Leadership: What Makes a Good Leader

By Myron Curry It goes without saying that good leadership is crucial to any successful business. But, what makes a good leader and how can someone develop himself or herself into a good leader if they are not one to begin with? The answer is that there are many factors that contribute to good leadership. And, whether someone is naturally a good leader or not, anyone can become a good leader. Get To Talking One of those factors of good leadership is communication. Communication is one of the most key elements of leadership. Good communication skills need to be learned to effectively become a good leader or manager. When communication occurs, as a leader, you will be able to accurately convey your ideas and thoughts to those that work for you. In fact, simply being able to convey these things in the first place, much less accurately, puts you in the right direction for leadership. If employees have no idea what is on your mind, your leadership is going to falter. Employees are not typically mind readers. If there is a problem a certain employee is experiencing, good communication can filter the problem out. You, as a leader, can dissect the problem and offer solutions in various ways. Ideas that are given to employees work both ways, as well. Employees can give helpful feedback and generate new ideas to you that help the company as well, when good communication is present. Get Something Moving Motivation is another variable that plays into good leadership. Employees tend to stagnate when motivation decreases and it will decrease, without proper motivation. Many leaders try to motivate the old-fashioned way through fear. (Do what I say or something bad will happen) This is not advisable, since it tends to only deliver short-term results and cause even less competent work in the long run, due to resentment resulting from the fear tactics. Instead, try adding challenges for employees. A fresh challenge always adds excitement and spawns creativity. Challenge your employees with tasks that may be slightly out of their range and let them at it! This increases motivation.

If they run into a snag, guide them towards a solution but don't offer the actual solution outright. Coach them into discovering the solution themselves. Once they have, their self-esteem will rise, thereby raising their motivation level. Two Heads Are Better Than One Teamwork is always something to consider when striving to become a good leader. This means not only teaching your employees to work together but to become part of the team yourself. Use others potential. Many times, employees potential is wasted. A good leader recognizes that his or her employees are more than just employees, they are people too. These people have lives outside of work where they have to make decisions on a daily basis, from how to deal with house payments, to car bills, to raising children, to uncountable tasks in everyday lives. Yet, at work, their decision making skills are not trusted enough to choose what type of toner needs to be ordered for a set of printers. The point here is that employees need to be trusted to do more. A good leader doesn't manage every single detail. Use others potential to your benefit. You will find that you have become a better leader for it. Back to School As always, increasing your education is definitely a good thing when trying to improve leadership, but the school that really needs to be brought at attention here is the kind of school that you don't get a degree for. Take the time to learn as much about your position of being a leader as possible. Do some reading at the nearest bookstore. Talk to other leaders and see how they do things; trade notes. The more you continually evaluate yourself and your practices and search for as much information on leadership as possible, the more you will be able to keep up with changing times and the better leader you will be for it. http://business-marketing.com/article-leaders.php

What Is A Leader
By F. John Reh
At the most basic level, a leader is someone who leads other. But what makes someone a leader? What is it about being a leader that some people understand and use to their advantage? What can you do to be a leader? Here's what you need to know and do.

Is it a passion for the idea, an inner sense of drive, or some sense of commitment? Whatever it is, it is the strength that lets leaders move their vision forward despite all the obstacles, despite all the people saying it can't be done, it's too costly, we tried that before, or a dozen other excuses. The true leader perseveres and moves forward.
Trait And Skills A Leader Must Have There are things that set leaders apart from other people. Some people are born with these characteristics. Others develop them as they improve as leaders. These are not magic bullets. They are things you can do and be if you want to be a leader. Traits Of A Leader There are as many traits of a leader as there ae lists of what makes a leader. Here are the fundamental traits of a leader from my perspective: Has integrity. People have to believe that you are pursuing your dream because it's the right thing to do, not just because you are ego driven. Is a people person. Understands the differences that make people unique and is able to use those individual skills to achieve the goal. Is positive. A leader encourages and rewards people and makes you want to do it and do it right. A leader is not a negative person and doesn't waste time and effort tellng everyone what they're doing wrong. Leadership Skills Beyond the personal traits of a leader, there are specific skills someone must master if they want to be a leader. Effective communication - it's more than just being able to speak and write. A leader's communication must move people to work toward the goal the leader has chosen. Motivation - a leader has to be able to motivate everyone to contribute. Each of us has different "buttons". A leader knows how to push the right buttons on everyone to make them really want to do their best to achieve the leader's goal. Planning - the leader has a plan to achieve the goal. He/she doesn't get too bogged down in the details, that's what managers are for,

