Without much ado, I will like to delve into the above question. The definition of leadership has been a thorny issue for many years with each author approaching the topic from different perspective.There is no definite and accurate definition of leadership. Leadership is defined based on how you see or view it. I would love to share my own opinion about leadership is but before I do so, I would love to define leadership in accordance to some scholars. Are you set?
Here we go;
A renowned scholar defined a leadership as incremental influence that a person has beyond his or her formal authority. Zalenik defined leadership as using power to influence the thoughts and actions of other people. Sr.Myles Munroe, in his book, The spirit of leadership defined leadership as the capacity to influence others through inspiration motivated b passion, generated by vision, produced by a conviction, ignited by a purpose. Syl Cheney-Cooker defined leadership as the ability to translate vision into reality.
To the best of my knowledge, I would define Leadership as a service to others and a commitment to developing more servants as leaders with moral relationship between people, based on trust, obligation, commitment, emotion and shared vision of the good.
Permit me to classify leadership into two types which are;
1. Authoritarian leadership
2. Servant leadership
The Authoritarian leadership are the ones that formulate policies in their favor without considering the masses. They are the heartless type that if eventually they are in power, they neglect the citizens and thereby feeling on top of the world. They are the ones that over-drunk with power. No wonder they say “Power corrupts, but absolute power corrupt absolutely”.
The second type of leadership is servant leadership. Fine, this is more or less an oxymoron. Good. These set of people are just like servants irrespective of the post they hold. They rapport with everyone in order to know what is affecting their welfare. These setoff people are being considerate in formulation of policies and they carry the citizens along. These set of leaders believes they are the one serving which is true, and anyone serving people is more or less a servant. That is why I call them “Servant leadership”.
To crown it all, I hereby impel every leader out there to emulate my second type of leadership in order to pave way for tranquility, peaceful coexistence and good welfare of the citizens.
SHABA OLAMIDE DAVID
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