The Best Leader You Can Be Good leadership is important to success in both literature and in everyday life. Effective leaders are those who embody crucial characteristics needed to better their lives, but most importantly the lives of others. According to Henry Ward Beecher a leader should, “Hold yourself responsible for a higher standard than anyone expects of you. Never excuse yourself.” Leadership can be seen throughout works of literature, which teach the fundamentals of what makes a good leader through the characters, who prevail using these vital traits. Characters like Atticus Finch in Harper Lee’s book To Kill a Mockingbird teach the importance of empathy and understanding other people’s situations. Dr. Haynes and Captain Mcvay
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In everyday life, leaders can use these traits to become as effective as they can be and enact the most amount of good for the most amount of people. A good leader should have empathy towards others situations, be responsible to act and get others to act, and determination to get through even the worst situations. Firstly, a good, effective leader must be empathetic toward others situations. Empathy is important because it allows a leader to better assist people around them by understanding people’s problems. A great advocator of the importance of empathy is Atticus Finch in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. In the book, Atticus explains to Scout the importance of empathizing with others in order to understand their point of view in situations. Atticus says, “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view, until you climb into …show more content…
In the cold, shark infested waters of the Philippine Sea, Captain Mcvay finds his starved thirsty crew starting to give up on the idea of being rescued. Mcvay himself started to question the idea of survival for himself and his crew; however, he never gave up and was pushed by the responsibility he felt for his men’s lives. Mcvay was pushed to survive with thoughts like, “He’d never felt the pull of the lives he held in his hands, or the full measure of what it meant to be placed in harm 's way” (Stanton 193). In this experience Mcvay realizes his responsibility as a leader. He gets to learn and understand that his job as a leader is to save his crew with their lives being, more than in ever, in his hands. He uses this dire situation to excel as a leader and is pushed by his responsibility to fight for his life and the lives of his crew. During the same time as Mcvay being lost at sea, Dr. Haynes is in control of his own group of men. Hynes had just made contact with a plane and had gotten water for his group of survivors. Later on, as Haynes distributed the water, he says, “The sight of the water trembling in the glass was excruciating for Haynes; it was all he could do to prevent gulping down the water himself” (Stanton 231). Haynes understands that his men’s lives are relying on his self-control, and
In everyday life, leaders can use these traits to become as effective as they can be and enact the most amount of good for the most amount of people. A good leader should have empathy towards others situations, be responsible to act and get others to act, and determination to get through even the worst situations. Firstly, a good, effective leader must be empathetic toward others situations. Empathy is important because it allows a leader to better assist people around them by understanding people’s problems. A great advocator of the importance of empathy is Atticus Finch in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. In the book, Atticus explains to Scout the importance of empathizing with others in order to understand their point of view in situations. Atticus says, “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view, until you climb into …show more content…
In the cold, shark infested waters of the Philippine Sea, Captain Mcvay finds his starved thirsty crew starting to give up on the idea of being rescued. Mcvay himself started to question the idea of survival for himself and his crew; however, he never gave up and was pushed by the responsibility he felt for his men’s lives. Mcvay was pushed to survive with thoughts like, “He’d never felt the pull of the lives he held in his hands, or the full measure of what it meant to be placed in harm 's way” (Stanton 193). In this experience Mcvay realizes his responsibility as a leader. He gets to learn and understand that his job as a leader is to save his crew with their lives being, more than in ever, in his hands. He uses this dire situation to excel as a leader and is pushed by his responsibility to fight for his life and the lives of his crew. During the same time as Mcvay being lost at sea, Dr. Haynes is in control of his own group of men. Hynes had just made contact with a plane and had gotten water for his group of survivors. Later on, as Haynes distributed the water, he says, “The sight of the water trembling in the glass was excruciating for Haynes; it was all he could do to prevent gulping down the water himself” (Stanton 231). Haynes understands that his men’s lives are relying on his self-control, and