Path to Leadership

Running head: PATH TO LEADERSHIP
Path to Leadership
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Path to Leadership
Introduction
Leadership can be defined as the process of enlisting the support or aid of other people with an aim of achieving a certain goal or objective. Leadership is very essential to any organization of company as people need to be guided for them to act in a manner that ensures completion of certain task. The path to leadership is not a smooth one as one has to master numerous skills and knowledge to influence people in a positive manner. For example, a leader must be able to behave in manner that positive behavior from his or her followers. He or she is also expected to learn how to work with different people. Generally, leaders must portray certain leadership skills and also be able to apply different styles of leadership to be successful in leading people (Burwash, 2007).
This paper intends to examine the path to leadership by analyzing its goal and essential leadership traits.
Goal of Leadership
Individuals in leadership positions aim to achieve a number of goals. For example, they ensure everything and everybody is moving in the right direction, that is, towards goal attainment. They also deeply invest in their followers to ensure their loyalty and commitment to the course. It is also a leader’s goal to ensure peace among followers or in the organization. A leader may be expected to make hard decisions as long as they contribute to the betterment of his or her followers. It is also a leader’s goal to ensure results. This means that he or she must ensure every follower is fully motivated to work to ensure success of a company or an organization. Ultimately, a leader must ensure team loyalty. There is no way an individual can be able to enlist the aid of people or followers who hate him or her. Ensuring loyalty also helps the leader to achieve high performances among followers (Bell, 2011).
It is also a leader’s goal to seek counsel whenever possible considering the fact that it is hard for an individual to deal with all issues. A leader should not only identify problems but also come with viable and initiate their implementations. It is also a goal of every leader to ensure he or she is able to connect with well with followers to be able to establish an environment of trust. These are just but the major goals of leaders as the list is actually almost endless (Treichler & Carmichael, 2004).
Team Work
The complexity of today’s world call on individuals with the intention of becoming leaders to develop teamwork skills as many tasks are now being handled in teams. Leading teams is a very challenging task to many people. For example, most people work under the assumption that a team leader calls all the shots and it’s upon team members to follow them without question. They also think that a team leader solves all the problems a team might be facing. This is not true at a...