Qualities Of A Leader example essay topic

COMPARISON OF MILITARY LEADERSHIP THROUGHOUT THE AGES No leader should put troops into the field merely to gratify his own spleen; no leader should fight a battle simply out of pique. But a kingdom that has once been destroyed can never come again into being; nor can the dead ever be brought back to life. Hence the enlightened leader is heedful, and the good leader is full of caution. - Sun Tzu Introduction Tommy Franks, general of the American Army states that solders should have a high competence in their workplace, are caring, direct to their peers and sub-ordinates, hard and tough in all conditions, thoughtful to the people of all and most importantly a leader. He states "You would have to be a coward if you were a commander and you were not afraid for your men". Understanding that statement leadership is not the same in all levels.

Majors and Leuitenant Colonels are not leading a section into battle, but on the flip side you don't see a lance corporal moving battalions over the battlefield. This is the fact that leaders of all levels sometimes forget, that everyone in the army is a leader of some respect. Although there are obviously many inspiring leaders, although the following leaders chosen have different approaches to the way that they led their country. These leaders show the way that you can bring a country from strength to strength with leadership skills. These include the up and down life of Saddam Hussein, Triumph and loss of Adolf Hitler, the coming from nothing to the conquering Napoleon and finally the comparison of the great to the poor leaders.

This essay will enlighten the issues of leadership of well known leaders and compare them with the text leader from the Australian point of vein. It will also bring current leaders into a perspective to compare them with the leaders of yesteryear and provide an argument where they may have gone wrong. What is a leader? Australian Defence force definition of leadership is; leadership is the continuous influencing and directing of men in tasks which they accomplish their willing obedience, confidence, respect and loyalty in the manner urged by the leader. Qualities of leadership involve leading by example with the use of the following traits; Motivation, Courage - physical and moral, Decisiveness, Responsibility, , integrity, judgement, knowledge, loyalty, selflessness and the ability to communicate. These traits, skills and abilities and ones self personality has the overall effect of how the leader goes about doing what the leader has to do and because of this reason is why its potentially dangerous for an inexperienced leader to lead and conduct tasks after observing another leader.

A leader if he personally possesses's the above qualities otherwise the ability and success of the task is minimal. Army leaders, no matter what level they are, which unit they belong to or what their job entails always have to keep learning new and additional skills of leadership as they gain more experience and increase the ranking structure. The majority of the greatest leaders of today and yesterday started at the bottom working their way up gaining experience and the loyalty of their men resulting in making them a better leader. SADDAM HUSSEIN Saddam Hussein, President of Iraq for the past two decades, has the dubious distinction of being the world's best known and most hated Arab leader. The greatest and most successful dictator of his time Saddam, responsible for approximately 2 million deaths throughout the world in his quarter of decade of power has many traits that a leader should have, although he is noted to be extreme in his measures. Saddam thought that to get power in his country it would be best to put the fear into his men so that none would contest his position.

A former Iraqi diplomat living in exile summed up Saddam's rule in one sentence: 'Saddam is a dictator who is ready to sacrifice his country, just so long as he can remain on his throne in Baghdad. ' Few Iraqis would disagree with this. Although none living in Iraq would dare to say so publicly. In his first role as the Iraqi president Saddam invites all the members of the Revolutionary Command Council and hundreds of other Baath Party leaders to a conference hall in Baghdad and announces that members of the audience are have not been loyal to Iraq. Sixty-six 'traitors' are identified on the spot, arrested and removed. Among those arrested are five members of the Revolutionary Command Council.

They and 17 others are publicly executed. This is Saddam's only tactic. Put the fear of life into people and command from there. Although Saddam might defend his style of leadership, by arguing that nothing else could have kept such a vast and diverse nation united, he did bring the economy of the oil and the price of land in Iraq to a record low. Saddam's positive traits such as strong oral communication skills and his attempt at modernizing his country, were heavily dampened by his weaker traits including selfishness, not leading by example and ruling out any threat to himself with death.

This proves that Saddam does not have the qualities of a leader that you need to have in the modern day. "Read over and over again the campaigns of Alexander, Hannibal, Caesar, Gustav as, Turenne, Eugene and Frederic. This is the only way to become a great general and master the secrets of the art of war". With these leaders successes and's adams defeats it is obvious that this passage is true. NAPOLEON Unlike the most of the greatest leaders throughout the past, Napolean had no birthright, wealth or resources to propel him forward. Throughout his time in leadership, Napoleon was a brilliant strategist and a larger-than-life leader.

