Leadership Essay

I had to do a leadership essay for school, due today, so I wanted everyone to take a look and tell me what they think:



A true leader has the ability to manipulate the crowd and motivate them with words of great intensity. All leaders in history that have had great success have been good speakers, people with high motives, and those who have the great intelligence required to manipulate a group to do their bidding. However, these do not always come in a human together, so they must be prioritized, and that is what separates a good leader from a great one.

There have been large movements, huge movements, and movements of a titanic scale in history. One of the large movements, caused by the youngest man to ever receive a Nobel Prize. Martin Luther King Jr. and his “I Have A Dream” address caused a civil rights movement that would change the United States for the rest of history. He used his motivational speeches and peaceful attitude to gather 250,000 followers in a peaceful movement against the capital, creating a movement the likes of which Americans of the time had not seen before. Martin's impact on how a great leader should lead has been a very simple one of determination, great speaking, and a common cause with the people he surrounded himself with.

In comparison to Martin Luther King, however, some people did not want to make a change, but instead used leadership for their own benefit, claiming it for the benefit of another. Such an example would be many religious leaders and politicians. Religious leaders have claimed that the word of God or some other greater being has told others to do drastic things in the name of their god, so that they may be infamous and prized amongst the group. These may not be good things, and many have been for personal gain, such as the radical Muslim leaders who used the religion to damage the United States out of spite. Politicians ask for your vote to become president not only because they want to help the United States, but they wanted to be remembered in history and to have a position of power. Power-hungry politicians and spiteful religious leaders are successful in a negative way, but their influence has been corrupted and therefore rejected.

There is, however, a very famous, very powerful speaker who has shaped more of the world than most people think about today. Jesus of Nazareth. Yes, Jesus is one of the most influential leaders of history, not only creating one of the most powerful religions in the world today, not only changing our sense of time for the first year of ours to be based on his birth, and not only has he been famous for doing all this from a poor location in the world. He was the man that has set the foundations of what it means to be a truly successful leader. Jesus was a leader who did not sit back and watch everything around him unfold, like a commander in a military. He acted as a normal person and used his very body to teach all the meaning of God. Most have heard the tale of Jesus being crucified on the holy cross in Jerusalem, the charge being covert operations opposing the Roman Empire. The fact that he had commited himself so much into his leadership that he got himself killed for a greater good tells of how Jesus was such an extraordinary leader.

Truly, the grounds of history usually revolve around feats done by great people, called leaders, and that is how the world records its past doings. There are few historical events that were not caused by single people or monitored and commanded by single people. It has always been a leader and his followers versus the enemy, whether it be another group, law, or even just single person. That is why leaders are so important, and why we should promote only the great ones from now on.

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However, these do not always come in a human together, so they must be prioritized, and that is what separates a good leader from a great one.

I don't get that sentence.

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Religious leaders have claimed that the word of God or some other greater being has told others to do drastic things in the name of their god, so that they may be infamous and prized amongst the group.

Pretty bold statement, claiming someone else's motives without any backing. Also infamous tends to be a negative famous, in that they did a lot of evil or crime. Hitler is an example of someone who is infamous.

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These may not be good things, and many have been for personal gain, such as the radical Muslim leaders who used the religion to damage the United States out of spite

Meh, I don't think it's the best example. You can't really make the claim they're doing it out of spite. No real backing there either. They claim to be doing it for God, and because America is corrupt and because they have a different set of beliefs that go against what they believe in. Can't just say "Out of spite". Doesn't really make sense as an example since they aren't really getting much personal gain living in caves...If anything they're sticking up for their beliefs (Though those beliefs might be twisted and corrupt themselves).

Overall good. But I don't think you exactly prove your thesis (Or I'm misunderstanding your thesis). The manipulation part in general.

Can you help fix it for me? Because really, I don't know exactly what to say. I cannot do the research on what they're doing and such right now, as I also need to do an analysis on a poem. And I only have 5 hours to do it (I send in the work through E-Mail).

So I ask you to re-write the parts you think need more support.

Alright...this is probably bad - but what's your thesis. The first two sentences indicate manipulation (which you don't give any specific examples of) and the one with Jesus doesn't seem to imply manipulation is needed to be a good leader. The last sentence in your intro I don't understand.