Leadership Qualities - Personal Essay

Fatima Waqar

Thinking about the leadership qualities I have, I feel I am very resilient. Once the project presentation I was supervising took a bad turn and was negatively criticized. I didn’t let my team spirit down. I choose to bounce back and on the next presentation, our work was highly appreciated. The point is, bad things happen. All we need to do is to see them as a learning opportunity and rebound. The key is to stay true to yourself and to the people who believe in you.

Secondly, I am a person with decisive nature. When I come across a situation in which I have to make a decision, I ask for all related information. Once, I had to structure a dialogue with others so as to logically arrive at a consensus. Finally I made a subordinate make a decision as I thought he was more informative about the situation that arose and it was out of my jurisdiction.

Thirdly, I never make excuses. I am honest if something cannot be done under the circumstances or at times when I was reluctant. I assure my self-confidence to all working with me as well as boost confidence in weak-links of the group. I had a colleague who was never sure of what she wanted to do and was so averse to making commitments. It wasn’t lack of passion or communication that held her back. It was her lack of confidence to commit to her decisions and goals. With patience and time, I positively changed her attitude and made her capable of sticking to one opinion.

I look to Steve Jobs as an inspiring leader. He has been a great influencer. He created a field of beyond reality, which helped motivate his team to finish tasks within deadlines. He did this by addressing the people passionately and having them see things from his eyes. He conveyed his vision repeatedly and had others believe in his mission. Steve jobs was also very resilient when it comes to tough times. His personal life never affected his work. Even when he was battling cancer, he used to go to board meetings and believed everything to be of secondary importance. He was a man to follow his heart and intuition. His strong vision to create a simple user interface today pleases greatly to all age groups. He was strongly against the idea of creating products for the marketing purposes. His vision gave the customers not only what they desired, but what they didn’t think they desired.

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