Respect, Integrity, Skill and Empathy - The Cornerstones to Effective Leadership

Leadership is a crucial element to the direction of an organization. Leaders play a vital role as a mentor, motivator, a role model to his subordinates and fellow members for achieving organizational goals. To perform the task effectively, leaders need to have the skills and personality quality in addition to knowledge in his field. Only competent leaders can achieve satisfactory results through his leadership. Leaders support themselves and others to do the correct thing. While leaders set way, they must also use management skills to guide their people to the right of destination, in a smooth and efficient way.

Respect is defined as an act that shows a sense of service or reverence to a person. Respect is very important to ensure that society lives in peace and harmony. It is not impossible that if we lose self-respect, our society will become chaotic due to fights in society. This shows how important the practice of respect is in our daily lives.

Values or respect can be translated into daily activities such as the attitude of cooperation regardless of race, property, age and rank. Good relationships between superiors and subordinates are important to ensure harmony. Supervisors need to consider the affairs of subordinates, listen to the voice of subordinates and not be selfish in making decisions. The value of respect is an important aspect of community life. However, there are still those who think that respect should only be given to certain people who have rank and can benefit them.

Various definitions of integrity began to be highlighted among them as the quality of honesty and the height of moral principles held by an individual. In addition, integrity is also defined as the level of consistency between the moral values held by an individual and the reflection of behavior (words or deeds) that he shows.

Individuals with integrity will still abide by the rules even when the red light is on and no one is there except yourself at 2 am. This is because the definition of integrity requires individuals to behave based on moral principles and ethical values, regardless of whether they are seen or not. Thus, to be a human being with integrity requires an individual to be a moral and ethical human being in all aspects of life.

In the context of leadership, integrity is a very important core to be used as a basis for evaluating the effectiveness of the current leadership in any situation. A leader with integrity not only needs to be ‘clean’, but also needs to look ‘clean’ always.

The dynamic and increasingly complex transformation of leadership in the industrial revolution is the result of changes in the context of competition and creativity in terms of information technology, innovation and economic competition. Look at the two dimensions that distinguish between leader development and leadership development. Leadership development refers to the improvement of an individual’s ability to lead effectively, while leadership development refers to building the organization’s ability to perform the leadership tasks necessary to achieve the organization’s mission. These foundations need to be combined to produce the need for skilled manpower with a high level of mastery of leadership competencies and able to face challenges in the future. Leaders with a variety of skills are a must to make her or him great among the team.

Empathy or compassion is a leadership capability – like no other skill- that can make a big difference when it comes to leadership. Empathy means being able to understand the needs of others. It means you’re aware of their feelings and their thinking. It doesn’t mean you have to agree with their point of view, but- it means that you’re keening to understand and appreciate it. At the fundamental leadership is ultimately about others. It means inspiring them to take actions beyond their capabilities, leading them in a direction that is compelling and inspiring. And empathy is the foundation of those actions.

It is not easy to be a great leader. As far as being a good leader may be easier. Being a great leader is not because of the ability to escape playing politics to succeed in becoming a leader. Not because of the 'who you know' factor. That all does play a role to some extent. But there are other deeper factors that need to be applied into self-practice. Leadership is not an easy thing; not just the ability to give instructions for that and this. It is the highlighting of the inner characteristics of our personality that results from the noble discipline and practice applied throughout our lives.

Is a leader born or formed? This is an important question, especially for those who are inspired to improve the quality of a team or company, to pioneer in a change, or to help others achieve success.

Some people believe that a true leader is born with good leadership skills - of course charismatic, influential, and inspiring. But while certain people naturally tend to have good leadership, just as they tend to be athletic or musical, we believe that those characters and abilities deserve to call you a leader.

To summarize, through the discussion of the characteristics of effective leaders above, some conclusions can be drawn. Among them is leadership is the behaviour of a person who can move others to think, feel, act in certain ways. In this case a leader should know the needs and motives of the people who work with him and should emphasize the achievement of group goals. He should also be able to maintain the strengths of his group to solve problems and achieve future goals. A leader can highlight his leadership only through his involvement in the group. In the group, the frequency of interactions with staff allows for effective leadership. If a leader is always 'hiding' in the room and does not have time to interact with his staff, then his leadership is less effective. Leadership does not depend entirely on position. The status of the position he holds is one of the potential sources of leadership. Leadership success is the function of both formal powers through positions and the informal acceptance of subordinates that is not due to position.