Impact Leaders become effective when they are respectfully followed by their subordinates. A person may not be considered king even if he has a big kingdom if he has no followers. Being a president is senseless if you have no people to preside to. In just the same way, a school head will only be useful if she has a team who works smoothly with her.
A strong relationship comes between personality and leadership. Promoted leaders usually possess positive professional qualities such as; independence, self-confidence, andemotional stability, industriousness and conscientiousness. He may also possess social qualities such as; agreeableness, friendliness, social nearness, and support. Aside from those mentioned, leaders usually have these personal qualities; speech fluency, achievement, initiative, personal integrity, and ethical conduct.
Effectiveness requires both the presence of these positive characteristics and the absence of what we call “dark side” characteristics such as; arrogance, vindictiveness, selfishness, emotional, compulsiveness, over controlling, insensitivity, being aloof, too ambitious, or unable to delegate or make decisions. These irritating tendencies alienate subordinates and interfere with a person’s ability to form a team. These dark side characteristics are negatively related to ratings of team performance and that subordinates are almost always aware of them Nonetheless, they are hard to detect using interviews, assessment, or inventories of normal personality because they coexist with high levels of self-esteem and good social skills. Because managers with dark side tendencies often do well in procedures that evaluate the leadership potential of strangers, their counterproductive tendencies will be apparent only after they have been on the job for some time.
As leaders in our classrooms and possibly future heads of schools or greater callings, we must try to have a positive personality, whether professional, personal or social. This way we wont need to assert ourselves to be chosen leaders when there are team activities, our peers will do that for us!
By: Mrs. Estrella R. Abadia | Orion Elementary School
