What are the best traits in a leader? by Emilyce

What are the best traits in a leader? by Emilyce - December 2021 Scholarship Essay

Do you know what the best traits are in a leader? Everyone has a different opinion on what traits make a leader, but the traits I think best describe a leader can vary. They can vary depending on what the leader is doing or what they are leading in. For instance, in sports a leader can be someone who has great quality with sportsmanship, passion, motivational skills, communication skills, ability to include everyone, and more. Though a leader that is part of a business has different qualities than a leader in sports, such as self-awareness, integrity, knowledge, endurance, creativity, and more. A leader that’s part of everyday life also has different qualities than sports or business leaders, like positivity, empathy, integrity, resilience, vision, and more. There a many different qualities of a leader depending on what they are fulfilling the leadership role in. Since the roles of a leader are different to me depending on what they are a part of makes it harder to explain what I think the best qualities are, so I will explain what I think they are based on a leader in sports, business and everyday life.

A leader in sports is someone that can show sportsmanship towards the opposing team no matter the outcome of the game. The ability to show sportsmanship even though it was a loss is a great quality, because having a positive interaction with someone that beats you shows that you can overcome anything with a negative outcome. It also includes motivational skills which is when you can get everyone else to be positive during a negative time, even when one of their teammates makes a bad or good move being able to keep them motivated after shows they care about their team. Since motivational skills help their teammates stay positive no matter what they do, it shows that there are willing to include everyone on their team no matter what that teammate has done, whether the outcome of what they did was bad or good.

Though a leader in business has different qualities than a leader in sports, they still play a big part in making the business a great place that everyone wants to work in. A business leader must have the ability to stay positive even if their business is having a downfall. Self-awareness in a business leader helps them know what qualities of their own as a leader are good, especially if they know they are better at making presentations for work than they are at presenting it. With this they can use self-awareness to do what they are best at and allow someone who is better than them at something to do what they are best at. The quality of knowledge and integrity are great to have, since they need to know what is happening inside and outside of the business and must be honest about it as well.

Now a leader in everyday life has different qualities than a leader in business, because they don’t just focus on the business but on everything. Everyday life consists of everything that someone does throughout the day, whether it's going to work, watching their kids or pets, walking down the street, or anything else they choose to do. A leader in everyday life must have every quality possible, such as positivity, self-awareness, communication skills, motivational skills, integrity, creativity, empathy, and many more. They must be able to communicate with everyone around them even if they are only interacting with someone, they’ve never met for only a few minutes. Being able to be honest with those around them and showing empathy towards someone who asks for their honesty. Knowing whether to be fully honest with someone or to just tweak honesty enough to not hurt someone's feelings, like if someone asks does this outfit make me look fat, they must tweak that honesty to spare the feelings of that person.

Since the roles of a leader are different to me depending on what they are a part of makes it harder to explain what I think the best qualities of a leader are. Every leader must have different qualities depending on what their role is as a leader, which makes every quality are great quality. No one knows what the true best qualities are for a leader, because it's all based on opinions, and everyone has different opinions. With this it makes it hard to know exactly what the best qualities are and that’s why I can’t explain exactly what the qualities of a leader should be.