Transformational Leadership Essay Example for Free

Transformational Leadership Essay What are the most important concepts you have learned this week? I have understood that a skillful leader must be an example for his followers. I have realized that the chances to become a leader are not very high and if I don’t become leader I’ll be able to apply my leadership skills to the role of follower and thus will become useful for team work. What would you recommend to your management/leadership based on these concepts? During last week I have realized that to be a leader means to be highly responsible and to be a leader means more than simply giving instructions. Skillful leader may sometime act as follower and it won’t mean that the leader is weak or his followers are stronger. It means that leader should act logically. How will these concepts impact you personally and professionally? The key elements of leader’s success are certainly communication, responsibility, planning, consistency and motivational. After having read lots of relevant materials I have realized that many difficult situations have made me stronger and provided me with leadership characteristics. Thus nowadays I am successfully equipped with all of them at my working place. What is the value-added from these concepts, or what differences can these concepts make to your organization? The value –added from these concepts are the same as in the previous week. They are to reduce misunderstanding, mistakes, miscomputations as well as to increase good communication, mutual respect and motivation of every team member. It is necessary to understand your own virtues and characteristics in order to find out whether you are a natural leader. Describe important references used this week. List the references in proper APA style. Ackoff, R. L. (1999). Transformational Leadership. Strategy Leadership, 27, 20–25. Avolio, B. J. , Yammarino, F. J. (2002). Transformational and Charismatic Leadership: The Road Ahead. Greenwich, CT: JAI. Bass, B. M. (1990). Leadership and Performance Beyond Expectations. New York: Free Press. Bass, B. M. (1990). Handbook of Leadership: Theory, Research and Managerial Applications (3rd ed. ). New York: The Free Press. Bal, V. , Quinn, L. (2004). The Missing Link: Organizational Culture and Leadership Development. In M. Wilcox S. Rush (Eds. ). The CCL Guide to Leadership in Action: How Managers and Organizations Can Improve the Practice of Leadership. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 163-171. Characteristics of Good Followers. (2006). Retrieved November 5, 2006, from http://www. ssu. missouri. edu/faculty/rcampbell/Leadership/chapter5. html. Clark, D. (2005, April 2). Concepts of Leadership. Retrieved November 5, 2006, from http://www. nwlink. com/~donclark/leader/leadcon. html. Leadership. (2006, November 3). Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved November 5, 2006, from http://en. wikipedia. org/w/index. php? title=Leadershipoldid=85498479. Life Issues In-Focus – Dealing With Stress: Visioform Personal Growth. Retrieved November 5, 2006 from

The Working Poor Essays -- essays research papers fc

American factories can comprise of about up to 1000 workers. If American factories are shut down and moved to other countries, this takes many American people out of work. Companies are now also importing jobs. This is where employers hire people such as immigrants to work less than minimum wage. For that reason, many Americans are stuck with the other minimum wage, and low-paying jobs that barely get them through life. Because of this, many Americans are working full time jobs that are below the Federal poverty line. These types of people are often called the â€Å"working poor†. Due to this the working poor have to run to welfare. This affects all Americans because taxpayers are the ones paying for welfare. The more jobs that are taken overseas, the more poverty we will have.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  It is now said that the middle-class Americans are now becoming the poor in America. According to William H. Jasper of the New American magazine: To stop this job exporting for happening, American middle class workers must combine to force Congress to reverse the destructive policies that are importing foreign workers and exporting our productivity. That means abolishing the H-1B and L1 visa programs, drastically reducing all other levels of immigration, and insisting on credible INS and Border Patrol enforcement levels. It also means defeating all proposals to grant yet another amnesty to millions of illegal aliens who have come to the U.S. since the last amnesty. I...

