discussed before. Without them, it is virtually difficult to attain the qualities of an effective leader pertaining to social skills paradigm.

In addition to emotional intelligence aspects, an effective leader needs to possess cultural intelligence, which is encompassed by a set of qualities. These qualities emanate from the fact that the teams that lead...