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Students' Responses  

Leadership is the active ability to inspire by one's own example – to ardently motivate others to achieve with integrity and accountability their greatest potential, for both personal and professional progress.
—Christine Lin '08

Leaders know how and when to let others shine. They see potential in people and create environments where those potentials can be fully realized.
—Deborah Shin '08

Leadership is the antithesis of fear.
—Joshua Nelson '08

Subtract the status quo from social, environmental, and economic potential. The difference is leadership.
—Koichi Kurisu '08

Leadership is beyond focusing and motivating a group to enable them to achieve and sustain common goals. It involves being accountable and responsible for the group as a whole. It is about providing continuity, momentum, and flexibility in accommodating changes in the course of direction.
—Farid Dadashev '07

Good leaders defer all credit and the accolades of success to their teammates and subordinates. Additionally, good leaders accept full responsibility for any failures of his or her team.
—Lt. John-Paul Menez, USNR, '07

Leadership is the ability to understand the passions of people and to integrate these passions in a collective goal. Leadership is to understand when to lead and when to be guided in order to achieve a desire.
—Ivan Saldana '08

Leadership is about courage to dream big, courage of conviction, courage to go against traditional thinking and courage to take risks without having to compromise on values and principles. A good leader not only adapts to change with speed, but also sees change as an opportunity. The ability to create a shared vision, to communicate that vision, and to inspire a team towards that vision are essential features of good leadership.
—Anand Jain '08

Leadership is the ability to inspire and motivate a group of people to align their interests and efforts towards a common goal that is beneficial for each person and the wider community.
—Anamaria Aristizabal '07

Leadership is the ability and commitment to deliver excellence as well as the ability to empower others to deliver excellence.
—Emmy Cheung '07

Leadership is about making those around you successful. Great leaders internalize their responsibility, effectively translate their vision, and empower people to exceed expectations in every way.
—Purvi Tank '07

Leadership is the ability to inspire people and to give them the motivation to surpass their own limit to reach a noble goal.
—Anthony Allard '07

A leader goes further. Beyond the boundaries of bottom lines, party politics, quarterly reports, or project deliverables. To be one step ahead, a leader must understand his/her own guiding principles and ethics – and bring those values to each interaction. Leadership requires responding to crisis with innovation, delivering creativity in management, and demonstrating flexibility in the field. Holding true to your values requires constant thoughtfulness and ingenuity to draw meaningful connections between issues and to find answers beyond the obvious.
—Stacy Abder '07

Leadership is providing an example that others want to follow.
—Jeff Russell '08

What sets a leader apart from other managers? A leader is willing to risk marginalizing his popularity in order to produce the innovation and changes necessary to catapult the organization forward.
—Jonathan Moore '08

Leadership is about courage, conviction, and charsima...to chart a path into the unknown and to motivate others to believe and to follow.
—Rick Kanungo'07

Leadership is having the consciousness and courage to consistently look for ways to serve all with dignity and respect. In doing so, "leaders" become agents of contagion, empowering and inviting others to behave similarly.
—Justin Manning '07

Leadership is more than just giving directions and seeing that they are carried out.  It’s about helping set a vision, inspiring people, enabling others to achieve results. 
—Spencer Hutchins '07

Good leadership stems from two processes. First, you reach inside yourself with courage to discover your core values. Second, you honestly express your core values as a bright vision, motivating others to replicate the discovery and expression processes within themselves. When work is guided by core values, it is transformed from a process of subordination into one of powerful creativity and meaning.
—Michael Swetye '08, Joint Degree Candidate, Yale School of Medicine

To be a leader is to lead with strategic balance. It is to steadfastly prod, and to encourage with passion. It is to use not only one's mind, but one's sensitivity and heart to initiate and perpetuate positive change.
—Nadia Gomes '07

Leadership is the ability to grasp a dynamic vision, and by example inspiring others to follow it. It means being the decisive one, even if it means sometimes being wrong. It means admitting mistakes, while maintaining a focus on the goal.
—Andrew Steffen '08

True leadership defies categorization. A leader is at once many different people to the entity she leads: a supportive friend, an honest critic, an enthusiastic teacher, a proud parent, a convincing apologist, an inspiring visionary.  Leadership is the constant process of analysis, intuition, and adaptation to meet the needs of each new situation.
—Alexander Acree '08, Joint Degree Candidate, Yale Law School

Rather than the skill to guide others with one’s own ideas, leadership is the ability to inspire a sense of individual and shared purpose, to encourage individual and shared creativity, and to support the force that evolves when purpose and creativity unite. 
—Bridget Gillich '08

