LEADERSHIP

What is leadership?

These days, there are numerous jobs requiring the cooperation and contribution of the
collective, not just individual. However, it is absolutely essential to have the appropriate
guidance of the leader in order that the operations of an organization work effectively and
achieve the targeted goal. The leader can be defined as a position held by an individual in a
group who bear the responsibilities for guiding a separate organization and collective. The
leader is the one who possesses skills to set clear directions, creates concrete plans and inspires
the team, organization toward the same goal as well as promoting growth and productivity of
the organization. Therefore, there is no exaggeration that leadership is one of the crucial
contributing factors leading to success in a project or success of the group, organization.
Generally, leadership is understood as the competence, skill that is essential for the individual
in an organization. It is the process by which individuals have a strong influence on others
through actions and words to engage followers with their directions. Additionally, leadership
involves making sound and tough directions; finding out the strengths, abilities of subordinates,
leading them to a higher level of performance in order to achieve the ultimate organization's
goals. Obviously, it is not easy to be a successful and good leader. Some leadership qualities
might be more naturally present in personality, others can develop and strengthen over
practicing. There are certain requirements of characteristics, traits, and skills to ultimately build
the most effective leaders, though.

What makes a good leader?

First and foremost, outstanding communication skill is one of the crucial qualities needed to
become effective leaders. In fact, leaders need to communicate effectively within their group,
convey clearly and concisely futuristic vision, ideas, the directions from above to the team as
well as explaining problems and solutions in need. Therefore, without great communication,
the subordinates will have trouble comprehending the missions, visions, and goals provided by
leaders, which might cause a low level of performance in teamwork.
Secondly, decisiveness is a critical requirement to lead a group, organization. In other words,
effective leaders must be individuals who have the ability to analyze, dealt with the problems
and make prompt, appropriate, or even challenging decisions that might have a deciding impact
on the success of the organization. Being resolute and confident decision-makers will not only
allow leaders to capitalize on opportunities and but also earn the respect of the team.

Another quality that defines good leaders is being inspiring and motivating. This kind of trait is
extremely crucial for the team during their current projects since it helps a team to focus on the
company's vision and goal. There is no denying that team members are also one of the
fundamental factors determining the success of a project, plan or organization. When team
spirit is low or in any difficult circumstance, for instance, it exerts direct negative effects on the
subordinates' level of performance and effectiveness of the team or even the organization's
success. The lower team spirit is, the lower the productivity is. Hence, motivating and
maintaining team morale and keep the team moving forward to the achievement of the goal is
one of the leaders' top responsibilities. As leaders always need to be positive and find out the
ways to inspire their team through determine strengths, needs, priorities and make them feel
valuable, as well.
Last but not least, the equally important characteristic for the leaders would be empathy which
is a major part of emotional intelligence. This kind of quality plays a vital role in leading an
organization as it enables leaders to create solid bonds of trust, build closer relationships with
the followers they lead, creating an environment of open communication where subordinates
freely to express their feelings and perspectives. Leaders with good empathy could understand
the problems of followers being struggling so that leaders can immediately provide followers
with suitable and constructive solutions. Instead of making things personal when they
encounter problems or assigning blame to individuals. In short, empathy is the key to help
leaders treating subordinates fairly and justly.
Tradition leadership vs New leadership
With today's development, the form of leadership must be innovated to adapt to modern and
competitive society. The traditional leadership styles have changed from time to time to inspire
followers to put extra efforts to achieve goals and change their followers' awareness of issues.
Understanding the differences between the different leadership model contributes to leaders
find ways of leadership that are perfectly suitable for the organization's goals and cultures. The
main difference between conventional leadership and contemporary leadership style would be
that the traditional one tends to be an autocratic form of leadership, emphasizing the power
and hierarchy of leaders whereas modern style focuses on the collaboration of team members.
To be more clear, conventional leadership is a model in which subordinates are supposed to
follow orders, approved solutions gave from leaders. Meanwhile, the followers freely express
their perspectives, thoughts, ideas in the modern one. Additionally, in old-school style, the
leaders are motivated by their own ego and mostly determine a future plan of action without
the discussion with followers. The leaders take less advice, suggestions, and ideas from his
team, and try to influence the employees through regulations, rules, threats or offering fringe
benefits so as to gain the subordinates' obedience. On the other hand, contemporary leaders
are more likely to encourage creativity and motivate subordinates toward the organization's
vision and prefer to align the organizational goal with the goals of the followers.

The role of leadership in engineering

One of the fields that also requires high teamwork, collaboration is engineering. Hence,
leadership is also important in this kind of field. Firstly, leadership enables the leader to takes
initiative, makes clear, specific plan and deliver to the subordinates, driving them to the same
goal of the project and ensure the project stays on track. In addition, the leaders with excellent
leadership skills are able to identify potential risks, critical problems when it comes to creating a
product or working as a team and promptly find out the solution to remedy or remove the risks,
creating a safe working environment. Moreover, the leader works to help each subordinate to
their highest potential and improve their abilities over time, aimed at achieving the success of
an organization.

An example of great leader

There are many great leaders in the world, but the one I admire the most is Steve Jobs - former Apple
CEO. He is one of the figures who have a great influence on the world of technology in general and
Apple's development in particular. At the time Steve Jobs died, he was considered the greatest
technology entrepreneur in history, who led the world's most valuable company and made a major
contribution to changing the way people are. interact with machines. Besides, he is also a great leader of
Apple, who has made the world known about Apple. Steve Jobs left the leaders of the next generation
with immortal statements, one of the most impressive ones was: “If you want to make everyone happy,
don’t be a leader, sell ice cream”. To be a leader is to forget about being liked, right and comfortable
and focusing on transforming into a person who wants to win. When you are a leader you are forced to
make the tough decisions for the tribe. Ultimately, someone will always be unhappy, but overall the
group will be better after you make your tough decisions.

Summary
In conclusion, leadership has a huge impact on the success and development of an
organization. Leadership in an organization creates a crystal clear vision and leading employees
to reach the ultimate goal.