The Complete Guide on How to Write a Leadership Essay Correctly

The Complete Guide on How to Write a Leadership Essay Correctly A leadership essay is aimed at defining the main concepts of leadership, emphasizing on its application to the real-life situations. The starting point for you as a writer is to research the definition of leadership acknowledging the history of the term and variance of leadership styles exercised by people across the globe. Further, a leadership essay requires you to evaluate the researched information and apply it to the human behavior and attitude. It is necessary to concentrate on the assessment of personal strengths and weaknesses in communication and daily interaction with other people. You will require such a format of leadership essay writing for entering a business administration major in colleges. The goal is to understand the personal traits as a leader, explaining own considerations in a written form. In this leadership essay writing guide, you will find the suggestions and tricks to master the leadership essay writing. Focus on the essay structure, clarity of the arguments and quality of the content. Hereafter, you will find some appealing essay ideas, topic choices, outline, and more on writing a deliberate leadership essay. The Correct Topic Choice for Your Leadership Essay Writing The choice of a topic is an essential step that guides the writing process of a leadership essay. Reflecting on the personal leadership style is a proper start to identifying a proper theme for the future writing. There are 12 leadership styles commonly addressed in such a type of essays. For instance, there is autocratic, democratic, strategic, transformational, team leadership style, and others. You can choose to address the diversity of approaches to leading, identify an individual style of interaction or evaluate a recognized leader. Moreover, you can decide to compare and contrast your leadership style to the mode of a well-known or influential person. It would be appealing for you to choose a topic related to the description of progressive steps to become an active leader. The choice of subject should align with stated goals for the essay and highlight your strengths as a writer. Finalize a decision by researching all the available information and reflecting on the personal leadership qualities to simplify the search of the good essay topic on leadership. 10 Topic Titles You Can Use in Your Leadership Essay 5 Approaches to the Definition of Leadership The Well-Trodden Leadership Path: How Do Leaders Come into Their Roles? Reflection on My Leadership Philosophy Who Can Become a Leader Today? The Ideal Balance Between Firmness and Flexibility in Leadership Benefits of Transformational Leadership in Every Aspect of Operations Does the Leadership Styles Diversity Encourage People in the Workplace? 5 Cornerstones of Effective Leadership in a Business Company What Is a Personal Leadership Style to Become a Better Leader? Steve Jobs Vs. Bill Gates Leadership Styles How to Write a Leadership Essay? Our Experts Share The identification of the approach towards essay writing is the critical step in the start of the writing process. You should start by addressing the essay question or making one. An essay question determines the topic and outline of the writing. The following step is the identification of the audience in other words, people who will read your essay. For example, if you are applying for an MBA degree, you should focus on entrepreneurship, leadership in business and utilize some case examples of the companies headed by efficient leaders. Pay attention to the essential qualities of effective leadership. According to Forbes, the integrity, sincerity, and enthusiasm are the most appealing qualities of a successful leader. The following steps will direct you to start writing a leadership essay as required: Research to choose a good topic What field of leadership wasn’t thoroughly investigated? Take notes of some credible sources of information What do the others say about the chosen topic? Build an outline of your essay What ideas are you going to include in your leadership essay writing? As an alternative, you can look at some papers written on the leadership topics. In this case, it will be a proper foundation for further expansion of the argument and incorporation of relevant ideas in your essay. However, don’t forget about obeying the intellectual property law. Don’t tend to plagiarize! It is better to cite the sources correctly to avoid any sign of plagiarism. The Basic Essay Structure You’d Better Use A structure of a leadership essay is a course of the introduction, body paragraphs, and a conclusion. A suitable outline of your essay ideas reveals the depth of your writing. It is essential to make an essay structure logical in advance because it simplifies the writing process. You will have the basic ideas written down to focus on creativity, research, and evaluation of personal leadership. The academic standards are principal in an essay organization. The integration of research in the essay should align with the formatting requirements (APA, MLA, Harvard, etc.) Leadership essay writing requires the incorporation of personal examples along with researched ideas. Therefore, it would be useful to use personal pronouns to highlight the correspondence of the instance and personal experience. If you struggle to identify own leadership style or to name real-life situations with practical examples, do not hesitate to take a leadership quiz. Introduction There is hardly a more important part of the leadership essay than an introduction. Readers acquire this part of the text from the outset and shape their expectations about the following paragraphs. Thus, it is essential to make it appealing, informative and persuasive enough. A hook sentence will interest the reader making the process of reading pleasant. Grab attention. The first two sentences of the introduction denote the writing style and quality of the content. Therefore, it is necessary to set a goal to grab the attention of the audience. Personalize the text. Do not write about somebody’s experience. Enhance the interest of the reader by connecting the text to your knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors. Cite a story. Integrate the reader with your writing into a designed setting. To accomplish such aim, provide a background of a story that will unravel throughout the further body paragraphs of your essay. Such differentiation of structure will make the process of writing convenient and enjoyable. An introduction is only the first step in drafting a successful leadership essay. Thesis Statement The thesis statement aims to provide a brief identification of the critical argument. It may vary based on the choice of the leadership essay structure and topic. Below you can find sample thesis statement that can be relevant to use in leadership essays. Leadership is a lifelong learning skill that benefits specific perception of the surrounding world, interaction with people and personal growth. Transformational leadership simplifies the effectiveness of the leader by enhancing the communication, adaptation, and negotiation with its adherers. Adoption of a leadership style to daily behavior serves as an advantage to professional growth, academic achievements and social capital. You should avoid writing thesis