Leadership is inspirational. It’s about energizing people to exceed their potential and motivating organizations to achieve great things. Leadership is contagious. It’s not a trait bestowed upon a chosen few; it’s a way of being that encourages others to be the same. Leadership is everlasting. Great leaders continue to guide us through the ideals they impart on the generations of leaders that follow.
—Joshua Fried '07

Leadership to me means finding those gaps which impede society from growing, and building the bridges which will fill those gaps.  Leadership creates the opportunity for the musician and the technician to speak the same language, for the dancer and the accountant to believe in a common vision, for the wealth and the poverty to join in a single mission.  Leadership is the chance to redefine all needs, gather forces, and respond to those needs, constantly and beyond expectation.
—Paola Allais '08, Joint Degree Candidate, Yale School of Drama

Leadership means helping people maximize their potential. It is accomplished by integrating vision, knowledge and skill to achieve a common goal. Great leaders are examples of integrity, positively impacting society from private circles to the grander public sphere.
—Oliver Hahl '08

True leadership is the rare ability of an individual to inspire people and organizations to transcend their own expectations. It represents the act of putting principles, passion, ambition, and imagination to work on the behalf of others.
—Stefan Lewellen '07

Leadership is shepherding the best of the human experience to fruition and resilience, to deliver results and cultivate renewal. It is that intersection of passion, dedication, and integrity that electrifies those around you and gives them a cause greater than themselves.
—David Glass '08

Leadership means walking the fine line between leading and listening. It is the skill to inspire people and organizations to perform to the best of their ability. Leadership is possessing the gift to bring out an individual’s or an organization’s hidden potential, such that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. 
—Heather Stone '07

Leadership is not a right, but a privilege. Leadership should necessitate responsibility – responsibility to make the best, ethical choice and responsibility to all those who have a stake in one's leadership role. Leadership should represent unparalleled excellence in comprehension, creativity, and compassion. Leadership should embody a willingness to uphold the highest standards and should embody the ability to inspire others to believe in and to achieve a worthy goal.
—John Wang '08, Joint Degree Candidate, Yale Law School

Leadership means motivating others towards the successful realization of a shared vision. Leaders bring out the best in each person on their team, so that the sum of the whole is even greater than the sum of its parts. Role models for all those around them, leaders earn the trust of others by consistently demonstrating integrity, compassion, dedication, and loyalty - even when they think nobody is looking. Above all, true leaders are able to see beyond their personal ambitions in order to work towards the greater good of their organizations and, more importantly, towards the greater good of society.
—Danielle King '07

Leadership is the process of discovering and creating new opportunities in the least likely of places, and taking up issues and challenges that others have not addressed. As a leader, I desire to forge a sustainable path where none exists and develop new ways to add value to people’s lives and livelihood.
—Nnenna Nnoli '07

Leadership means having the strength and vision to improve the health of the women in my community and my country.
—Barbara Wexelman '08, Joint Degree Candidate, Yale School of Medicine

To lead well is to strive toward an authentic vision of positive change, but above all else to do so with both poise and grace: the poise of measured self-assurance and the grace to consider unconditionally and respond thoughtfully to every opinion, need, hope, and fear expressed by those collaborators always just over your shoulder. Only then can that essential vision maintain its vitality, subject to relentless inquiry, adaptable to change, and owned equally by every participant in its life. Leadership is the conscious erasure of “follower” from the lexicon of management.
—Lisa Schilling '08

True leadership is built upon mutual understanding, appreciation and trust. Leaders have the ability to inspire with passion and unconsciously display their integrity. Leadership is the bold confidence to take those extra ten strokes, knowing fully that your team will follow.
—Matt Hunton '07

Leaders are compelling and they’re compelling because their words and their deeds resonate. Whether the name is MacArthur, Mandela, or Meir, however you interpret their politics, there is only one way that I interpret their histories of leadership. They held themselves to a higher standard. Leaders connect with the people they serve; they deliver a message with charisma and to back it all up they deliver action with aptitude. It’s a standard that people find compelling and it’s a standard that provides the platform from which truly effective leaders can see the bigger picture and connect the dots that truly resonate.
—Mothusi Pahl '07

Alumni Responses  

Leaders represent the collective soul of the group, organization, and/or country they lead. Leaders and followers co-create each other.
—Debbie Banda '95

Leadership is developing an infectious desire within an organization to drive toward the mission. It is about action, not ideas.
—Mark Culliton '95

