On the 23 rd day of December 1783, George Washington achieved the impossible by handing the powerful armies of the British Empire a sound defeat. His fighting men were absolutely loyal to him and America was rallying behind him. He could be anything he wanted and some were pushing him to take political leadership in any manner he desires. Washington did something that was to eventually shape the great nation in existence today. He resigned his commission and made a beeline to his home in Virginia where he commenced active farming just as he used to before being made the general. This prodigy of selflessness is my opinion of great leadership making George Washington a worthy representation of the leader I would want to be.
I have always considered myself as being good at taking instructions and effective at avoiding controversy at all times. When there is a crisis or a situation where people would want to prove themselves, I always find myself taking the backstage and watching. Many a time, I find decisions made to have deepened a crisis and I come to realize that what I had in mind could have worked much better. On careful evaluation, I may not have been born a leader, neither do I aspire to lead. But I believe that if I put enough effort, I can make a great leader. This is among the ways that Washington operates as my role model. A great leader is not the one who pushes to the front and insists on leading but the one who has garnered the right skills and competence to get the job done.
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Leadership is a careful balancing act. On the one side, there is the mission and on the other side, there is the team. Philosophically, leadership compares to a man given an urgent letter and a horse to deliver it. The man must balance between making haste to deliver the letter and avoiding hurting the prize horse. The horse is the one actually carrying the letter with the man just guiding the horse. If the horse is hurt, the mission fails. As a good leader, I would want to engender the understanding that the letter is crucial but the horse is fundamental. Hurting the horse will never ensure that the letter is delivered in time. It will also ensure that no more letters or horses will be entrusted to me in future. Instead of pushing people to work as hard as possible, I would want to be the leader who motivates them to work even harder than expected. I would let them know that I take pride in them and their efforts and motivate them to take pride in their efforts and achievements. This would make them work harder, smarter, and better and result in greater achievements yet in a cordial environment.
Conduct and policy/procedure are matters of competence which bring in the artificial aspects of leadership. I do not believe in the concept of born leaders unless the duty being accomplished is mundane. A leader needs to study to perfect skill and competence. This perfect skill must then be continually horned so that it aligns itself with the dynamic needs of leadership. Charisma, for example, may be based on talent but its application is based on skill and competence. The carrying out of leadership duties takes a well-planned planned procedure, based on sound policy. I believe myself to be the kind of a leader who will also always be a student of leadership seeking to always advance my skill and competence.
The team that a leader is given to work with may not be likable and the mission bestowed upon the leader may seem impossible. Washington was charged to protect America against some of the most disciplined armies in the world at the time. He was then entrusted with a rugged collection of fighting men who lacked in both skill and courage. History records that in their first main engagement in New York, Washington’s men fled and left him exposed in the battlefield. When New York was taken, the war also seemed unwinnable. This was a perfect moment for Washington to resign and history would still have been kind with him. Instead, Washington did not. He transformed his ragtag army into a massive fighting machine that was to later repeatedly beat the English. I would want to be a leader who is neither choosy about duties not choosy about teams. Any leader can excel when faced with a simple job and armed with a great team. Exceptional leadership is seen when the leader is given a difficult job and a team that seems incapable of the job. I would want to be the leader who puts personal feelings aside and focuses on getting the job done. This would call for using planning and motivation to elicit the best efforts from the team, thus getting the job done.
Conflicts will always arise in leadership, mainly between various functions within the workforce. This can take away the focus of the leader and the team from working and into conflict resolution. I believe in the kind of leadership that minimizes conflicts and also minimizes the time that conflicts take away from actual work. Sun Tzu, one of my model leaders once said that if the instructions are ambiguous and lead to conflict, the blame must be in the general. I will always seek to give accurate and compressive instructions to minimize chances of conflict. As and when the conflicts arise, I would seek to solve them in a manner that does not inordinately remove focus from the main obligation. Anything that can be handled privately should be handled privately.
