Firstly, what is
leadership? According to the Oxford
dictionary, leadership is the action of leading a group of individuals or the
state or a position of being a leader.
Secondly, who are the gurus
that are known for their leadership qualities by many individuals all over the
world? I am not going to mention Porter, Stephen Covey, and other Gurus who are
chosen annually in the “Best of lists” (this can be easily checked through
various websites). I will only mention the few people that directly come to mind
whenever we are asked about leaders: Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Malcolm X,
Martin Luther King, John Kennedy, Jamal Abdul Nasser, Shaikh Rashid and, Shaikh
Zayed. These individuals have been called leaders because of the roles they
played and all the accomplishments they have made. They inspired individuals all over the globe
by the work they have done for their country. This in turn helps individuals to
do better, that is what a leader does, like Mahatma Gandhi once said “Be the
change you want to see in the world.” On
the corporate side we can quickly mention Henry ford, Lee Iaccoca, Bill Gates,
Steve jobs, and Saatchi.
I am sure you have noticed
that so far leadership is used as a synonym with politic? Since we are in
education then we may also notice that most political figures are great in
communications, we may conclude that communication is a trait of
leadership. Hence, if you are going to
study leadership (and you are not born with it) then you must develop a strong
communication skill.
Thirdly, let us
distinguish between positive leadership vs. negative leadership; negative
leadership is when a powerful and dogmatic leader takes his
country/organization/unit to destruction through actions and quotes that
encourage the group to follow malicious routes.
Positive leadership on the other hand happens when the leader is highly
educated and will only say or do the best to his
country/organization/unit.
Fourthly, is
leadership linked to communication? Well, a leader must be able to lead by both
words and actions, as the saying goes “walk the talk” and talking is an act of
communication. Keeping the team informed is also a part of communication and
the latter can happen upward, downward and across the
organization/country/unit. A leader must
allow this to happen else, leadership will be incomplete.
Now let’s talk about
our students, and why don’t they choose leadership as a major? Is it because
they are not exposed to leaders who inspire? Or is it because we never
encourage students to be leaders and to take on roles that are compatible with
their personality traits?
Personally speaking,
leadership is both a genetic trait as well as environmentally effected traits. How the person lives, where the person lives,
and why the person lives are all determinant factors to either induce
leadership or evicts it from the brain all together.
Many universities and
institutes in the world teach leadership as a major and then it’s linked to education,
politics, corporate world or sports. We are trying to explore the various
majors that are available out there for our students to show them ways to
explore every situation to be able to complete their studies and to find
jobs. These jobs can be in politics,
education, corporate world or sport, but it doesn’t matter where the students
will end up in. The important thing is to learn how to become effective leaders
and to exert the maximum effort to have the skills necessary to run a great organization;
these skills can be initiative, flexibility, persistence, resilience,
communicative and most of all passionate.
Always remember that you have a generation to inspire, so work at it and
be very communicative.
A reader today, a leader tomorrow (a quote from a school I visited today)
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