Leadership and You

Leadership and you

My personal definition of leadership is being able to influence a team to successfully complete tasks being very hands-on with them. A leader should lead by example. The technique is to not just sit back and delegate but to delegate the task and also assist. I saw the picture below that demonstrates leadership. This picture shows a business with the boss and the leader. The boss was delegating. He sits behind his desk and implies shouting orders. The leader on the other hand joined his team. He got from behind that desk and he worked together with his team to accomplish their goal.

I support my definition by aligning it with the definition of Daft (2012), the ability to influence people toward the attainment of organizational goals. In GM500 &GM501, I learned that an effective leader is a coach, this person also shows humility. He or she works together with their team to accomplish goals.

A person that I believe exemplifies leadership according to my definition is someone I know personally and professionally. My god-mother, Salome Osbourne is a great leader. She has been my god-mother all my life and has been a very influential person to me. Growing up I saw her leading by example as a teacher. She taught at Patensha Primary School in Guyana. She was a teacher for over 15 years. During that time she was awarded Teacher of the Year, as well as other awards. She led her class of students by being the best coach possible. She came from behind her desk and made sure that all her student understood the subjects. She is a great motivator who praised and rewarded her students who was successful and worked together with her students who was less successful. She demonstrated by her actions that she cared about her students’ achievements and their academic success. Because of this way of teaching, her students went on to be successful, graduated from high school and some even went on to attend prestigious universities.

Professionally, Salome was also a great influence in my life. She eventually changed careers and started working in the financial industry. She worked for a very successful wire house, Morgan Stanley in New York. Salome started out as an operations specialist and moved up within the firm in short period of time to become an assistant vice president within the operations department. When I became of age to work,