My concept of leadership and how community service eperiences have Essay

My concept of leadership and how community service eperiences have impacted my life - Essay Example My first leadership experience took place when I was a child. I was the oldest of four children and as the first child I had to take care of my siblings, make sure that they went to school, prepared their homework and of course resolved their conflicts. At the same time, I had to make them respect and trust me. So, I discovered and did instinctively everything that a leader does i.e. being responsible for the group (my siblings), motivate them (to go to school and prepare their homework), influence and control them. Later on, following a strong internal lead I became a member of the National Charity League. Now, I am a Vice President of the League and in general I have accomplished 200 hours of community service. The mission of National Charity League is  to foster mother-daughter relationships in a philanthropic organization committed to community service, leadership development and cultural experiences.(http://www.nationalcharityleague.org/). The National Charity League is based mostly on volunteers i.e. people join without expecting any financial returns, they just do it because they feel they want to offer their services to other people. This makes the work of the leader easy and difficult at the same time. It is easy because people share the vision of the leader and have common goals but on the other hand it is difficult because they are not employees so it is difficult to coordinate and â€Å"oblige† them to act professionally. So,in this case the leader has to adapt his/her leadership style accordingly. This means that the leader in this case cannot be authoritative or coercive since the human factor comes first. S/he cannot be democratic since this is a style that a leader can implement when s/he is not sure about the direction that needs to be taken. The style of leadership that is most suitable for community service is the affiliative. Here, the leader focuses on strong emotional relations and then he