A leader is a person who has a vision, a drive and a commitment to achieve that vision, and the skills to make it happen. Let's look at each of those in detail.
The Leader's Vision A leader has a vision. Leaders see a problem that needs to be fixed or a goal that needs to be achieved. It may be something that no one else sees or simply something that no one else wants to tackle. Whatever it is, it is the focus of the leader's attention and they attack it with a single-minded determination.

Whether the goal is to double the company's annual sales, develop a product that will solve a certain problem, or start a company that can achieve the leader's dream, the leader always has a clear target in mind. This is a big picture sort of thing, not the process improvement that reduces errors by 2% but the new manufacturing process that completely eliminates the step that caused the errors. It is the new product that makes people say "why didn't I think of that", not just a toaster that lets you select the degree of darkness of the toast. Edison did not set out to build a better candle, he wanted to find a whole new way to illuminate the darkness. That's the kind of vision a leader has.
The Drive To See It Through It is not enough to just have a vision. Lots of people see things that should be done, things that should be fixed, great step forward that could be taken. What makes leaders different is that they act. They take the steps to achieve their vision.

but rather uses a high level plan to keep everyone moving together toward the goal. Bottom Line Leaders dream dreams. They refuse to let anyone or anything get in the way of achieving those dreams. They are realistic, but unrelenting. They are polite, but insistent. The constantly and consistently drive forward toward their goal. You can be a leader. You will be - when it matters enough to you. http://management.about.com/od/leadership/a/whatisaleader.htm

Whereas, until recently, caring was largely person to person, now most of it is mediated through institutions - often large, complex, powerful, impersonal; not always competent; sometimes corrupt. If a better society is to be built, one that is more just and more loving, one that provides greater creative opportunity for its people, then the most open course is to raise both the capacity to serve and the very performance as servant of existing major institutions by new regenerative forces operating within them. http://www.greenleaf.org/whatissl/

What is Servant Leadership?

The phrase Servant Leadership was coined by Robert K. Greenleaf in The Servant as Leader, an essay that he first published in 1970. In that essay, he said: "The servant-leader is servant first It begins with the natural feeling that one wants to serve, to serve first. Then conscious choice brings one to aspire to lead. That person is sharply different from one who is leader first, perhaps because of the need to assuage an unusual power drive or to acquire material possessionsThe leader-first and the servant-first are two extreme types. Between them there are shadings and blends that are part of the infinite variety of human nature." "The difference manifests itself in the care taken by the servant-first to make sure that other peoples highest priority needs are being served. The best test, and difficult to administer, is: Do those served grow as persons? Do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants? And, what is the effect on the least privileged in society? Will they benefit or at least not be further deprived?" More organizations can also be found in the Greenleaf Center book, "Servant Institutions in Business", available in the online catalog. In his second major essay, The Institution as Servant, Robert K. Greenleaf articulated what is often called the "credo." He said: " This is my thesis: caring for persons, the more able and the less able serving each other, is the rock upon which a good society is built.

Servant leadership
Assumptions
The leader has responsibility for the followers. Leaders have a responsibility towards society and those who are disadvantaged. People who want to help others best do this by leading them.

