Leadership for Any Project, the First Step

Leadership For any project, the first step is to inspire people to want to work on the project. There are few more powerful motivators than inspiration. Inspiration breeds creativity, innovation, hard work, determination and other attributes that comprise the more functional elements of leadership. There are a number of different leadership styles, but the most important for getting a grand new project off the ground and building a committed team is inspirational leadership.

Inspiration is the process by which the performance in people can be inspired, rather than coerced or motivated (Seidman, 2009). It is believed that inspirational leadership is the most powerful means of getting people into action. Beyond leadership style, the plan need to be detailed, including areas of concern that may require back-up plans. Planning is essential -- the role of inspiration is to ensure that the people working on the plan give their best effort, and are trying to find ways to improve upon the plan.

The project would entail pushing for improved education on key issues -- for example helping better to better understand political and economic systems. The project has a lot of nuts and bolts -- marketing plans, lesson plans, financial plans -- but ultimately it will be driven by inspiration. If the people involved do not see that they will make a difference, they will not be as committed to achieving the outcomes.

So it is important that careful planning is matched by strong inspirational leadership that empowers people to execute the plans and even improve upon them. With the plans and the power within to make sure that plans come to life, combined with vision and the tools necessary to do the job, the project will succeed. Q2. Servant leadership is the concept that leaders are servants to the needs of other stakeholders, rather than him- or herself. The servant leader therefore undertakes actions that will allow others to meet their needs.

Greenleaf (1970) defined servant leadership as "…the servant-first…makes sure that other people's highest priority needs are being served." Servant leadership has also been proposed as an extension of transformational leadership (Waddell, 2006). Servant leaders help followers to meet their needs, in part by guiding the followers and helping them to define those needs. Thus, they transform followers from one state to a superior one. The underlying assumption about servant leadership is that by helping others to achieve their objectives, the organization as a whole will grow.

In this respect, servant leadership is contrasted with a leader-first approach. The characteristics of a servant leader are an emphasis on transformation, personal growth, enabling, service, creating commitment and building trusting relationships (ChangingMinds.org, 2011). The strengths of servant leadership are that it builds stronger followers. They are enabled and have the mental strength to succeed. Servant leaders typically foster creative environments where people maximize their potential. Another strength of servant leadership is that it helps to build consensus, allowing the organization to have better levels of cooperation and creativity.

The downside to servant leadership is that it can at times lack focus on organizational goals. It is not necessary that this must happen, but it is a risk of servant leadership that the needs of the stakeholders can conflict, making it difficult for the servant leader to effectively balance the needs of all stakeholders. When this happens, some stakeholders will lose Q3. There are four key elements to transformational leadership, including intellectual stimulation, individualized consideration, inspirational motivation and idealized influence (Cherry, 2011).

Using this as a template for evaluation, Wu Feng exhibited transformational leadership, albeit a slow-moving brand. The diplomat broke through and succeeded in changing the custom by using all four of the above traits of transformational leadership. For example, there was intellectual stimulation. The chief did not give much thought to the issue of the sacrifice until he was forced to truly think about it. The act was so thoughtful previously that even the Wu Feng's entreaties could not break the chief's thought patterns. Wu Feng also used individualized consideration.

Had he argued that the tribe member had family and friends, his appeal would have gone nowhere, as it had for twenty-four years. Wu Feng personalized the issue for the chief, individualizing the issue. This stimulated thought and compassion on the part of the chief. Wu Feng also proved inspirational. His calm messages were not received with success, but when he message was infused with an abnormal.