Leadership - a Matter of Global Concern

Leadership - A Matter of Global Concern

Of all the human qualities, leadership is one of the most ambivalent and elusive, as it involves a large amount of other skills. In general terms, being a leader means to posses those inner or outer conditions that make you a person in charge of other people and, at the same time, responsible for their well being. Usually, we connect leadership with organized groups, but often we realize that we need leaders in most aspects of our lives. But, do we know who our real leaders are? And do they correspond to our needs? Is their existence in our lives vital to us or is just o matter of social scale?

These are questions that make you wonder, aren't they? The first thing about leaders is their status. There are "given" leaders, not necessary the best ones, but they have their position that cannot be shaken (such as kings or monarchs in general). Other leaders are those whom we choose for certain qualities that they posses and thanks to some our hopes we are assured they'll fulfill. Probably the most largely met are those who become leaders by their own means; they succeed into imposing themselves as persons to be followed, in different areas of interest. Is not as much a matter of advancing on a social scale, as it is one of strong character and devotion to a goal.

We then come to a point where other questions are aroused: What makes such an effective leader? Can each of us become a leader or do we need special qualities for that? Is there such a person who can be called "a perfect leader"?

You can easily see that leadership is a matter of large interest and that to give an answer to all those questions is impossible as long as human nature is constantly changing perspectives on life and its values. Still, if we were to analyze things from a theoretical point of view, we might sum up some of the main characteristics of an effective leader.

First of all, the main quality, if we might call it so, is intelligence, his or her given IQ and capacity to use it. Secondly, a leader must be a person to look up to, one that is able to take full responsibility for his or her actions and ideas and therefore for those whom he/she leads. A leader also has to be a good follower and listener. It is often said that "those who cannot obey, cannot command" and this applies in all areas. He/ she needs to be convincing, capable to easily handle words and thus power, at any range. But, to do this, a leader must have a well established set of principles, and to follow them is probably the hardest thing to do. And the list might be continued, depending one the specific terms of a certain area of interest.

If we consider it globally, leadership is essential in areas like war, politics, business or religion. Except for the last one, which deals with an inner guidance, the rest of them are concerned with our economical status. To simplify things, we might say that we need some of our leaders, in order to have a decent life. And, in fact, this has been Man's attempt and wish ever since he has appeared on earth. That is why even the smallest groups of primitives had their own leaders. It all relates to the surviving instinct, and we must admit that this is still a matter of great interest nowadays.

Historically, people have had a lot of personalities, whom they called leaders and who played an important role in the development of human nations and humanity, in general.

If we were to enlist some of them, we could only think of Buddha, Jesus Christ, Mohammed, Confucius and others, in terms of religious beliefs and ability to define and impose certain mentalities and habits. Then, if we take Julius Caesar, Napoleon Bonaparte, Genghis Han or other war leaders, we can see that they really made a difference by their ability to lead thousands of people in times when this was hard enough to do. Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Attaturk, Mao Ze Dong were some of those leaders who put their dreams and their followers' hopes above everything and that is why they remained as major figures of the history. In relatively recent times, the number of major leaders has constantly increased and only talking about Winston Churchill, Margaret Thatcher or John F. Kennedy, one might think of what a real leader means.

On the other hand, there are not only "good" leaders, persons who embody almost all the qualities. People have always been tempted to be misled