Style
The servant leader serves others, rather than others serving the leader. Serving others thus comes by helping them to achieve and improve. There are two criteria of servant leadership:

The people served grow as individuals, becoming 'healthier, wiser, more autonomous and more likely themselves to become servants' (Greenleaf, 1977). The extent to which the leadership benefits those who are least advantaged in society (or at least does not disadvantage them).

Principles of servant leadership defined by the Alliance for Servant Leadership are:

Transformation as a vehicle for personal and institutional growth. Personal growth as a route to better serve others. Enabling environments that empower and encourage service. Service as a fundamental goals. Trusting relationships as a basic platform for collaboration and service. Creating commitment as a way to collaborative activity. Community building as a way to create environments in which people can trust each other and work together. Nurturing the spirit as a way to provide joy and fulfilment in meaningful work.

A challenge to servant leadership is in the assumption of the leader that the followers want to change. There is also the question of what 'better' is and who decides this. Servant leadership aligns closely with religious morals and has been adopted by several Christian organizations. http://changingminds.org/disciplines/leadership/styles/servant_leaders hip.htm

Spears (2002) lists: listening, empathy, healing, awareness, persuasion, conceptualization, foresight, stewardship, commitment to growth of people, and building community. An excellent example of a servant leader is Ernest Shackleton, the early 20th century explorer who, after his ship became frozen in the Antarctic life, brought every one of his 27 crew home alive, including an 800 mile journey in open boats across the winter Antarctic seas. It took two years, but Shackleton's sense of responsibility towards his men never wavered.

Decisions Concerning Personal Life

Total quality begins with total personal quality, organizational empowerment begins with individual empowerment, and managing information system (MIS) means managing your life. The same decisionmaking process one faces in business arises in all other aspects of one's life, but they are obscured in other parts of life because they are not overlaid with as many complexities that arise in business. If you expect people who do not treat themselves well to treat the world well, you will be sorely and surely disappointed.

Discussion
Greenleaf says that true leadership "emerges from those whose primary motivation is a deep desire to help others." Servant leadership is a very moral position, putting the well-being of the followers before other goals. It is easy to dismiss servant leadership as soft and easy, though this is not necessarily so, as individual followers may be expected to make sacrifices for the good of the whole, in the way of the servant leader. The focus on the less privileged in society shows the servant leader as serving not just their followers but also the whole of society. Servant leadership is a natural model for working in the public sector. It requires more careful interpretation in the private sector lest the needs of the shareholders and customers and the rigors of market competition are lost.

In Lee Iacocca's words:

Over the years, many executives have said to me with pride: "Boy, I worked so hard last year that I didn't take any vacation." I always feel like responding, "You dummy. You mean to tell me you take responsibility for an $80 million project and you can't plan two weeks out of the year to have some fun?"

Business decision-making is a simple arena of choices expressed in dollar terms, and that simplicity is the reason for discussing the decision-making process in the context of business, though it can apply elsewhere just as well. Values, ethics, means, and social complexity must enter into the decision-making process along with the monetary evaluation such as cost-and-benefit analysis.

We all know the difference between "right" and "wrong", and we can tell "good from "bad". But we also know that the more difficult decisions come when we have to choose between good and better. The toughest decisions of all are those we have to make between bad and worse. Many people believe that predetermined destiny rather than their own decisions govern the affairs of their lives. Personal mastery teaches us to choose. Choosing is a courageous act that entails opting for various courses of actions that will define one's destiny. Destiny is not a matter of chance. It is a matter of choice. Striving for goals (i.e., the objective of your decisions) that do not reflect your values and consequently do not make your life joyful is how we make ourselves unhappy. But if you do not know what you want, then how will you know how to achieve it? Have a very clear picture of what you want out of life and what it will take to get it. There is a popular, classic song in which a raspy female voice exclaims to her independent female audience, "use what you got.....to get what you want." Be realistic about your abilities. When there is a way, there is a will. The opposite is not true as many people unfortunately believe and have taken as the basis for decisions concerning their personal life. Thinking about strategies to strive after that are beyond your abilities can ruin your life. If a goal is unattainable and you go after it anyway, the consequential failure may cause you pain and diminish your energy (and resources of the organization). You do best in your profession and your personal life by doing well with respect to your capacity and values rather than trying to do better than another person or organization. Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it. Remember that, if you are attempting the impossible, you will fail; therefore ask what is possible for you. He knows not his own strength that has not met challenge. When you are facing a decision, then you are sounding-out the depth of your own strengths and the richness of your resources. One is responsible for one's own life. Passivity provides no protection: One must accept responsibility for a decision before one can make any decision. All religions, arts, philosophy, morality, and sciences are branches of the same tree. All these aspirations have pondered the search for what constitutes a good life. Yet only in the last decades has the study of well-being become a scientific endeavor. The results indicate that the goals and values of personal life are very subjective and mostly

