What Is a Leader

What is a Leader?

Basically, a leader is anyone who has the ability to guide others. However, there is more to one being a leader than just the ability to lead others (Zenger, 2009). A leader is one who possesses a vision, a dream, a pushing drive and a commitment to attain the dream. Leaders can visualize ahead and see goals that need to be achieved and problems begging for a solution. The goal or the problem can be a thing others are not seeing, or something no one else is willing to pursue. It is something that captures the leader’s minds, and he diligently pursues to achieve it (Cohn, 2011).

A leader is not just having titles. A leader does not need a given title for him/her to lead. One can be a leader at any sphere of life that can in the church, family, school or work without necessarily having a title (Finkelstain, 2009). A Leader is one with the ability to direct others and not necessarily with a title.

A leader is more than just someone with charisma. It is wrongly understood that a leader is one with dominion over others (Finkelstain, 2009). It is not usual that all those with charisma and dominion over others make good leaders. Leaders are necessarily managers; managers have to follow a pre-established system of management to manage resources. Leaders do not follow any pre-established criteria to lead people (Cohn, 2011). In most occasions, managers manage resources, but a leader leads people.

A leader is someone who can make others follows what he does. A leader is a person with the commitment to turn dreams into reality (Zenger, 2009). They are goal oriented. A leader is a person who has some influence over others. This is a person with social authority, which make best use of others efforts towards goal attainment.