In his articles, Zinsser takes a negative view of the college Essay

Pressures that an individual feels affect his disposition towards life. The pressure may be taken as positive or negative depending on the weight it brings a person. Most of the time pressures are viewed to bring about negative effect to the person but some just do not realize that it is the pressure felt by an individual which motivates him to finish a goal. For example, a student is pressured to finish his assignment that is about to be due and if he is not able to finish it, he will be able to receive a low mark. The student then strives hard to finish that assignment on time so that he will not be given low mark by his professor. Sometimes, pressure may also cause a student to do the assignment for the sake of doing it because if he does not submit the assignment on time, he will be able to get a low mark. In short, pressures also bring about negative outputs. In the essay by Zinsser, he had taken a negative view of the college pressures he identified. He identified pressures such as economic pressure, parental pressure, peer pressure, and self-induced pressure. He had discussed that this college pressures had been a hindrance for the college students to enjoy their peer activities, to choose their own college courses to pursue and to do whatever things they find interesting and more enjoyable to do. The pressures he had identified are considered as hindrance for the students to pursue their chosen dreams. He discussed that the pressures had been affecting the students but he didn’t realize that these pressure in the long run will be viewed as valuable for the student. The pressure which Zinsser considered as problems and hindrances for student s will be an important aspect in realizing their true dreams. Economic pressures of the society today should not be viewed negatively or as a hindrance that could consummate a college student who is trying hard to be able to finish his college studies. Otherwise, economic pressures such as the increasing trends of insurances, postage, oils, cost of boarding and tuition fees. Instead of viewing the pressures negatively, the students should be able to consider it as a challenge that they should be able to get through in order to survive in the world where they chose to live. Economic pressures serve as a challenge for the college students to try harder in pursuing their dreams to come true. Yes, it is very true that the economic pressure nowadays greatly affects the situation of the students who are financially unstable but it should not be considered a hindrance for them to pursue whatever they aim to achieve in life. As the competition for scholarships and grants is becoming very tougher and tougher nowadays because of economic deficits felt by large companies, it is really hard to secure one in order to continue studying for college. However, securing a scholarship or grant for a student who really needs to get a scholarship will not be difficult if he have a strong drive or motivation. Nothing is impossible for a person who is really interested and who is really motivated to achieve a goal. Students who are not financially unstable don’t experience the economic pressure that is experienced by the students who are financially constrained. They are more affected with the pressures they feel from their parents. Parents of these students decide that their children must enroll to a law school or a medical school. The reason behind these is that they wanted to make sure that their children get the best education in order for them to have a secured future. Secured future for them is enrolling in a law school or a medical school because these field of education promises large lump of money. Although some people have a negative view towards the pressures a child receive from his parents, these pressures still could cause good effects to the children in the long run. If we make an analysis, in the short run, the pressures that parents give their children may not provide good impacts to them but in the long run, it will be able to do them good. Why? In the long run, the children will little by little accept the fate that their parents had given them and will eventually provide them good results. The student may not be really interested in the field that his parents like him to pursue but as he goes along the way, he will eventually mature and will realize that his parents want him to have the best education for him to be able to have a secured future. As he matures, he will then realize that he is more than fortunate that his parents could provide him the best education they could ever offer unlike the unfortunate children that need to work in order to go to school. Because of the decision his parents made for him when he entered college, he then realizes that the pressures his parents had given him had offered him positive results and it did not turned out to have caused him negative results. Self induced pressure should also be viewed as a valuable and important thing in the building the future of a student. In school, he is pressured to do surpass the efforts that his classmates exert to be able to get high marks. Studying hard as well as exerting so much effort in school is a good trait a student must possess. The students learn in a way that he also has exerted effort. In this case, after graduating, he will be ready to surpass all the pressures of his work. He will not have the feeling of difficulty because he had been equipped with the right knowledge he gained when he was studying. Peer pressures felt by a student is also a valuable thing that he could use when he will seek his first job in the future. Pressure from peer is compared to the pressure that he will feel when he is already employed and will tae orders from his boss. At first, pressures given by peers to a student is not beneficial because it distracts the concentration of the student in studying but eventually in the long run, he will be able to get used in the pressures he feels from his peers. In this way, pressures from work in the long run will not be considered as a hindrance from him to also excel in his work in the future. He had been trained with the pressures his friends had given him and in return, the pressures of his work in the future will not be a problem anymore because he will deal it with enthusiasm. Pressures that a student undergoes during a certain part of his life particularly in his college life are very important and valuable. They should not be viewed negatively because it is a process wherein training is executed. The student is trained to become a real equipped person to be battling in the future in his work as well as in his own life and family. If in his college life, he had been used to pressure, the pressures he will be undergoing in the future will not be a burden for him to succeed instead, it will be regarded as a challenge that is to be solved with patience and perseverance. Works Cited: Zinsser. William (1978). College Pressures. The Norton Reader. Norton-Simon Publishing.

