Good Leadership

Good Leadership
Name:
Institution
Abstract
I will discuss good leadership and the ethical values attached to good leadership in this paper. My argument regarding my thesis for his paper is that good leadership can be learned, and good leaders must be ethical in their operations. Therefore, every leader striving to be good in his or her leadership must develop desirable ethical skills that can take an organization to the higher level. Moreover, good and moral leadership has a close association to the emotional intelligence (Davies & Davies, 2015). Therefore, the paper will cover the relationship between good and ethical leadership and the emotional intelligence of a leader. This paper will start with including the relationship between good and ethical leadership and the emotional intelligence. Then the paper will then cover some of the essential qualities of a good leader such as self-awareness, self-direction, ability to motivate, social awareness, and vision. Moreover, the paper will also cover the development of such skills by the leader.
Introduction
A simple definition of leadership is the art of guiding other people with the intention of creating desired results deliberately. However, good leadership is more than producing results. A good leader must be in a position of bringing the people together with the aim of overcoming a challenging situation and achieving the desired results ethically (Martin, Vaught, & Solomon, 2010). Good leaders can change the fortunes of failing organizations into a profitable and a successful one single-handedly through ethical means.

Most importantly, great leaders lead through personal connections, inspiration, and persuasion. It implies that good leadership is an essential ingredient towards the overall success of an organization. Therefore, it is imperative to know the qualities of a good leader and the development of such skills (Reddy & Kamesh, 2016).
Leadership and the emotional intelligence
There is a substantial relationship between emotional intelligence and good leadership. It is worth noting that all the qualities of a good have a close relationship with the emotional intelligence. Therefore, there can be an argument that leaders possessing high emotional intelligence are more conscious when it comes to the self-awareness. They tend to know more about themselves and their surroundings. Such leaders can quickly identify their strengths and weaknesses. Therefore, they can improve on their weaknesses as well as maintain their areas of strength. Moreover, such leaders can understand their mental processes and can manage themselves by doing the right things efficiently for the benefit of the organization (Duignan, 2014).
Besides, leaders with high emotional intelligence tend to be aware of what they are passionate about and know how to control their passion by avoiding doing what can compromise their integrity. Therefore, they have the rare ability to use their desire to achieve the best results for the organization. Additionally, leaders with high emotional intelligence always care for others naturally. However, they still receive more compassion from others in return. It means that leaders with high emotional intelligence are more often in socially in tune and they tend to relate with the subjects more easily. Such leaders in most of the cases communicate and listen effectively with the group and can motivate the subjects to achieve the best results from them. Therefore, it can be argued that leaders with high emotional intelligence are more likely to influence the performances at the workplace positively (Martin, Vaught, & Solomon, 2010).
Self-awareness
A good leader must understand his or herself. In most of the cases, understanding of oneself is a platform of understanding others. Good leaders must be aware of their inner emotional state as one of the ways of promoting virtues in the organization. Moreover, they must know and understand their weaknesses and strengths. Besides good leaders must be in a position of distinguishing their limitations from their capabilities. Additionally, good leaders should know when they are overworking and when they work in flow. One crucial aspect of possessing self-awareness as a leader is that it helps an individual to push his or herself to the maximum potential that is good for both the organization as well as the individual (Reddy & Kamesh, 2016).
Self-direction, is a critical attribute of a good leader, is the ability to possess the skills of directing oneself efficiently, powerfully, and ethically. Great leaders are aware of how to get challenging things done in a more comfortable and morally manner. Additionally, they organize duties and know how to overcome the vice of procrastination. Besides, good leaders are perfect in generating energy and focusing towards completion of the project at hand. Besides, they are best when it comes to remaining calm when angered and promoting peaceful coexistence at all time. As one of the attributes of good leadership, good leaders are quick decision makers when necessary, but they also take their time by carefully considering the available options (Duignan, 2014).
Ability to motivate
Leaders do not just lead by instructing people to do their tasks; they participate actively through taking the front line by showing how things are done in a morally upright manner. A good leader will always make his subject want to help by exercising servant leadership style. This attribute is neither taught nor inherited but comes from the desire of the leader to help others. Mostly, when people realize that you intend to help them as a leader, they instead strive to help you. Therefore, a leader is more likely to motivate others when he or she led by taking part in the performance of the task itself. Motivating others through this means also promotes a harmonious coexistence at the places of work (Reddy & Kamesh, 2016).
Vision
Good leaders are always visionary. They always dream big by doing things rightly. They are aware that they are working towards achieving goals that are bigger than they are but they remain ethical at all times. Great leaders will always put measures in place to ensure that they deliver the set goals and objectives. It means that good leaders must have a blueprint for achieving their goals. Moreover, must adhere to the ethical principles until the end. Besides, good leaders only believe in success but set manageable targets for themselves and the people that they lead. Their determination to succeed at all cost is usually passed over to their subjects. Good leaders have well-laid plans on how to make the organization to achieve both on a short-term as well as on long-term basis. It implies that a leader must have organization’s short-term vision together with the long-term vision and the manner of achieving them ethically in the end (Duignan, 2014).
Social awareness
Leadership is all about relating with the people positively. Therefore, a good leader must possess the skills of identifying the social needs of the people and the methods of meeting them. Having a social awareness as a leader is a crucial ingredient towards fostering a good relationship in an organization. In this era of modern time, socialization is all about social media. Various social media are available for people to socialize with one another more conveniently, more reliably, and more ethically (Southworth, 2016). Therefore, a good leader must embrace social media as one of the tools of socializing with the rest of the world. Apart from embracing the social media, a good leader must also understand social stratifications of the people they lead. Additionally, they must encourage harmonious coexistence among the people they serve. It has been established that the overall performance of an organization depends heavily on the peaceful coexistence among the employees (Reddy & Kamesh, 2016).