He proved this by revolutionizing battle of his era in two significant ways. Napoleon broke tradition and made the 'corps d'arm " ee'. This is units of 10,000 men to 30,000 men internally forming mi nature armies of infantry, artillery and cavalry. This was first seen in Napoleons earlier years as a leader. It allowed him to have his men equally dispersed, allowing him to give clear and concise orders to all of his men and gave him the flexibility to respond to the way the battlefield was forming. For Napoleon to alter such numbers within his units and totally change the structure of war too great.

This is one of Napoleons greatest qualities. He steps out into unknown territory and feels his way around until he works the answer perfectly. Napoleon also used the factor of time to his advantage. During the years of 1796 and 1815, Napoleon would rapidly move his men into the best position possible. At the battle of Austerlitz he moved his troops 90 miles in 48 hours. By doing this he over came his enemy with speed, surprise and flexibility.

Napoleon had faith in his men and faith in himself. He believed that he should treat his men the way he would like to be treated. Napoleon believed in a 'fair process' policy. He treated soldiers with enormous respect for their importance of their contribution. It was the first time in history that a leader revealed his plan to the entire army. Napoleon knew how to inspire his men by giving them the information and the success story before the battle.

This proves good judgement, knowledge, loyalty, selflessness and the ability to communicate as approached earlier. He knew that his men would be frightened to go into such a large battle, so by reminding them that they were stronger, fitter and better than their enemy. He made his soldiers believe that they would not lose. The night before the battles he slept out the same place as his men. This proved loyalty towards his men. With this his men trusted him and followed him into battle.

Once Napoleon won the arduous battle of Austerlitz, the initial qualities he showed diminished. When he was given wealth and power he felt that he was the leader of the world and thought that his men would follow him forever. But as he failed to use the 'fair process' policy after the battle his men were starting not to trust him. They were starting to doubt his decisions and were fighting half hearted ly. Also Napoleons generals and right hand men were being ignored. This proved to be costly for Napoleon losing more than 80% of his men when he was trying to capture Moscow.

Although early in Napoleons leadership he showed all of the qualities of leadership, leading his men into all battles, having all of the responsibility of their lives on his shoulders, he did have a decline in people skills when he gained more wealth. This could mean that he had a lack of moral courage. ALEXANDER THE GREAT'I would rather live a short life of glory than a long life of obscurity'. This statement from Alexander states that he is a passionate man that believes in nothing but conquering the world. Alexander was regarded as a genius giving soul towards his army because he had such a strong presence, physical and moral courage, toughness, ambitions, determination, admiration, security and affection towards his troops. Alexander continually proved physical and moral courage by leading his men into battle, labouring with them, caring for them, he also showed a general concern and he would not ask his men to do anything that he would not do himself.

This proves that Alexander has initiative, integrity and also shows that he has taken full responsibility for his men. As did Napoleon, Alexander always led his men into battle. But there were times that Alexander did have misdeeds under his belt. 'If circumstances demanded it he could (and did) order the slaughter of the enemy and even of its prisoners, destroy an entire city and sell its population to slavery, or order the murder of those who had turned against him even if they were his lifelong friends' Comparison In this research into leadership, we found that a critical but frequently forgotten aspect into leadership is the process by which a leader interacts with his or her people to make decisions. The research shows that the relationship to fairness and the quality and execution of strategic decisions of the world's leaders is proportionate to the output of how their country is run and how successful it actually is. Fair process may have been largely ignored in leadership throughout time, but we found that this can make or break the leader in question.

Saddam is the main culprit of this. He did not give the people of Iraq the freedom to make any decisions, because he did not care for his people. He only cared for himself and his family. Although he has run the country for over 25 years, the amount of wealth he stole and the lack of qualities he showed over that time period is evident of the outcome of his capture. Saddam does not have integrity, does not take the responsibility of his people, has little moral and physical courage and has no integrity. Saddam did show a lot of initiative though, ordering his armies into neighbouring countries and conquering them.

On the other hand Napoleon and Alexander the Great are very similar in their leadership traits. This is because Napolean studied many battles of Alexander and moulded himself to act like the leaders of that era. Alexander was the break through of technology with the long bow and cavalry, where as Napoleon proved Sun Tzu 1963, The Art of War (translated by S. Griffith), Oxford University Press, London, p. 10 Most influential people of the world dor 2003.2030 9th Jan 2004 Channel 10 as above Leadership Theory and Practice - green as above Small Unit leadership Ritter, S. and River spit, W. 2002, War on Iraq - What team Bush doesn't want you to know, Context Books, New York p. 5 Harris, B. 2003, URL: web Ritter, Brevis, M 1999, Warfare: Alexander the Great, Digital Attack p. 2 URL: web General Failings URL: web above as above as above as above as aboveBrevikas above as aboveBrevic.