Biography of Carl Sandburg

Carl Sandburg was an American poet who became widely known to the public not only for his poetry but for his multi-volume biography of Abraham Lincoln. As a literary celebrity, Sandburg was familiar to millions. He appeared on the cover of LIFE magazine in 1938, with the accompanying photo essay focused on his sideline as a collector and singer of American folk songs. After Ernest Hemingway was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1954, he remarked that he would have been most happy had Carl Sandburg gotten the award. Fast Facts: Carl Sandburg Known For: Poet, literary celebrity, biographer of Abraham Lincoln, and collector and singer of American folk songsBorn: January 6, 1878 in Galesburg, IllinoisDied: July 22, 1967 in Flat Rock, North CarolinaParents: Clara Mathilda Anderson and August SandbergSpouse: Lillian SteichenEducation: Lombard CollegeAwards: Three Pulitzer prizes, two for poetry (1919 and 1951) and one for history (1940) Early Life and Poetry Carl Sandburg was born January 6, 1878, in Galesburg, Illinois. He was educated in local schools, which he quit in his early teens to work as a laborer. He became a traveling worker, moving throughout the Midwest and developing a great appreciation for the region and its people. After joining the Army during the Spanish-American War, Sandburg returned to his education, enrolling in a college at Galesburg. During that period he wrote his first poetry. He worked as a journalist and as the secretary for the socialist mayor of Milwaukee from 1910 to 1912. He then moved to Chicago and took a job as an editorial writer for the Chicago Daily News. While working in journalism and politics he began writing poetry seriously, contributing to magazines. He published his first book, Chicago Poems, in 1916. Two years later he published another volume, Cornhuskers, which was followed after another two years by Smoke and Steel. A fourth volume, Slabs of the Sunburnt West, was published in 1922. Cornhuskers was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1919. He would later be awarded the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1951, for his Complete Poems. The cover of Life magazine features a close-up of American poet Carl August Sandburg (1878 - 1967), February 21, 1938. The LIFE Picture Collection / Getty Images His early poems have been called subliterary, as they tend to use common language and slang of the common people. With his early books he became known for his free verse that was rooted in the industrial Midwest. His plain manner of speaking and writing endeared him to the reading public and helped make him a celebrity. His poem Fog, was known to millions of Americans, and appeared often in schoolbooks. He had married Lillian Steichen, the sister of photographer Edward Steichen, in 1908. The couple had three daughters. The Lincoln Biography In 1926, Sandburg published the first volumes of what would become his massive biography of Abraham Lincoln. The project, which was originally conceived to be the story of Lincoln in Illinois, was influenced not only by Sandburgs own fascination with the Midwest, but with a circumstance of timing. Sandburg had known Civil War veterans and other local people who retained vivid memories of Lincoln. The college Sandburg attended had been the site of one of the 1858 Lincoln-Douglas debates. As a student, Sandburg came to know people who recalled attending the debate five decades earlier. Sandburg engaged in countless hours of research, seeking out Lincoln scholars and collectors. He assembled the mountain of material into artful prose that brought Lincoln to life on the page. The Lincoln biography eventually stretched into six volumes. After writing the two volumes of The Prairie Years, Sandburg felt compelled to continue, writing four volumes of The War Years. In 1940 Sandburgs Abraham Lincoln: The War Years was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for History. He eventually published an abridged edition of the Lincoln biography, and also shorter books on Lincoln for young readers. For many Americans of the mid-20th century, Carl Sandburg and Lincoln were somewhat inseparable. Sandburgs depiction of Lincoln was how countless Americans came to view the 16th president. Carl Sandburg eulogizing Lincoln at a joint session of Congress. Getty Images   Public Acclaim Sandburg put himself in front of the public, at times going on tour playing his guitar and singing folk songs. In the 1930s and 1940s he would appear on the radio, reading poems or essays hed written on American life. During World War II he wrote a regular column about life on the American home front which was carried in a number of newspapers. He continued to write and publish poetry throughout his life, but it was always his association with Lincoln that gained him the greatest respect from the public. On Lincolns 150th birthday, February 12, 1959, Sandburg enjoyed the very rare honor of addressing a joint session of Congress. From the podium in the chamber of the House of Representatives he spoke eloquently of Lincolns struggles during the Civil War and what Lincolns legacy meant to America. Carl Sandburg visiting President Kennedy in the Oval Office. Getty Images In October 1961, Sandburg visited Washington, D.C., from his farm in North Carolina, to help open an exhibit of Civil War artifacts. He stopped by the White House to visit President John F. Kennedy, and the two men spoke of history and, of course, Lincoln. Carl Sandburg died on July 22, 1967, at Flat Rock, North Carolina. His death was front-page news across America, and he was mourned by millions who felt as if they had known the unpretentious poet from the Midwest. Sources: Sandburg, Carl. Gale Contextual Encyclopedia of American Literature, vol. 4, Gale, 2009, pp. 1430-1433. Gale Virtual Reference Library.Allen, Gay Wilson. Sandburg, Carl 1878-1967. American Writers: A Collection of Literary Biographies, edited by Leonard Unger, vol. 3: Archibald MacLeish to George Santayana, Charles Scribners Sons, 1974, pp. 575-598. Gale Virtual Reference Library.Carl Sandburg. Encyclopedia of World Biography, 2nd ed., vol. 13, Gale, 2004, pp. 461-462. Gale Virtual Reference Library.