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Being a Leader

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Submitted By spencer2329
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Throughout history there have been individual who have stood out in history and make significant impacts on the way the current world is. These people are what we would call leaders. Whether it is in business, government, or the military, leaders have influenced the course of history and continue to do so today. They have managed to implement change, they have lead people into changed, established something new and important in society. These people stand out from everyone else. Can you teach someone to become a leader?
In order for us to understand why a leader cannot be taught to be a leader we first must understand what a leader is. A leader by definition according to Dictionary.com a leader is ‘a person or thing that leads’, ‘a guiding or directing head, as of an army, movement, or political group’. While this definition is intangible, Police Administration text book asserts the two main traits of being a leader is having power and authority. According to Police Administration power is ‘the ability to compel a performance or make people do certain things’, and authority is ‘a grant made by a formal organization to a position, the incumbents of which use it to fulfill their responsibilities’ (Swanson, 2008, page 295). These two aspects of being a leader rely on the performing responsibilities and ensuring others do the same and having the ability to enforce actions to be done.
If we think about it is does not matter if one has power or authority it does not make them a leader, it just gives them power to dictate what can be done, and authority just means that they have technical supremacy or influence over another; having both these aspect does not make you a leader. We can train people how to act, we can train people what to say etc but this does not fundamentally change the person, we just program the person. This can be shown by the Profession

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