LEADERSHIP

HAJIE ALEJANDRO G. DELA CRUZ

Leadership is the art of motivating a group of people to act towards achieving a common goal.

A leader, like the master teacher, captures the essentials of being able to inspire others and being prepared to do so. Effective leadership is based upon ideas (whether original or borrowed), but won't happen unless those ideas can be communicated to others in a way that engages them enough to act as the leader wants them to act.

The leader is the inspiration and director of the action. He or she is the person in the group that possesses the combination of personality and leadership skills that makes others want to follow his or her direction.

In school, leadership is welded to performance and any leadership definition has to take that into account. To be effective, a leader certainly has to manage the classroom. But leadership also involves communicating, inspiring and supervising - just to name three more of the primary skills a leader has to have to be successful.

And leaders are not born., they are made. While there are people who seem to be naturally endowed with more leadership abilities than others, people can learn to become leaders by improving particular skills.

These include the winning combination of personal traits and the ability to think and act as a leader, to be a person who directs the activities of others for the good of all.

Anyone can be a leader. History is full of people who, while having no previous leadership experience, have stepped to the fore for the benefit and welfare of others.

--oOo-The author is Teacher III at San Vicente Elementary School