The Leader in My Household by Aayan

The Leader in My Household by Aayan - May 2024 Scholarship Essay

Some people might argue that to be a leader, you must be the best in your field and command respect. While both of these qualities are no doubt important, they aren't necessary requirements in order to be an effective leader. To me, being an effective leader means being a person that is approachable by co-workers and easy to talk to. But most importantly, it means being empathetic.

These traits are important to have in a leader because it demonstrates the positive relationship that a leader has with their group. If a leader has a good and positive relationship with their group, then the result of that would be efficient production. The same can be said for the opposite. Therefore, it is important that a leader demonstrates qualities that are appealing to their group. Being approachable and easy to talk to are good qualities of a leader because it helps increase communication between both parties. The group would be more comfortable communicating with their leader if he was easy going, which is important because communication is essential when working in a group. Communicating allows you to accurately determine the amount of progress that has been made so far in a project and the future steps that need to be taken in order to address some hardships that might have to be dealt with later on. However, if there was no communication among both parties because the group was not willing to communicate with the leader, then working together becomes all the more difficult. Therefore, it is essential that the leader is easy to talk to and approachable.

But to me, the most important trait a leader can have is empathy. The trait that makes the leader human. People all make mistakes, and that is inevitable when working in a group. However, the difference between whether or not a group works successfully or not isn't based on the amount of mistakes that were made, but on the leader's forgiveness for those mistakes. If you make a mistake in the group, and the leader condemns you for that mistake, you are more likely to focus less on the work at hand and focus more on not making anymore mistakes. This causes the antithesis to occur, as focusing on not making anymore mistakes will actually lead to you making more mistakes. And too many mistakes will hinder the progress of your group. On the other hand, having a leader that is okay with mistakes will actually promote group progress because you won't be worried on making mistakes. Not worrying about something greatly decreases the chances of it happening again.

Someone who I believe has demonstrated the leadership in my life would be my father. Two years ago, my parents opened a restaurant, and needed to work a lot at the beginning stages of the restaurant's development since we didn't have a lot of employees. I also would help them out every weekend by managing the front of the restaurant. Since I managed the front, I only had to deal with customers, and didn't help cook and prepare the food. However, working the front has allowed me to observe the kitchen and see how our employees are doing. More importantly, however, its allowed me to observe how effectively my dad was teaching and leading them. I remember one time while working, one of our employees accidently overcooked the chicken and almost served it to the customer. Instead of yelling at the employee, my father showed and explained the technique in cooking the chicken to ensure that it wasn't over/undercooked. This seemed to be more beneficial than yelling at the employee, because it allowed him to learn from his mistakes while also not feeling bad about himself. Something that I also observed while working at the restaurant was that every time the employees were unsure of what to do, instead of trying to wing it, they always asked my father on whether or not they were doing it right. It's such a small thing, but it shows how the employees were not afraid to ask questions and talk to my dad.

Leadership is the ability to successfully lead a group, and the way to successfully lead people is to treat them like human beings. There seems to be a common consensus in offices and workplaces where being the leader means making everyone else do the work and ridicule them for their poor work. However, it's important to note that all hardships and failures that are experienced in a project are not the group's fault, but the leader's fault. Therefore, it is important that a leader is someone who takes accountability and treats others with respect and compassion.