Essential qualities and characteristics of effective leadership

Leadership Statement

Philosophy of Leadership Statement

A leader is one who is in charge of selecting, equipping, training, and influencing his followers. The followers could either belong to diverse backgrounds or have diverse abilities. The leader guides and advises them to exploit their skills fully to achieve the goals the organization has set, charged with both physical and emotional energy as coordinated efforts (Winston & Patterson, 2006, p. 7).

Leadership in Public Safety

Public safety leadership is responsible for determining the best approach to ensuring public safety and promises its followers that irrespective of the circumstance, such safety level must be ensured. The attainment of the pre-arranged safety standards are the responsibility of the followers. The organization must have the capacity and inclination to share the goals with each one of the followers, which calls for a very high assistance level and not just compliance (Silverii, 2013).

Necessity of Leadership

Almost 90% of all company CEOs found in different parts of the world profess by the understanding that increasing the investments channeled towards effective leadership yield positive results for the company (Feser, Mayol, & Srinivasan, 2015). It will then be right to say that development in leadership is one very essential challenge and element in terms of human capital for companies. According to McKinsey research results, leadership is a very vital aspect of the welfare of any organization and every company's shareholder believes it is major driver for returns on investment. The leaders with high-quality leadership characteristics display four major types and characteristics of behaviors, listed below:

Effective solution for problems

Aiming for powerful orientation of results

Searching for varied prospects

Supporting others/followers

Habits and Qualities of a Good Leader

1. Honesty: Every leader has a group of followers who are the leader's responsibility. Therefore, honesty is one of the required behaviors and responsibilities of the leader towards his/her team of followers (Prive, 2012).

2. Delegate: Delegating tasks to competent people among the followers is one major responsibility of every leader because he knows who can perform which task better and who cannot, depending on expertise and skills. Sometimes, a leader is required to push the followers beyond their limits in order to achieve a common goal.

3. Communication: Clear communication of mission and goal of any organization is important for any leader and his followers to achieve the right results. Therefore, the leader is expected to have good communication skills to enable him communicate well with his followers at the same level and with the same level of commitment to ensure the followers follows him in the exact same way as he presents himself to members of the team.

4. Confidence: It is important for the leader to maintain his confident poise to create room for each of the followers to look up to him positively. It is important for the leader to give his followers the assurance that setbacks happen naturally and always carry vital lessons. He is expected to help them stay focused in the face of setbacks while maintaining a calm demeanor.

5. Commitment: If the leader expects the followers to be hardworking with all the commitment they can muster, then he must lead by example. The best leadership technique that ensures team members are committed to the attainment of a common goal with equal mind strength, is leading by example.

6. Positive Attitude: The positive attitude of the leader equally motivates the organizaton. The vision and attitude of a leader determines the continued success of any organization, which leads to a high level of energy among the lower placed workers.

7. Creativity: Creativity is important in every leader; though, engaging in occasional brainstorming can equally help the followers become more innovative but using experimental approaches to lead the brainstorming sessions is one other great quality every leader should have to become a more effective leader.

8. Intuition: Making relevant information available to the team with uncommon instincts is one other highly demanded of a quality team leader in an organization, both internationally and locally. Whenever employers encounter a situation where they lack solution to urgent problems, the leader appears to provide the needed support and supervision find solutions.

9. Inspire: One of the inherent characteristics of any leader is being a good source of inspiration for other team members. Inspiring the members of the team to concentrate on achieving future goals and showing commitment to duty are among the vital characteristics leaders in an organization are required to have, towards achieving success.

10. Approach: Having an idea of a workable approach to any issue or situation facing the organization must come naturally to every leader because this ability is needed to carry out any idea or concept within the company. The ability to make the followers give their best is one leadership skill that plays a vital role in the overall productivity of any firm.

Experience as a Leader and Learnings

My personal leadership experience was quite interesting as it enabled me discover new skills which were useful to me as a leader to handle my subordinates and followers positively. Some personal beliefs and values I made part of my leadership include:

i. Being a leader with unquestionable character

ii. Showcasing my strong beliefs iii. My skills, which enabled me to provide direction and guidance to my team members.

I combined the democrative or participative and delegative leadership. I adopted different ways to motivate my juniors that include: