Business Leadership and Characteristics

Question: Discuss about the Business Leadership and Characteristics. Answer: Introduction: Leadership has been defined as the social process which involves motivating others to get the things done in a way in which leader desires. It has always been emphasized that effective leadership is crucial to attain excellence. The effective leadership is something which differentiates between the success and failure. The personal values, knowledge, and practical experience help to get on effective leadership. Further, in order become effective leader it is essential to possess traits like visionary, emotional stability, dominance, motivational skills, toughness of mind and persuasiveness (Gallos, 2014). In this context, this paper takes discussion on the success story of Americas one of the richest businessmen of his times, Mr. Andrew Carnegie. Andrew Carnegie started working at the early age of 11 years, the age at which a child goes to school to learn (You Tube, 2015). He joined Railroad at this age as personal assistant of the president of the company. He was quite curious to learn and growth big since his childhood. The bad financial conditions of the family pushed him to the work at the school age. Andrew Carnegie took this as challenge and he started working for Railroad and company. He showed the passion and determination towards the work, which attracted his boss to look a future leader of the company. Carnegie showed ambition to achieve big and nerves to handle the difficult situations on various occasion. Carnegie got the confidence of his boss very early and at the age of just 24 he was promoted as manager of the company (You Tube, 2015). Working with the companys president closely, he got the leadership traits and showed his capability to lead. A day came when the president of Railroad handed over the responsibility to build a long bridge across Mississippi river. Building a bridge on Mississippi river was very risky project as whoever tries to build that bridge got failed (You Tube, 2015). Further, a huge amount of investment required to construct this bridge. Despite high risk, Carnegie could see high profit prospects in this project and he decided to take the construction on the rolls. This shows that Carnegie was a risk taking businessmen who loves to play gamble. He was visionary as he could see the high profitability in that project of bridge construction (You Tube, 2015). At that time Carnegie found out use of steel in constructing the bridge, which shows that he was innovative too. He worked very hard to explore the methods of making steel and using that in bridge construction. Further, he had great power to persuade people, which depicts in the incident that happened when the bridge was under construction. Pending a lot of work to complete, Carnegie faced financial crunch due high costs being incurred in bridge construction. He received notices from the lender to pay their dues. In that critical situation he argued to the public to invest in the company showing them the great future prospects. It worked and his persuasiveness got the money to the company (You Tube, 2015). References Gallos, J.V. 2014. Business Leadership: A Jossey-Bass Reader. John Wiley Sons. You Tube. 2015. The Men Who Built America Part2 Bloody Battles. [Online]. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5nYljEkc94 [Accessed on: 17 December 2016.].