Gage Chancey

AEC3414

Philosophy Paper

18 June 2019

First Component

My definition of a leader is someone who can impact a team of people in a positive way
and push the team to strive to reach their full potential in whatever it may be. This can be in
sports, business, family, or any other scenario. A leader is someone that people look up to and
idolize. A leader is someone who people are comfortable going to when they need help fixing an
issue, or when they have a question about something that they aren’t familiar with. A leader is
someone who is looked up to by his/her peers and is someone who they go to when they are
having trouble or need some guidance.

I feel that it is important for leaders to have certain traits, competencies, behaviors, and
qualities that will allow them to lead a team effectively. One of the most important is a leader
needs to have great communication skills. For example, a leader should be exceptional at
communicating what he expects from his followers, how he expects things to be handled, how to
do things correctly, etc. Leaders are constantly communicating with a team and without good
communication skills, the team may become confused about what the leader is asking of them.
In turn, this can cause turmoil in the workplace or in other professional settings. A leader must
be respectful and understanding towards his team. Being fair and respectful to your his/her will
allow teammates to feel like you really care about them and will make them care about you and
work hard for you. In other words, don’t treat employees like they are just “another employee”.
In addition, leaders must be making sure that his team is staying discipline and on top of their
work. This doesn’t mean that he has to treat his team or office like he’s a dictator, but he needs
to be willing to set certain expectations and make sure that his expectations are met.

Leadership is the act of influencing a team or group of people in a certain direction.

Leadership requires certain skills that pertain to dealing with others, and positively effecting
others that are following you. Leadership requires a lot of patience, time, and in some cases
energy. Not everyone can grasp the concept of how to handle a position in leadership, and most
of the good leaders it comes natural to.

In conclusion, to become a leader you must first be a good follower. Most people can’t
just start out in a leadership role. A lot of great leaders have been great followers in the past. I
feel that it is hard to grasp the concept of how to be a leader without first being a follower
because you don’t have an opinion on what you feel a good leader really is. However, if you
have been a follower in the past, you will know exactly how you want to be as a leader, and also
exactly what you don’t want to be. Leaders must have a good understanding of what separates a
good lead and a bad leader, and in most situations the best way to find out the difference is to be
a follower first.
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Second Component

There are many experiences that I have had in my life time that have given me a good

idea on the characteristics that a leader should possess. Throughout my life, I have been on many

sports teams, as well as had a handful of jobs. I have experienced many different types of

leadership. This has allowed me to establish my own opinion and perspective on leadership and

how leaders should act towards their employees, teammates, and followers.

I have had the opportunity to play football and baseball for the majority of my life. This

is where I began to establish my own opinion on how a leader should others. I have had coaches

who were awful leaders and I have had coaches who have been amazing leaders. I believe that

the difference between the bad, good, and great coaches that I have had is one main

characteristic; respect for the people he is leading. With that being said, the worst coaches that

I’ve had all have one thing in common. The commonality that I am talking about is that they had

no respect for the players on the team and only cared about winning and their own self-image.

This caused the whole team, including myself, to not work as hard for the coach as we would if

he respected us, which resulted in the team not winning games. Likewise, I have worked

different jobs in high school and in college. The best jobs that I have had are the ones who had a

manager that respected his/her employees and had a good understanding of the employee’s

feelings. Now, I personally feel that a manager doesn’t need to take my feelings into account, but

I must admit that it is nice to work for someone who respects me and the way I feel about things.

I have also worked for people who are very self-centered and lead their business for personal

gain and not for the greater good of the company and employees. He had no respect for us as

employees or for our opinions and feelings. When working for someone like this, it is hard to

maintain a positive attitude and want to give your one-hundred percent day in and day out. A
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study was conducted by Christine Porath on leadership and what the most important behavior

that a leader can possess. In this study, 20,000 employees were studied over a period of 20 years.

In this study, Porath found that when it comes to garnering commitment and engagement from

employees, the one behavior that employers must demonstrate is respect. The study shows that

there is no other leadership behavior that had a bigger effect on employees across the outcomes

that were measured (Porath, C.).

Communication skills are very valuable for a leader to possess. In my personal

experience, leaders who do not know how to properly communicate in a team environment are

very difficult to work for in many different ways. A leader who is does not possess proper

communication skills has a disadvantage as a leader because he/she will not be efficient in

explaining what needs to be done. This is something that can be related to just about any type of

leadership, however it is vital to the success in a professional business environment. Being able

to communicate well is more than just having a conversation with an employee, it is the base of

every project, sale, interview, or dealing with clients. If a leader does not have these skills, he

will find that his employees will become confused by what he is asking of them. It is vital for a

leader to be able to explain exactly what he expects of them at any given time. If things aren’t

explained properly, people will be all over the place in their work, causing a magnitude of issues

in the work place. This can lead to loss of revenue, enthusiasm in the workplace, and even loss in

clients or potential clients. According to the article “Communication: The most important key to

leadership success”, clear communication is the most important key to a business leaders’

success. In order for a manager to grow as a leader, he/she must learn how to be an effective and

compelling communicator. If you want your company to succeed, you and your team must

master the art of clear communication together, as well (Froschheiser, L.)