Leadership is motivating your people, making informed, tough decisions for your organization, and accepting responsibility for the consequences of your actions.
—Monisha Merchant '04

Leadership is making faith into sight - be it for myself, others, a company or a cause.
—Karen Liu '06

Leadership is the temporary embodiment of the good, the true and the beautiful.
—North Lennox '06

Friends' Responses  

Leadership is the ability to get the best out of every individual in the team. A leader is an embodiment of courage for the team.
—Rishi Saurabh

Strong leadership is characterized by the ability to command attention without demanding it.
—Carla Holleran

Leadership is the quality of helping people in the organization learn to appreciate the significance of their work and perceive it as value addition to the organization. In an environment such as this, people will greet each moment with interest and energy and this vibrant work atmosphere will stimulate individual and organizational growth.
—Preethi Sridhar

Leadership is not just conventional example-setting but also about achieving. It is about careful execution of the plans to succeed at short-terms goals to realize the long-term objectives, and on the way empowering those who follow and work with you.
—Paramveer Walia

The Greek explanation of leadership is the individual who provides direction is as well providing aid. My definition of leadership stems from an intrinsic value on life-ethics of reciprocity. In other words, it is familiarized fundamental-do unto others as you would want them to do unto you. Leadership is earned, just as respect. An individual becomes a leader because of knowledge, respect, and collaborative innovation.
—Maria Petsiavas

To me, leadership means positive, powerful change that will further a given entity for generations to come.
—Debansu Ghosh

Leadership is knowing what tomorrow's landscape will look like and being able to show others what the future can hold for them.
—Jessica Meyer

Leadership means: a) having the courage and conviction to attain a goal, no matter how difficult it is b) motivating the team to bring about the best c) owning failures and having the guts to say, "the buck stops here."
—Indrajit Chatterjee

From my experience in positions of leadership, I find people respond to a task when they know they will be treated fairly, their input will be respected, and they can trust in the integrity of the person responsible for the success of a pursuit. Thus, I believe good leadership is derived from being a careful listener and communicator who understands the needs of others and the goals of an endeavor. To me, leaders are not complacent by the way the world shapes them, but are motivated by the way they can shape the world. I believe a leader is directed by what is achievable, not by what is preventing his or her success. When leaders see past hurdles or difficulties, they inspire hope and commitment, which is essential for any pursuit. Furthermore, my approach to leadership is not characterized by rushing to the forefront and being a directing charge, but rather acting as a rudder in the rear maintaining a course with a clear view of what is ahead.
—Jacob Hipps

Living an exemplary life! In business, being a trail blazer yet a warm person respecting the individual and nurturing human resources to achieve a common objective. Also being fair, transparent, and working with integrity.
—Ajit de Silva

The essence of true leadership is the ability to follow as well as to lead. Well defined values, clear vision, a sense of purpose, sufficient resources, and a good strategy (or a policy) are some of the main components of true leadership. A true leader must be self-confident, well informed, and persuasive in the community or in business and in relationships. Besides that, he/she must be an indefatigable reader, a dedicated learner, and a critical thinker. A true leader must endure hatred and rejection. Turn failure into success. A true leader must stay competitive and innovative if he/she is to create the future. A true leader must also have a keen sense of HUMOR, self-knowledge, outstanding manners, and a few trustworthy friends. Above all, he/she must know how to balance power and gather shrewd advisers (or teammates).
—Galina Draganova, Yale Divinity School '05

Leadership is inspiring people to achieve excellent goals ethically.
—Seyed Behzad Kazemi Heydari

True leadership is the ability to inspire oneself and others around you to make a difference. True leadership requires one to demonstrate compelling modesty and to maintain the highest level of personal and professional integrity.
—Umashankar Sandilya

Leadership is the quality characterized by an appropriate mix of vision, passion, and energy with humility. A true leader is first and foremost a good human being who passionately believes in some cause bigger than his personal fulfillments. The cause may be economic, social, political, or even spiritual but it is something that goes beyond the boundaries of personal gains, happiness, or satisfaction. It is actually the 'cause' that people follow and not the person but the intensity and honesty in following would depend upon the person who is leading and that's what leadership is all about. A true leader walks his talk and leads by example.
—Aditya Sarvjeet Bhalla

Leadership is a state of mind which enables a person to take responsibility of not only him or herself but of others and the society as well. Leadership is living in the present, learning from the past, and taking initiative to work for a better tomorrow for as many individuals and societies as possible.
—Achintya Sexena

