WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO BE LEADER?

Part 1 - Write a definition

What is leadership?
What is the importance of a leader in teamwork?
What is an effective leader supposed to do?
Language items: conditionals, relative pronouns, modal verbs and modal expressions,
connectors, comparative and superlative forms, expressing opinion.

Part 2 - Describe a Role Model for Leadership

Who do you think is a role model for leadership?
Describe a person you admire as a leader (a world leader or someone you know) and justify
why you think this person is a good role model for leadership.
Why is this person a better leader than others in your opinion?
Language items: present perfect, relative pronouns, modal verbs and modal expressions,
connectors, comparative and superlative forms, expressing opinion.

Part 3 - Analyze a situation

Choose a situation whose outcome was not as it was expected due to leadership issues.
What happened? Who was involved?
What went wrong? What was the expected outcome? What was the real outcome?
If you could go back in time, what would you do differently in order to achieve the expected
outcome?
What piece of advice would you give your team?
Language items: present perfect, conditionals, relative pronouns, modal verbs and modal
expressions, connectors, giving advice, comparative and superlative forms, expressing
opinion.

Part 4 - Draw a conclusion

What have you learned from studying the leadership theory and reflecting upon it?
Compare how you used to define a good leader to what you think a good leader is now.
How is it going to change your leadership skills and style?
Draw a conclusion: what does it take to be a good leader?
Language items: present perfect, conditionals, relative pronouns, modal verbs and modal
expressions, connectors, giving advice, comparative and superlative forms, expressing
opinions.
 WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO BE LEADER?

Leadership is a topic that has been talked a lot nowadays. There are many people
that call themselves experts in this subject, but they never have a team. However,
there are great examples of leaders who we can use to talk about leadership.

In my opinion, Vicente Falconi’s definition of what is a good leader is the best

description of this theme. According to him, a good leader is who achieves goals with
the team and in the right way. It might seem a simple definition, but in its essence
are the skill in which the leader joins the business needs with the needs of each
team person.

Many studies have shown that heterogeneous teams are more creatives, better in
the solution of complex problems and achieve better results. The leader has
fundamental importance to keep all people of the team with the same north, in
pursuit of the same goal. In other words, the leader uses the best of each person to
achieve the best result of the team.

We have some leaders in each place of the world. There are leaders in our street,
neighborhood, cities and countries. You are not a leader just in your job, you can be
a leader in any cause that you consider important for you and your world.

For me, a great role model of leadership was Nelson Mandela. He was the principal
representative of the movement against Apartheid in South Africa and defender of
freedom and humanitarian causes. Mandela has stuck for 27 years and he always
fought for racial equality among South Africans.

I consider Mandela one of the greatest leaders in history because he had three
fundamentals characteristics that a leader should have: self-knowledge, empathy
and communication. Self-knowledge to identify his qualities and limitation control
your own emotions and have good emotional intelligence, resulting in a resilient
leader. Empathy to understand the fear, wishes and dreams of his team and able to
put everyone in favor of a common dream. Communication is essential to transmit
the right message to the write people and inspire everyone to buy his idea.

In my short career, I have had some experiences like a leader. In last year, I was
President of EMAS Jr. Consultoria, the Junior Company of my course in UFMG. In
2017, we had a great year with exponential growth compared to 2016. When I was
elected, I wanted to continue with this growth. So, with our Project Director, we
defined the company goal to 2018. We talked with a large part of the company,
collect opinions, but it was not enough.
We presented the goal at the beginning of the year and in the first moment the team
buys the idea. However, during the first semester, the results did not appear and we
had serious problems with the team. In the middle of the year, we decided to revise
the goals for the year. This review was done in a company-wide work and after that,
the team came back to believe and work together to achieve the results, that we are
able to reach in the end of November.

All these stories show me how much that simple definition of Vicente Falconi is the
best definition of leadership. All theses achievements, since the EMAS’ goals until
the end of Apartheid in South Africa, were only possible join the dreams of each
person with the group dream without taking shortcuts or harming anyone.