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When it comes to communicating properly with clients, the ability to communicate

properly can be the difference between losing a client or salvaging the relationship. For example,

I currently work in the IT field and as an MSP (Managed Service Provider), we are obligated to

look over all aspects of our client’s IT systems. If something were to happen such as a

ransomware, malware, or anything else that can be detrimental to our client, our leader needs to

be able to properly communicate with our client what went wrong and what we are doing to fix

the issue. If our leader does not communicate what is going on with the client, it can cause the

client to become frustrated with our team. When the client become frustrated and we are not

communicating with them, once the problem is solved, the likelihood of them being happy with

the way we handled the situation is slim. In turn, this can cause them to hire an attorney and find

a way out of the contract. My supervisor is a wonderful communicator. Recently we

experienced an outage where one of our data centers crashed. The data center that crashed has

had issues prior, and it happens to hold a few of our largest clients. The data centers basically

have our clients whole company stored and when it goes down, they lose everything they need to

run their business until we are able to get it back up. Given that my supervisor communicated the

issue almost instantly, we were able to calm our clients down until we got the data center back

up and running. If we were to have a leader who didn’t possess the same communication skills as

my current supervisor, we could have potentially lost some of our biggest clients which would be

devastating to our company.

In my opinion, a leader must be very discipline. A successful leader also encourages

other to be discipline and stay on top of their work or tasks. However, a leader must not become

so discipline that he is unable to have fun with his team or employees. Creating a fun work place

helps in a numerous amount of ways. Having fun in the workplace creates bonds and
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relationships that are necessary for a team to have and without the proper bonds and

relationships a company will not have the greatest comradery. However, a good leader should be

able to draw a fine line between fun and work. He must be able to know when to have fun and

when to be all business. This means that he must also hold everyone to a standard that ensures

that they will get their work done yet will have a good time doing so.

I have worked several different jobs and had leaders with fun and loving personalities,

and ones with harsh and bitter personalities. Both personality types were discipline enough to

make sure that everyone is staying on track. However, I have noticed that the leader who tends

to have more fun with his employees is actually able to get more work done. I believe that

people who are having fun with what they are doing and have a positive relationship with their

leader get more work done in the long run. Similar to respect, I feel that the leader who is

discipline but still has fun will have more success in having his employees want to get their work

done for him and the company. A successful leader must also be discipline in his actions and

make sure that he is always leading by example. People make mistakes, and more times than not

these mistakes can change the way that other look at you. It is very important that a leader is

careful with his actions in and out of the work place. If a leader does something that is looked

down on, his employees, and clients may not be as trusting than before his mistake. This can

cause people to feel as if they have been let down by the leader, and some people may even be

embarrassed. This can cause issues in the work place because people will ultimately lose respect

for their leader. At the end of the day there are many different ways that a leader can practice

discipline. It can be as simple as being discipline enough to get out of bed an extra hour early

every morning. Even being discipline about something as simple as waking up early can lead to

greater personal and professional success.

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Whether it’s in sports or business, I have always been told that to become a good leader,

you must first be a good follower. I firmly believe that statement is true. Every good leader that I

know has had to work their way up into a leadership position. When it comes to be a manager at

a restaurant, you must first be a server. To become a top-level executive at a company, you must

first earn your way up and learn the business from another leader. I believe that this applies to

anything that requires a leader. I have experienced this a number of times specifically in sports.

Throughout my years of playing football and baseball, I have been a leader and a follower. When

I first started playing football, I was around 10 years old. Some of the kids that I was playing

with had been playing longer than me so naturally I followed everything that they did. I learned a

lot from others on the team and worked hard to get better. As a couple of seasons went by, I had

earned my starting position which eventually lead to me becoming a captain. When I became the

captain of the team, I knew how to handle it. I had a good idea of what my role was as a leader

of the team, as well as what needed to be done to help the kids who were just starting their first

season of football. Given the fact that I had been in their shoes, I knew how to effectively help

them progress into becoming a valuable asset to our team.

To conclude, there are many qualities that enable someone to become a successful leader.

Most of the qualities that allow people to become successful as a leader come naturally, but there

is always room to develop and improve those qualities. By improving these qualities, the leader

benefits, the team benefits, the company benefits, and everyone will look up to their leader as

someone who they can rely on. I have had the opportunity to deal with many different types of

leaders throughout school, sports, and work and I hope to one day become a very successful

leader myself. When I say successful leader, I don’t just mean making a lot of money. My

definition of success is much more than how much money you make as a leader. My definition
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of a successful leader is being someone who communicates well with his team, is discipline, and

has a mutual respect for other people and can lead them in a positive direction in whatever

environment that I am leading in.

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Works Cited

Froschheiser, L. (2008, July 17). Communication: The most important key to leadership success.
Retrieved June 19, 2019, from https://www.reliableplant.com/Read/12675/communication-most-
important-key-to-leadership-success

Porath, C. (2017, July 31). The Leadership Behavior That's Most Important to Employees.
Retrieved June 19, 2019, from https://hbr.org/2015/05/the-leadership-behavior-thats-most-
important-to-employees