Leadership Best Practices
Introduction

Military leadership depends upon the ability to motivate, support and drive the team to accomplish the mission. Leadership styles are diverse in the military and can include everything from the autocratic style to the servant leadership style. The key to employing best practices in military leadership, however, is to understand the needs of the situation, the needs of the stakeholders, and the needs of the moment so that the right strategy is employed for the goal to be achieved.[endnoteRef:2] This paper will discuss leadership best practices, particularly how sharing leadership best practices can help individual, group, corporation and military success. [2: For this reason, Stogdill asserts that contingency theory is the best way to explain how leaders should perform.]

Leadership Definition

Leadership has been defined as the ability to give empowerment to others (Conger). Leaders make a difference in the lives of others by helping them to achieve their objectives—not by doing the work for them but by giving them everything they require in order to succeed. This can include clear directions, a clear vision of what the mission is, a clear sense of what to do, or a clear path so that the workers can exercise their skills and talents without constraint. The leader can make many mistakes, such as fall into micro-managing, which is the problem of not giving one’s workers enough space and freedom to do their jobs without feeling that their every move is being watched and monitored (which can add stress to the worker’s burden and reduce the performance and productivity overall). The leader has to be cognizant of how his tone, example, and behavior is received by workers and must act accordingly. A leader who is obtuse and disconnected from his workers is one who sends a bad message—i.e., that he does not care about his workers or what they are doing (Schyns, Schilling).

How Sharing Leadership Best Practices Can Help

As there is no one-size-fits-all way to lead, sharing best practices in leadership can help leaders to realize the options they have as leaders and how those options can work in different environments and situations. Leadership is required in various settings—in one-on-one settings, in group settings, in corporations and in military exercises and activities. By sharing leadership best practices, leaders can be more equipped, knowledgeable and ready to lead according to the needs of their environment. As Stogdill has noted, there is no one set of traits that leader must possess; rather a leader should be fluid and able to adapt with a range of tools to choose from depending upon what is required. Leaders can vary greatly: the one thing they typically have in common is that they see what type of leadership is needed in the moment and provide it.

Individuals

Sharing best practices in leadership can help individuals by providing the leader and the follower with a sense of the various tactics and strategies that might be employed to get the individual the message, support, vision and assistance required....…as possible. They must be willing to listen and to engage others; but they also have to be able to give orders in a precise way while leaving room for soldiers to make decisions on their own. This is what is known as the art of empowering others, and the leader in the military should focus first and foremost on empowering soldiers so that they can take pride and ownership in their abilities and in their duties. The military leader’s training in resiliency can be most effective in this setting because resiliency is needed among soldiers as they are likely to face stressful situations and every man counts. The mission in other words depends upon the whole team working together and every person taking responsibility to achieve his defined duties.

Conclusion

The sharing of best practices in leadership is necessary because there are so many different types of settings and circumstances in which leadership is required and no two situations are going to be the same. For that reason, leaders should be well-versed in best practices. That way they will be able to sort through the various ideas and postures to find the one that will work the best in the given environment. By learning how to apply basic leadership principles and to use basic leadership skills like social and emotional intelligence, the leader can help soldiers to summon their internal strength and become better, or the leader can help corporations to overcome performance issues by developing better communication.

Works Cited

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