In the beginning of the semester in my first essay, “Personal Leadership Narrative,” I wrote that in my opinion, three of the top leadership characteristics that people in today’s society can have are active listening, self-confidence, and self-awareness. As I have now reached the end of this Leadership 101 course, while I still agree with this, I have a better understanding of why those characteristics are important. Leadership is a complex ideal that is understood differently by every individual person. As William Cronon indirectly argues in his essay, “Only Connect…,” leadership is more of a strivable ideology that is intangible. However, leadership becomes tangible in looking at its effectiveness. To qualify my original argument, I would now argue that active listening, self-confidence combined with self-awareness, and passion are the most effective leadership characteristics.
The very first quality on Cronon’s list of someone who embodies a libreal education is “they listen and they hear.” When a leader is able to actively listen to other people’s stories, perspective, and opinions, they are better able to mold their leadership in a way that is more suitable for their beneficiaries, whomever that may be. Leaders failing to do this, can lead to Patricia Hill Collins’ concept of “outsiders within” (Smooth, 36). This is the notion that leaders find themselves present in places where they would and should have the ability to make changes, but for various reasons are not included on the “inside.” This is why, even within power groups or groups of leaders, the quality of active listening is so important for a leader to have in order to be most effective.
Stacey Abrams embodies the idea of “outsiders within,” in her book Lead From the Outside, and writes that leaders must “understand the urgency of self-confidence coupled with self-awareness” (Abrams, xxviii). What she means by this is that in order for leaders to be most effective, while they must have confidence in themselves, they cannot become complacent or over-reliant on their own abilities. For example, when Anita Hill decided to stop fighting for a continuation of her hearing, she was displaying this self-confidence coupled with self-awareness. While Hill was confident in her sexual harassment accusations against Clarence Thomas, she became self-aware that a continued hearing was going to do more harm than good, and that it didn’t mean she had lost or that she was defeated. She was able to effectively lead by becoming a conversation starter.
Finally, the last characteristic of effective leadership is passion. If a leader is not passionate about what they’re doing, it will be hard to be effective. An example would be Alice Paul, who was one of the leaders during the end of the First Wave of Feminism. Without passion, Paul wouldn’t have been as effective as she was. She turned her passion into action with picketing, written work, and acts of civil disobedience. Although many deemed her as a radical, through her passion she was more effective with her ability to persuade people to help her cause. This shows that leaders that are passionate are more effective because they have a stake in their cause and what they’re fighting for.
Overall, in my opinion, because of leadership’s wide variety of definitions and its individuality in nature, it’s more important to analyze and understand how leadership is most effective instead of looking for a concrete definition of what it is or is not. For me, leadership is about leading from behind, and nurturing the next generation. I want to do this by becoming a teacher and helping students find their place in history, but also in their futures. By becoming a teacher I will have the opportunity to actively listen to students, have self-confidence, but also increase my self-awareness, and be passionate about what I’m teaching.
Works Cited
Abrams, Stacey. Lead from the Outside: How to Build Your Future and Make Real Change. Picador, 2019.
Cronon, William. “Only Connect…” The American Scholar, Volume 67, No. 4, Autumn 1998.
Smooth, Wendy. “Intersectionalities of Race and Gender and Leadership.” Gender and Women’s Leadership: a Reference Handbook, by Karen O’Connor, SAGE, 2010.