Developing good and ethical leadership skills
I dispute the common fallacy that good leaders are born with their good attributes. Leadership and ethical skills can be learned and developed. However, an individual cannot become a leader overnight. It needs both time and patience. Therefore, any individual wishing to be a leader must take his or her time to get it right when it comes to the leadership. The following are some of the ways that can help an individual become a good and ethical leader (Duignan, 2014).
Understanding the current leadership style
Anyone wishing to develop his or her leadership skill must first understand his or her contemporary leadership style. By knowing the leadership style, the leader will be in a position of identifying the weaknesses and strengths for improvements. The leader should do this by listing the suspected leadership skills then rate his or her performances on each of them. The rating of the skills is outstanding because it helps in identifying the areas of weaknesses that need improvement. The leader can also perform this by involving trusted employees through questionnaires. After determining the leadership style through the dominant qualities. The leader can highlight the qualities that hinder his or her development for improvement. Regardless of the identified leadership style, the leader must strive at observing and promoting codes of ethics at all time (Reddy & Kamesh, 2016).
Encouraging creativity
A good leader must spur intellectual stimulation from the subjects. Intellectual stimulation is a crucial aspect of transformational leadership. As a good leader, an individual must encourage the subjects to be creative, but their creativity must be in line with the codes of ethics. A leader can achieve this by offering new but lawful challenges at a regular basis to the subjects. However, such problems should be achievable and enough time granted to meet them. One crucial factor that worth consideration is that the challenge should be in a position of stretching the subjects to their limits without discouraging them by the potential barriers to success. The leader should perform this in a regular basis by issuing a new and a more complicated challenge each time (Reddy & Kamesh, 2016).
Encouraging the subjects to contribute
No leader can operate and generate ideas alone. Leaders also need to share thoughts with their subjects. Therefore, to be a good leader, an individual must embrace ideas from the subjects. The leader must exercise democracy by listening ideas from the subjects before making the final decision and encourage them to be ethical in their contributions. However, the privilege of the final decision still lies with the leader. Adopting this method is important because it makes the subjects feel valued and feel part of the organization. Besides, the approach is good for the organization because it encourages the subjects to participate actively and ethically as far as the generation of new plans and ideas are concerned. Furthermore, it builds a leader to become both a democratic and ethical leader. It has been established that democratic form of leadership assists leaders to become more committed, more productivity, and better when it comes to the solving of problems. Therefore, it is essential for a leader to encourage the subjects to contribute actively on issues about the daily operations of the organization (Reddy & Kamesh, 2016).
Developing positive attitude
Another way of becoming a good leader is to develop a positive attitude. A leader can develop a positive attitude by remaining positive and optimistic even when the situation seems unbearable and unachievable. Therefore, a leader must try to stay positive even when conditions are bleak and the subjects are beginning to resign. It means that the leader must remain upbeat regardless of the prevailing circumstances. A leader who possesses positive attitude is always a source of inspiration for the subjects. Therefore, anyone wishing to become a good leader must learn how to develop a positive attitude. Positive attitude spread positivity in an organization (Davies & Davies, 2015).
Develop active listening and communication skills
One of the desirable skills that good leaders have is effective listening and communication skills. Therefore, anybody wishing to become a good leader has no option but to develop effective listening and communication skills. Effective listening and communication skills are vital because it enables a leader to provide one on one communication with the subjects. Even when communication involves a group of individuals, a leader must learn to listen to everybody and communicate back to them effectively just like in the scenario of one on one communication. A communication encompasses both verbal and nonverbal. A leader must learn to be effective in all of the two modes of communication (Southworth, 2016). By fostering effective listening and communication skills, a leader can reap the fruits because effective communication promotes unity, positivity, inclusivity, and a source of motivation among the subjects. Therefore, a leader has no option but to develop effective listening and communication skills to become a good leader (Davies & Davies, 2015).
Conclusion
Leadership is more than the usual soft skills but the hard skills. A good leader must be aware of the factors that that promotes success and ethics in an organization. Moreover, a good leader must know how to get the best out of the subjects while they remain motivated. Better still, a good leader must be knowledgeable in their line of specialization, must also be a good role model, and above all must worth all the respects from the subjects (Reddy & Kamesh, 2016). However, the qualities of good leadership are not inherited but can be learned. It means that any leader can be a good leader because most of the merits of good leadership are learnable. It is just a matter of choice. Moreover, emotional intelligence is a fundamental aspect of becoming a good leader because it makes learning and internalization of these skills easier.
References
Davies, B., & Davies, B. J. (2015). Developing a Strategic Leadership Perspective. Developing
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Duignan, P. (2014). Vision-Inspired Leadership and Ethical Decision-Making. Educational
Leadership, 5(2), 91-116.
Martin, C. W., Vaught, W., & Solomon, R. C. (2010). Ethics across the professions a reader for
professional ethics. New York: Oxford University Press.
Reddy, A. V., & Kamesh, A. V. (2016). Integrating Servant Leadership and Ethical Leadership.
Ethical Leadership, 3(2), 107-124.
Southworth, G. (2016). Developing Leadership Development. Developing Successful Leadership,
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