Essay from the year 2011 in the subject Communications - Interpersonal
Communication, grade: Outstanding, The University of Surrey, language:
English, abstract: When you think of great leaders, names like Nelson
Mandela, Martin Luther King, Bill Gates, Barack Obama or Gordon Brown
may come up. But what makes a leader a good leader? Being a good leader
requires a lot of things and therefore not everybody can be a successful
leader. "Leaders can be born, elected, or trained and groomed; they can
seize power or have leadership trust upon them" (Lewis: 2006, p.104).
They can be democratic or autocratic, individual or collective, ascribed
or merit-based, imposed or desired (Lewis: 2006). Consequently, there is
no such thing as a perfect leadership style which works in every
situation and with all followers; there usually is no ideal way of
leading - there is only a better or worse way (Larkin: 2008). That is
one of the reasons why a good leader needs to have the ability to use
many different styles in order to succeed (Broadbent, Kitzis: 2005). It
is a false conclusion that the well-adopted hard skills of a manager
inevitably lead to economic success. Those hard skills form the
foundation of a strong, effective and recognized leader, but nowadays
further acquirements are an absolute must. Endurance, universalism,
knowledge of human nature, communications, collaboration and work input
are inevitable (Eckert, Drath: 2009). Additionally to the fact that it
is in any case difficult to find the ideal style for every situation and
every follower, cultural differences set up another challenge:
communication styles, gender, uncertainty avoidance, power distance,
individualistic versus collectivistic, etc. play an important role if it
comes to finding the most ideal style (Ledlow, Coppola: 2011). Several
scientists support the idea of "a culture specific view of leadership
indicating that unique cultural" (Paṣa, Kabasakal, Bodur: 2001, p.565)
traits such as religion, language and