cultural. Most people spend a lifetime searching for happiness. They chase idle dreams, addictions, religions, even other people, hoping to fill the emptiness that plagues them. The irony is that the only place they ever needed to search was within. Moreover, once a doctrine, however irrational, has gained power in a society, millions of people will believe in it rather than feel ostracized and isolated. One must decide for oneself: Leaders and followers face different problems. The leaders have to wonder if the followers will follow them faithfully and the followers wonder if the leader will bring them to the "promised land". In essence, the leaders and the followers are slaves to each other's needs. There are many factors that contribute to being a good decision-maker, the cardinal ones are:
1. Self-esteem (not pride): Self-esteem is a big factor in making good decisions. Some people easily pressured into doing things by others are easily told what to do because they have very low self-esteem. Never feel sorry for yourself -- it has a deadly effect on your thinking. Recognize all problems, no matter how difficult, as opportunities for enhancement and/or affirmation of your life, and make the most of these opportunities. Creativity in making good decisions requires having a clear mind. 2. Courage: Courage is doing what you are afraid to do. There can be no courage unless you are scared. Courage is to think for yourself. When one has low self-esteem one can be talked into doing almost anything because one depends on others too much for advice. This is all because one may not have strength and courage to listen to his/her own thoughts. There are many ways to escape from your own strategic thinking engagement. For example, have you asked yourself why you read newspapers? Could it be an escape device? As a reporter puts it "Fact that is fact every day is not news; it's truth. We report news, not truth." It may be a shock to most of us that, Thomas Jefferson said, "I do not take a single newspaper, nor read one a month, and I feel myself infinitely the happier for it." You ought to never try to avoid the duty of making up your mind for yourself. If you do not make decisions for yourself, others do it for you: "You're legally allowed to drink now so we figured the best thing for you was a car."

Of all the gifts that a parent can give a child, the gift of learning to make good choices is the most valuable and long lasting. It is the nature, and the advantage, of courageous people that they can take the crucial questions and form a clear set of alternatives. The weak always have to decide between alternatives that are not their own. It takes education and courage to gain more self-esteem to be positive or confident in decision-making. Listen to yourself and think for yourself. This won't get you into trouble because of someone else. Courage means the act of intelligent risk taking while looking forward into the future. Nothing splendid has ever been achieved except by those who dare, as something inside them was superior to circumstance in making their decisions.
3. Honesty: Honesty is to be the one you are. Be objective about yourself and others. It is important to identify your weaknesses as well as your strengths. Being honest with yourself is the most important thing you can ever do. When it comes to yourself, you have to be brutally honest. 4. Love: Love means caring about yourself and other people. It means that you go to sleep at night knowing that your talents and abilities were used in making decisions that, served others. The wonderful thing about love is that it embraces, without binding. To be honest, you must fully accept that at this moment, you can only be what you are. No more, no less; however, with the inevitable passing of each moment of time, you will gradually, but surely change -- to become more or less, better or worse, stronger or weaker. Your choice is the direction of change: it is yours alone. The only true competition is the rivalry within your changing self. It is the very basis of a good decision making.

