Leader
Leaders play importance role in almost every area of social life, whether the industry or the government effectiveness of policy making and its implementation depends directly on the effectiveness of the leaders. A leader is a single person who can make a difference.the social, economical, cultural and political environment around us has a great influence on our life. State and national policies regarding technological advancement and industrial development have a major impact on our carrier opportunities and future perspects. Perticulerly in the democratic political system, political leaders and tend to be the policy makers of the country.
Leaders are those distinguished individuals in the respective fields whom a large number of people follow. The progress of any organization depends on the performance of leader. Speed of train is equal to speed of engine! Running an organization or an industry involves extracting the best from the concerned people. On one side, leader has to keep an eye on the vision and goals of the organization and, on the other side; he has to manage strength and weeknesses of all the individual employees to reach the goal. An engineer or a supervisory technician is also required to handle a group of people for pre-defined tasks.
It can be accepted that every competent and successful individual may not be an effective leader, leaders are characterized by special qualities called leadership qualities. These qualities will be discussed in this chapter.
Qualities of a leader
Following are some prominent qualities of a good leader:
Clarity and commitment to goal: a good leader is clear as well as comitted to acchive the goal. In absence of clarity of goal, efforts are not focused and hence their may be wastage of energy. If the commitment to goal is weak, insufficient efforts are exercised so that the goal can not be reached. A very strong and persistent positive motivation found in a good leader.
Acceptability by followers:
a good leader has a unique charismatic element in his personality that attracts and hold the followers even blindly. There is almost an unconditional commitment of the followers for a good leader. The relation between them is not only of respect but of absolute obedience. Such followers are ready to do virtually anything for leader. Their faith in leader is unshaken in any circumstances. Such unconditional acceptability is a great strength as well as great responsibility for a good leader.
Effective communication:
while dealing with large variety of people at a time, a good leader exabits effective communication skills to convey, convience and keep inspiring the followers. The followers can be for a variety of socio-economical background. he communicates with them by adapting to their invironment. A single word of a good leader can be more than a thousand eloquent sentences. The short but effective speeches of sir Winston Churchill, prime minister of great Brittan delivered for the soldiers 0n the war front have become glorious history ineffective leadership.
Inter-personal skills :
handling human beings is the core quality of any leader. It is ultimately the human mass that makes the leader. The leader converges the interests of all the followers to the commen interest of achieving the pre-decided goal. The needs of the followers are many and changing. He has to provide them. In this sense, the leader has to become even the servent of the followers at times. Open-mindedness about praising, generosity of forgiving, genuineness in the serving is the interpersonal skills of good leader.
Effective task management:
achieving the goal being the ultimate target, a good leader has to apply all the skills of the task manager. In spite of the qualities mentioned above. He needs all the skills of getting work done for desired results with the given resources. He is hardworking, intelligently foreseeing, wisely retreating. Firmly rejuvenating visionary.
