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Leadership Fundamentals

Daryl Casey

Gen/200

July 19, 2011

Leadership Fundamentals

One constant for every person given the privilege of leading others is people are not born with the natural ability to be a great leader. Leading is a learned skill, a skill acquired by trial and error. There are mountains of books, training seminars, and literally millions of articles on the Internet on how to be an effective leader. However, there are leaders who seem to have the uncanny ability to motivate people to achieve things greater than anyone thought possible, who themselves lack any formal training in leadership. Therefore, why are a select few people able to do the “right” things, whereas many other capable people just never seem to get it right? One irrefutable truth is titles do not make leaders. According to Maxwell (1998), “True leadership cannot be awarded, appointed, or assigned. It comes only from influence, and can’t be mandated. It must be earned.” Understanding the basic elements of an effective leader will provide a starting point toward getting people to do great things even when leader is not around.

Vision

A leader of people who has no vision is setting the scenario for those they lead to work without a common theme. Employees will look to the leader to chart a course, set expectations, establish benchmarks, and provide rewards. Typically people will follow someone whose vision includes the collective group. The sales manager who sets a vision for their employees to sell 100,000 widgets so he can pay off his bills and go on vacation has probably set a vision nobody will be too interested in achieving. Why, because, the employees see nothing in it for them. Their hard work does nothing to help them pay their bills. According to Team Building Leadership (2006), "First you have to have a vision that can motivate others. This means you can't have a selfish vision and expect others to follow you.” (Vision, para. 4)....