That alone can set us on the path to freedom. All the interest of your education should come together to make decisions for yourself. What is the use of education if you cannot face these questions to your own satisfaction? While you are making these decisions, you feel for the time being that your life is your own. Do not envy others, because who envies others does not obtain peace of mind. Everything starts with yourself -- with you making up your mind about what you're going to do with your life. The more amiability and esprit de corps among the members of a policy-making in-group, the greater is the danger that independent critical thinking will be replaced by groupthink, which is likely to result in irrational and dehumanizing actions directed against out groups. Major decisions require courage. We must have courage to bet on our decisions, to take the calculated risk, and to act. Finally, in personal decision-making there is no one better to talk to than yourself if you really want to get things worked out. No other person has as much information about your problems, and no one knows your skills and capabilities better. Self-Realization: Maslow's work specifies that individuals have a hierarchy of needs ranging from basic needs for survival and safety to higher-level needs for esteem and self-actualization, as shown in the following figure:

Hard Decisions: Only you can change your life. No one can make decisions for you when it comes to serious questions, such as, What ought I to do?, What should I believe?, What can I know?, How should I live? What Ralph Waldo Emerson tells us is that the only good answers to such questions are personal and examined ones, rarely those adopted by large groups; conscious, reasoning minds should neither pray to strange Gods, nor encourage the vanities of the self.

1. Physiological Needs: These are primarily biological needs. They include such things as the need for adequate nutrition, shelter, warmth and medical care. 2. Safety Needs: After physiological needs, the second most compelling needs that individuals face are safety and security. 3. Belongingness and Love Needs: When physiological and safety needs have been addressed, the next set of needs -- those related to belongingness, affection and love -- can emerge. 4. Esteem Needs: If the first three needs are fulfilled, the need for esteem may become dominant. This refers both to self-esteem and to the esteem a person gets from others. 5. Self-Actualization Needs: The highest level of needs, those that individuals are able to satisfy when all other more basic needs have been met, is the need for self-actualization. Self-actualization is a person's need to be what he/she is. A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself. What does Maslow mean by his observation with respect to self-realization? My answer is: If it falls your lot to be a street sweeper, sweep streets like Michelangelo painted pictures, like Shakespeare wrote poetry, like Beethoven composed music; sweep streets so well that everybody will have to pause and say, Here lived a great sweeper, who swept his job well.

avoids confrontation. Instead of inviting us to evaluate alternative standards, it gives us norms as well as detailed standards. However, moralizing and morals are two entirely different things and are always found in entirely different people.

Popular Strategies in Avoiding Personal Decisions: Decisions shape our personal lives, however decision-making can be a stressful, bewildering personal responsibility. Decidophobia is the fear of making your own decisions. The comparison and choice of goals and standards arouses the most intense decidophobia but the only way to ensure stability in the strategic thinking is to engender fear. In the past few decades, the field of decision-making has concentrated on showing the limitations of decision makers - that is, that they are not very rational or competent and their thoughts are clouded with a plethora of possibilities, variables and outcomes. In short, there is the lack of a well-focused structured decision-making process. The following strategies or combination of them enable decidophobes to avoid making their own decisions.

Religion: Religion and the proclamation of what is good and evil is the most popular one. It is through this unity that the decidophobe

