Writing a Leadership Essay
Leadership – Always Involves Opinion
A leadership essay will always involve opinions, because we have such a variety of definitions of the terms. Good leadership is a quality that we want in our political officials, in our business owners, in our educational administrators, and in our community leaders. While we value good leadership, we often have a difficult time truly defining it. Yes, leadership is an activity that involves leading other people or an organization, but exactly what responsibilities and activities are involved is often up for much discussion.
If you are tasked with writing an essay on leadership, you have lots of options. Such an essay may be assigned in business, education, psychology, health/medicine, and political science courses, as well as many others. Your job will be to pick a topic that is manageable and relevant to your course of study. For example, if you in an educational administration course, seeking a degree that will put you a path to be a school principal or superintendent, your leadership essay will focus specifically on defining and discussing those leadership skills that are most critical in educational organizations. Certainly, some leadership skills and qualities cross all career fields, but others will be specific to your field.
Topics for Leadership Essays
You have plenty of options for essay topics. Here a just a few:
- What is leadership? Is there some universal definition that would cross all areas of government, business and society? Such a definition essay would involve identifying the roles and responsibilities of a leader (setting visions and goals, ensuring information and resource distribution, coordinating activities and tasks, resolving conflicts, inspiring others, etc.). All of the elements you include would then have to be described. A definition of leadership essay is a combination expository (explanation) and opinion (not everyone would agree on your elements).
- Leadership qualities can be the subject of a single quite lengthy essay or paper, or they could be divided into smaller essays, each of which would cover a single quality – decisiveness, accountability, awareness, confidence, empathy, optimism, honesty, inspiration, focus, etc. Again, just as with a definition essay, you will be describing those qualities that you believe to be essential for leadership. An interesting variation on this would be to choose three qualities that you believe to be the most important and to write a persuasive essay, defending your selection.
- A servant leadership essay would also make an interesting topic for discussion. If you are not familiar with the term, it was actually coined in 1972 by Robert Greenleaf, an executive with AT&T. His idea was that leadership should involve de-centralizing organizations, so that all employees and/or members are given power in decision-making and problem-solving in their own areas of responsibility. It is in direct contrast to the more autocratic concept of leadership in which decisions are made at the top and simply implemented. A great essay would be to demonstrate organizations in which servant leadership is in practice and evaluate their successes.
Leadership essays and papers are important assignments. They force students to think about leadership styles and qualities, and to begin to determine the type of style and the qualities they want to develop in themselves if an when they assume leadership roles. You may have a very clear idea of what you want to say in your leadership essay but may have difficulty articulating your beliefs and points. If this is the case, getting some help from a professional writer would be a good idea. PremierEssay.com has that writer for you.