Leadership is the art of influencing and directing people in order to achieve a common goal. It is also the ability to interact with people so well that you inspire them to do great things.
—Kenny Watson

To me, leadership means providing consistent and clear direction toward an ethically sound and personally rewarding goal.
—Vanessa Bilanceri

Leadership means to empower any community or group for a goal. It means controlling the power by neither the leader nor any follower but by the whole community or group. A true leader always tries to make his group more and more capable to achieve a specific goal.
—Rajendra Shrestha

A leader knows how to gain his or her people's respect, understands the importance of vision, and can find a way to achieve the common goal.
—Lee Williford

Leadership is guidance and esteem, but not control or authority. Leadership isn't sought, it is thrust upon you when nobody else will take charge, or nobody else should take charge. In accord, leadership is about supporting someone else who is indeed the most suited to take charge. And of course, leadership is having the wherewithal to have others support you in those actions. Simply stated, you are a leader when others look to you for a sense of calm and validation when they decide to either take charge or support another who has.
—I.B.

To be able to motivate others to achieve together the stated objectives by creating value and sharing knowledge.
—Ranjana Maitra

Leadership is the ability to give voice to the important social issues that may otherwise go overlooked. Too often individuals seek leadership as a means to further there careers, but they fail to recognize that the greatest power a leader can have comes in his/her opportunity to stress moral and social responsibility to the next generation that will rise and take over the leadership reigns.
—Andrew Opdyke

Leadership to me is about inspiring others. It is about living my own personal values and aligning them with my organizational values to instill the faith in the people I work with. Personal integrity, respect for people, personal accountability, and good citizenship, with focus on maximizing stakeholder returns, are the cornerstones of good leadership.
—Sujoy Biswas

It's taking the responsibility for others and being head of your team without any pressure on its participants but basing on your team own free will to enable you to lead them.
—Nikolay Shishkarev

A true leader is a person who motivates his team to work at its utmost potential. He should be a visionary.
—Kunal Singh

Leadership is about motivating a team to achieve their full potential. It is a process through which a leader can instigate a feeling of worth in his team and give them space and encouragement so that they can come out of their shell and face the world with a new defined energy.
—Jai Gupta

To me leadership is more than power or influence over subordinates, it's more about team building, confidence building among the team members, encouraging continuous learning, and inspire the team members to bring out their real potential.
—Vijai Prasad Shanmugam

Leadership means respect given by others in response to your thinking and implementing dreams.
—Zafar Iqbal

Effective organizational leadership to me means achieving the goals set by the organization with the help of its people and making them feel that 'they' have achieved something worthwhile for the organization without being forced to do so.
—Nikhilesh Deshpande

In Germany, we are starting to take a wholly new approach to leadership. Leadership becomes more than just the exercise of power, as it has been traditionally reflected in the German boards of management (which have a much more active role than their US counterparts). Leadership is about uniting people around a same goal, around a same vision. The corporate leader is a gatekeeper of the corporate culture, one that works on maintaining the high standards within a corporation and one that ensures the corporate mission is in accordance with benefits for all its stakeholders, be it the shareholders, the communities or the employees. In German, we say that, "The one that stands on the top is not meant to look down on others but to look forward and lead the way."
—Donald Oberholzer

To me leadership is a "give and take" phenomenon. A leader gives his/her vision, guidance, care, sympathy, and protection and in return receives the trust and cooperation of his/her disciples.
—Abida Ayub

Leadership is strategy used to guide your ship and the people in it to achieve a desired goal, and work together as a team to do so.
—Salman Al-Rashood

True leadership is about inspiring and not motivating others, because inspiration has a lasting effect while motivation can die out. Leadership is to inspire people not just in one's area of interest but in any walk of life. For example, Sachin Tendulkar, Roger Federer, and Tiger Woods are inspirations to others not just in sports but in any facet of life.
—Sachin Gupta

Leadership to me means taking the herd along with oneself.
—Amit Pandey

Leadership is something that comes from within. It is a desire to command the hopeless and visionless, in order to show them a better path. Every leader is challenged to respect the power they have been given, to be morally and ethically responsible, and to ensure that the decisions of today will provide a promising tomorrow for all humanity. Many people are born with the desire to lead, but only a select group chooses to embrace that gift. Of those, even fewer truly affect change because of laziness and greed. We are at a crossroads for humanity where our leadership must take a stand for what is best for the entire globe, ignoring personal interests, enlightening us all, while creating a common goal that man kind can unite behind.
—Michael Canale