Every religion too, is a model for questions such as: How should I live, What should I believe? How should I behave? What should I do and so on. In Islam, for example, a man may have more than one wife (officially up to four, at any given time), but he should not drink wine. In Christianity the opposite is allowed. Here you have a choice. Models are always changing to adapt to reality. For example, Martin Luther, and John Calvin among others, found a need for reformations and modified the Catholic model. The same happened with the Eastern models, such as Buddhism which is the reformed Hinduism. Models, in general, should be able to provide "insights" useful to cope with the decision problem. In the case of religious models, the question "how should I live?" is not a decision problem. The imperative and authoritative answers to almost all similar decisions are already given. However, there is only one big decision one must make first -"the leap of faith." While the organized religions are lifeenhancing for those who need their services, they are not lifeaffirming (e.g., concepts of sin and redemption as its cure). The source of all religion and metaphysics is the recognition of a higher power, such as a god(s), or "the-thing-in-itself", respectively. Much of what passes for religious faiths, and metaphysics idols (i.e., ideas) amounts to a side bet, covering a vague belief that "there must be something" or that man needs to believe. Philosophy and religion are accustomed in constructing models such as, metaphysics of a higher world, and another-world, in order to despise this world. The beauty of religious mania is that it has the power to explain everything. Once God (or Satan) is accepted as the first cause of everything which happens in the mortal world, nothing is left to chance. Logic can be happily tossed out the window. Metaphysics are the concepts that empirical investigation is unable to tackle such as the nature of time and gravity, space and the purpose of our beings.

Believing in God, while is sometimes advantageous healthwise, can have the reverse effect: it can predict mortality. A study of 600 older hospital patients, 95% of whom were believers, found that people who felt alienated from God, or who blamed the devil for their illness, had a 19% to 28% increased risk of dying over the following two years.

Drifting: Instead of choosing how to live and what to believe, The drifting person simply follows the "status quo". On the opposite end of the spectrum is the person who has no ties, no code of conduct, or purpose. These types of individuals are afraid of making any decision, no matter how small. Allegiance to a Movement: This strategy identifies the people who are dissatisfied both with traditional life styles and with being adrift, so they join a movement. This is an indication of a person's fear of "standing alone". Allegiance to a School of Thought: This strategy helps to give one an identity. People of this nature share a way of thinking and deal with problems in the same way. Exegetical Thinking: In this strategy one reads in the text, assumes that the text that one reads is right and therefore, treats it as an authority. This enables the exegete to read his own ideas into the text and get them back endowed with authority. The exegetical thinker fears independence and independent thinking. Manachaeism: For the Manachaeist, the decision is most important and generally makes itself; the choice is loaded. It is when all the odds are stacked, all the good is on one side, all the evil on the other. It ignores all other alternatives. Moral Rationalization: The idea is that the moral rationalist, through rational thought, can make decisions. However, that moral rationalism may involve an inadequate conception of reason and responsibility. Man -- a reasoning rather than a reasonable animal. Pedantry: This strategy emphasizes on a "microscopic distinction". Decidophobia engulfs the pedantic person, as they never get around to considering major decisions and do not look at, or see, the big picture. Action always generates inspiration. Inspiration seldom generates action. The Wave of the Future: Although this strategy overlaps with religion, allegiance to a movement or to a school, and to ignore other alternatives and, like other strategies, there is a fear of

standing alone and unsupported. Ideals are acceptable because they are "the wave of the future". Idealism increases in direct proportion to one's distance from the decision problem. Marriage: One of the most popular strategies is that of marriage. This strategy is based on the premise that in marriage, the decisions are left, in most cultures to the husband. However, either spouse can succumb. Decisions are either a consensus of the two or there is a disagreement and one ends up "going along" with the other.

http://home.ubalt.edu/ntsbarsh/opre640/partxiii.htm#rgoodlife

Three Kinds Of Leaders

When it comes to leading, we need to be aware that there are basically three kinds of leaders: the creators, the maintainers, and the destroyers. We need to know which one best describes us. And we need to be aware that, at times, we may be one or anotheror all three. The Creators The creators choose to take responsibility. They choose to make things happen. They choose to help people be successfuland they know that those they lead are their biggest responsibility and biggest asset. They are action- and results-oriented. They work continually to generate interest, enthusiasm, competency, and achievement. Creators are both the receivers and the initiators of ideas, suggestions, aspirations, actions, and results. They are geared to meet the needs of customers and help everyone get the work and mission of the organization accomplished. They do so by choosing to be positive, proactive, progressive, mission-oriented people who try to maximize

