Follow the Leader Case Study (On Colin L. Powell (Former Secretary of Essay

Follow the Leader Case Study (On Colin L. Powell (Former Secretary of State)) - Essay Example This could not be achieved without his leadership qualities. Leadership is one of the most important traits of human personality. Leadership is the ability in a certain person that influences people present in the environment for the attainments of goals. The concept of leadership however, continues to evolve as the needs of organizational changes take place. Leadership is dynamic and involves the use of different kinds of power. These powers are bifurcated into two main categories; position power and referent power. Many people might mix leadership with management thinking that every manager working at any post of any organization or state can be leader. This is not true at all. The ability to motivate people by your thoughts and personality is not a job everyone can do. Managers are just individuals who are bestowed upon the responsibility by the management to manage a certain task and possess a certain amount of position power; power that comes due to a person's position in the hierarchy. A manager can reward you, punish you or make you work just on the basis of his or her position. Leadership is more of an internal thing; it comes with the personality characteristics or a person's special knowledge. These qualities help the leader to command subordinates' identification with respect and admiration for the leader. These leadership qualities also helps in generating commitment from the subordinates which is different from the one generated by a manager. Commitment means that the people will sh are the leader's point of view and enthusiastically carry out instructions. Leaders usually possess certain personality traits that are considered instrumental in building up their overall personality. The idea was to understand what qualities make the leaders different from other people. These traits include alertness, originality, creativity, self-confidence, ethical conduct and personal identity to name a few. Apart from these traits, work related, social and physical traits possessed by leaders are also different from others. Further studies into this matter have led to the development of another important factor that helps to sustain or break leadership; that relationship is the one between the leader and his or her followers. All the characteristics make a leader different from the ordinary masses. However, one thing should be kept in mind that the leaders are just not born; leadership is a quality that can be introduced in certain people providing them with the right kind of environment. Usually it depends on the kind of environment people have been raised in. Collin L Powell Collin L Powell was born to Jamaican immigrants in 1937 who emphasized on the importance of education and personal achievement. During his early stages of youth, he was unsure of what he wanted with life or what he wanted to achieve. He entered the City College of New York to study geology and it was there he found out the path he wanted to pursue in his life. He joined the Reserves Officers Training Corps (ROTC). He graduated from there with the highest rank on can get at ROTC i.e. of cadet colonel. The army was also able to foresee his leadership skills and his maturity to handle such matters and he was promoted to the level of second lieutenant in the United States Army. He was awarded the Purple Heart