Leadership means inspiring people to achieve and to produce far above what they thought was possible.
—Layna Holmes

At the workplace, what is a leader's most significant accomplishment? It is not about an impressive title; it is not about a significant salary increase; it is not about supervising more subordinates; it is not even about the leader him- or her-self. Instead, it is about the other people in the team; it is about motivating them to grow and succeed.
—Di Wu

Leadership is the one which represents the power and charm to guide the organization to the prosperity in a way that all resources are managed, used, and balanced properly.
—Cindy Wang

Leadership is very important to lead an idea or a community because in this way we are more sure about our decisions.
—Klodiana Myrtollari

As a HR in a Chinese SOE, I try to help people dig out their potential. Leadership means to me is to help other understand and attain what they really want.
—Lei Sun

Leadership means not only personal wealth or acquiring power or influence, a good leader is one who can direct his/her team effectively to achieve towards a specified goal through proper information, motivation, and team building. Therefore it means not only personal gain but gain for the purpose of our job for the larger goal by bringing out the best out of every team member.
—Sarika Kar

Leadership is inspiring people to achieve excellent goals.
—Seyed Behzad Kazemi Heydari

To me, leadership is about making decisions. Leaders must provide and foster a clear vision that others can comprehend and emulate.
—Daniel Elkins

We require change to progress and develop. We respond to various challenges by acting. Sometimes this action is limited in scope and relevance (e.g., a family managing its finances) and sometimes it has wider implications (e.g., establishment of a university). The latter, the institutional change, is the most potent agent of social change. This change, while it might be initiated by individuals, requires structural support: a combination of thought and action leadership. The two go hand in hand. Absence of one may lead either to idealistic theorizing or to dysfunctional institutions and individuals in control of the fate of many. In the latter part of the previous sentence, I have brought in the element of ethics and morals in the leadership. Leadership is for common good.
—Hem Singh

Leadership is more than a word and thus needs more than a definition and can only be expressed and felt by leaders. Leadership to me is initiative. It's a sense of achievement even as you begin a venture. It's a feeling of confidence and can be groomed and never be thrust on anyone.
—Karthikeyan Krishnamoorthy

Leadership for me is not being afraid to go against the tide. In a world more concerned with profits and expansion, I have always adhered to the saying, "blessed is the leader who seeks the best for those he serves."
—Tung-Chang Yu

Leadership is having a dream and inspiring others to follow you to help fulfill that dream.
—Hayley Smith

Leadership lies within and starts with the self. Some symptoms are a strong sense of self discipline, a clear mind, clear conviction, sound moral judgment, and most importantly, the ability to make sacrifices. Once the above is achieved, the rest (intellect, passion to give, drive and energy to make a difference, courage to stand up against any obstacles, money, power, people, and fame) just follows.
—Vish Kolla

True Leadership according to me is the way you get the work done from others.
—Narendra Rathore

Leadership is a relationship through which a person influences the other and/or activities of others.
The process of leadership can not be separated from the activities of groups aiming at effective team-building.
It does not necessarily take place in "hierarchical structure" of an organization, but rather, leaders have "empathy and transform instead of reacting." In conclusion, all leaders can be good managers but managers cannot necessarily be good leaders. Leadership is thus an element of management.
—Bernard Opondo

Leadership is the ability to create an environment in which those around you maximize their potential while working towards a common goal.
—Bryan Mortenson

In every community there is a class of people profoundly dangerous to the rest. I don't mean the criminals. For them we have punitive sanctions. I mean the leaders. Invariably, the most dangerous people seek the power. - Saul Bellow in Herzog

I think a true leader is a counterexample of the quote above.
—Abhay Singh

Teaching and leading is not filling a barrel but igniting a flame. Leadership is transforming knowledge into performance and measureable results.
—Peter Zwier

Leadership is about empowering others to succeed and being able to deal successfully with the unknown.
—Vijay Gupta

A true leader is one who is successful in making people belonging to all rungs of the organization, radiate the same zest and passion he exudes when envisioning organizational goals and objectives.
—Preethi Sridhar

Leadership is the innate courage and ability to define the undefined.
—Vasundhra Prasad

Leadership is the ability to inspire people to achive the goal that they thought they couldn't before.
—Phuong Do

Leadership is a position one needs to acquire in order to drive change into an archaic system; it is all about construction of something new, which is sustainable, which will lead to improvement of conditions for generations to come.
—Veera Senthil Athiban

Submissions may be edited for style and length.