the strengths of those being led. They focus continually on helping people get better. The creators choose to position themselves to be the guidepost or point of reference for those being led. Creators make excellent employees. They also make excellent executives. The Maintainers The maintainers choose to function from a different platform. They can keep something goingand keep it going very well. But they can't and don't initiate much of anything new on their own. And they can't add to, create, or improve without the input, approval, and assistance of others. Rather than continually trying to improve on what's being done, they simply choose to keep the same things going in the same way. They choose to use last year's plans and last year's standards. They operate a department or the whole company in the same way it has always been operatedregardless of the results of such functioning. They make great assistants, but they don't do well as chief executive officers. They make great aides, but not very good foremen. In fact, they may be great in support positions, but not good as the head of anything. However, we need to be aware that maintaining is a great assetand maintainers fill a vital need in any organization. We need maintainers. We must have them. It's one thing to start or create somethingit's quite another to keep it going. We all know well that when we give maintainers an ongoing task or responsibility, it is in good hands. And if maintainers need help in improving a task or adding to a service, the leader can provide the inputand the maintainer will keep things going. Therefore, maintainers are a positive factor in the organization. But a close look will reveal that they are better doers, followers, and managers than leaders. At times, however, we all have to function as a maintainer in the organization. The Destroyers Fortunately, the destroyers are the only real danger in an organization. And some in leadership positions do choose to lead from this platform. They believe sorting out and eliminating will solve any problems being experienced. They are master "cutters"of projects, tasks, opportunities, services, duties, responsibilities, and jobs. If employees

complain about the food in the cafeteria, for instance, destroyers always have the same answer to the problem: close the cafeteria. If two employees are talking too much in the office, destroyers will impose a "no talking at any time" rule for everyoneor choose some form of punishment to solve the problem. These leaders never choose to create, build, or improve. They never choose to do more or add service. They don't even choose to maintain. They can't. In fact, they usually don't think too much about what the company can or should be doing. Rather, they only choose to think about what they, the company, or the staff shouldn't be doing, shouldn't have to do, doesn't need to do, or can't do. The destroyers choose to believe that not doing is the answer to all problems. And they try to convince others that "cutting" is the best course of action. Unfortunately, they will wake up one morning and find out that theyas well as the part of the organization they are leadingaren't doing very much of anything anymore. Why? Termination has been their approach to leadership.

Team-Building and Leadership Training: Creating Tomorrow's Leaders with Today's Youth
Providing Students with Effective Leadership Skills

Team-Building and Leadership Training is a hands-on workshop that has been successfully presented at 150 high schools throughout the country. The workshop is designed to train student representatives from different backgrounds, opinions and goals 1) to create a systematic working relationship and then 2) to implement a school wide program specifically designed to unify the entire student body.

School as a Training Ground for Life

The Team-Building and Leadership Training workshop takes the approach that school is teens' society, and as such, it serves as a training ground for their future life challenges. Much like the larger American society, schools are becoming highly polarized. It is commonly known that students mostly trust leaders from within their selected peer groups.
Learning to Work within a Democratic Process

When peer group leaders become united in a Team-Building and Leadership Training workshop then all students feel they are well represented. In addition, a simple scientific system will allow all students to have direct access to student leaders' decision-making process. In a Team-Building and Leadership Training workshop both student leadership and student body learn how a democratic government works most effectively. In addition, school administrators acquire a simple reliable means to gauge and monitor current student climate on a consistent basis.
Honoring Diversity to Create Unity and Effective Teamwork

The key, then, is to bond leaders of all peer groups and teach them how to integrate all diverse ideas and gain consensus, thereby creating a unified, focused, and effective team. In this way, the leadership coherently bonds its mini-society, that is, their school. In the process, the leadership will develop the basic interpersonal communication skills and courage necessary to successfully lead later in life. In addition, the student body gains skill and confidence in how to get government to meet their needs http://www.teens2teams.com/articles/leadershipTraining.html