What are the factors contribute to make a good leader and how might your style of leadership change to be successful when involved in individual, racket and team activities. This essay will endeavour to explore the factors that contribute to make a good leader and how might a style of leadership change to be successful in individual, racket and team activities. As an introduction this essay provides a general explanation of the term leadership. Leadership is the behavioural process of influencing another individual or group towards achieving their goals.
Leadership influences a person’s feelings, beliefs and behaviour. In a sense, a leader is a person who can help a group to achieve goals with as little friction as possible, have a sense of unity and provide an opportunity for self-realisation. Leadership involves motivating and vitalizing the members, encouraging higher level of achievement. It eliminates inertia, apathy and indifference and replaces them with inspiration, enthusiasm and conviction.
Some people become leaders because they have or develop certain talents and dispositions, or because of their wealth, or position. Others lead because they possess great minds and ideas. And then there are people who stumble into leadership because of the times or circumstances in which they find themselves. Managers and generals use intimidation, not leadership. Leadership is a complex moral relationship between people, based on trust, obligation, commitment, emotion, and a shared vision of the good. Ethics, then, lies at the very heart of leadership.
All leaders display common traits: discipline, obligation, commitment, emotion and charisma. Some characteristics of leaders include intelligence, dependability, emotional stability, and communication skills. A general conclusion from analysis of these characteristics is that ‘leaders are made, not born,’ since the only inherited or partly inherited trait is intelligence and the relationship to this quality to a leader is low. Therefore it is within the power of most people to develop the essential qualities for strong leadership.
There are different examples of leadership in sport like: Captain, senior player, Coach, Selector, and Administrator. Main role of a Coach is to help members improve performance levels. This is done by: developing skills, improving fitness, mental preparation, developing techniques, this hopefully leads to success and enjoyment. For a coach to carry this out they should: specialise in one sport, be knowledgeable about the sport, motivate performers, be aware of performers individual needs, plan training programmes, be aware of problems within competitive sport (eg.
Drug use), analyse performance and monitor progress. Role of a Coach or a Manager is to set long term targets associated with various aspects of performance and to assist with strategic planning with regard to meeting targets. There is more than one way of becoming a leader. Here are two ways, which leaders develop: Prescribed Leaders is somebody who has been put in position by an outside body, not selected by team or group, examples: A manager is employed to lead team but does not consult team.
Emergent Leaders emerge naturally from within the team or group as a result of having the appropriate skills, knowledge, or expertise that the group members need or value. To be successful, both types should be flexible in their approach varying their leadership style depending on: Personal characteristics- experience, ability, age and personality, Group characteristics- size, age and experience, Situational demands- task complexity, goals and available resources.