statements that are not complete or vague. For example, the following thesis statements SHOULDN’T be used in a leadership essay. Leadership is a good skill. To be effective, a leader needs supporters. There are many advantages of being a leader. Body Paragraphs The number of body paragraphs in a leadership essay varies depending on the topic choice and goal of the writing. The most common structure utilizes three body paragraphs. The aim of each is to describe a supporting claim to the main idea of the essay. For example, when describing the application of leadership theory to personal experience, each body paragraph can provide an overview of the factors indicating the exercise of the approach in real life. Moreover, it would be necessary to incorporate a research idea with a supporting detail. Conclusion The final part of the essay is a conclusion. Its role is to provide an overview of each argument discussed in the essay. The peculiarity of the closing lines is summarizing the information. Do not introduce new ideas in conclusion. The first sentence should be the restatement of the thesis. It is essential to mark the relevance of each concept in the body paragraphs. Therefore, explain the choice of your arguments and provide an overview of their value to the primary purpose. The conclusion part does not require referencing. A conclusion sets the overview of the leadership style, theory or approach described in the essay. A Logical Essay Writing Organization A leadership essay reveals your skills of organizing the ideas into one coherent text. The writing piece should have a logical flow. A stable composition will hold separate views for each body paragraph. Moreover, it is essential to maintain approximately similar word count per each section. It is not appropriate to have three sentences in one place, while the following part will vast 15 lines. The equal informational coverage is the central suggestion to a compelling article. Moreover, the essay should be organized around the thesis statement. It implies that claims made in the thesis statement should be explained in-depth in the preceding paragraphs. The conclusions finalize the work logically as well. Mention all the arguments listed in the previous essay parts brief. Your essay should have at least 3 supporting reference to the researched information to make the essay credible. How to make your leadership essay academically reliable? Just follow the main rule of how to choose the sources of information: The Right Choice of Sources for Your Essay Now, you have an understanding of the suitable outline for the essay. Therefore, you need to start researching the topic. Leadership is a compound subject that holds a variety of sub-topics. For instance, there are research articles that aim to address the quality of the leadership style application in a particular organizational setting. Historical books hold the goal of assessing the lifework and attitude of distinguished leaders of the past. Such sources reflect on the events that took place and the way that the leader influenced the events. Therefore, you can research each method and figure which one is more relevant to the selected topic. Below, you can find a list of helpful resources for the additional information: Harvard Business Review; Forbes; Leadership Management Review; Google Scholar; JSTOR, etc. The Post-Writing Stage to Focus on for a While The final stage of the leadership essay writing process refers to finalizing the essay. The following leadership essay writing tips will simplify this process by setting the necessary steps to follow: Read the essay. Even though you know what the information is presented in the essay, it is significant to re-read the final text. It will enable you to obtain the second impression from the flow of ideas, confirm clarity of thoughts and improve detected mistakes. The simplicity of writing is also necessary. Do not use any complex terminology (only if needed). If you have to introduce some compound terms, and concepts, define them. Ask questions. Does your essay discuss a central idea, your thesis statement? Will the reader have any question in regards to the content of the essay? Do the body paragraphs reveal the idea set in the thesis statement? By questioning, you will be able to assess the efficiency of the essay. Your goal is to make sure that the content does not provoke questions and everything is clear to the reader. Get feedback. It is always better to know someone’s competent comments. It may be your tutor or friend. Don’t be afraid of being criticized. Any feedback will work for your benefit. However, it should imply the objective assessment of the limitations and advantages of the writing. As a result, you will control each step of the writing process understanding the integration of each idea into the text and its value to the overall meaning. A leadership essay requires the close attention to details, logical flow of the text and set organization of the piece. Do not hesitate to make several drafts before the final one. Each argument, story, and experience described in the leadership essay demands careful consideration. Editing and Proofreading Once you finalize the content of the essay, it is important to edit and proofread the paper. It is the last stage of the writing process. The editing is the first part that consists of such notions as final content updates, checking the logical flow, the coherence of references and ideas. It implies a second glance over the work and identification of the paper’s strengths and weaknesses. You can give the essay to a friend or family member to provide feedback with an impression about the text. The proofreading stage refers to the check of grammar, spelling, punctuation and other minor limitations of the essay. The quality of the text does not relate to content solemnly but also encompasses the flow of the sentences, transitions, proper punctuation and grammar. The text should be easy to read and understand for the reader. In a leadership essay, it would be helpful to check the spelling of leaders’ and businesses names, dates and facts. Referencing The most common sources applied to research are books, class textbooks, websites, videos, and journal articles. It is essential to cite the source used in the leadership essay at the end of the paper. The reference contains all relevant information about the cause. For example, it holds the authors’ name, publication date, publisher, website link, and other data. However, there are several formats for inserting the relevant information. Commonly, they include but are not limited to the following: APA, MLA, Harvard or Chicago. An APA format is most common for the leadership essay. It implies providing information about the source in the following consequence. Authors’ name (Date). Title of the book. Location: Publisher. The citation would require to encompass more relevant and available information to the selected source. For instance, when citing a website, you would need to add information about the retrieved link. The primary focus is to provide complete information about the source. Moreover, when submitting a quote in the text, add in-text citations that will mark the page or the web resource that issued the used idea. Now, start working keeping all the given advice in mind and create the high-quality leadership essay that your reader will enjoy.