How to Write a Leadership Essay: General and Specific Recommendations
Some colleges and universities ask applicants to write an essay on leadership as a part of their application process, while many students can come across this type of assignments in high schools. Often, we can find this topic among scholarship essays, so it will be useful to learn how to write a leadership essay for students of any educational institutions.
What is a leadership essay? Define it first
Let's start with a simple question - what is a leadership essay? In fact, there can be several types of an essay on the topic. One of the most popular assignments among teachers is a leadership definition essay, which is aimed to explain what the term means in a broad sense or from a student's point of view. Another approach is to let the assignment to explore leadership issues in a particular area, for example, what leadership qualities are required for a CEO or how student leadership helps in building a further career. Finally, you can be asked to write an essay about your personal traits and to explain how you are a leader. Whichever of the assignments you get, you need to go over the importance of a leadership essay, since this task is aimed to encourage leadership behavior in students in addition to checking their academic skills.
How to structure a leadership essay: Relevance and cohesion
Upon getting the assignment, you need to picture how to structure a leadership essay clearly. You should conceptualize your general outline even before starting your research. The fact is that when reading on the topic and taking notes, many students put all eggs in one basket, making a real mess of ideas, facts, stats, and quotes they found. It is much more convenient to get your notes sectioned so that you can write down information for different parts of your essay separately. In this case, you will have no problem picking facts, when writing an introduction, body or conclusion.
Leadership essay introduction rules to follow
Even if your paper is not about leadership definition, you need to explain the term in your leadership essay introduction, thus giving your audience necessary information to better understand the problems you want to resolve or the ideas you are going to prove. However, we don't recommend starting the introduction to a leadership essay right from the definition. It looks boring and doesn't allow grabbing your audience' attention from the very first jump. Then, how to start a leadership essay? Find a fact about leadership that can become a kind of hook to spark the interest of your readers, and make a transition to the term definition. Also, you need to develop the main idea of your essay and state it in your introduction in a clear form.
Leadership essay body peculiarities
The structure of your leadership essay body will depend on the topic and the type of essay (argumentative, persuasive and so on), but generally it consists of claims and facts supporting them. Choose one idea you want to share for each paragraph and come up with a strong sentence presenting a particular viewpoint and then back it with evidence (stats, quotes, your own experience, etc.). Write 3-5 paragraphs and make sure that all of your points support the claim outlined in your introduction. Don't fail to present counterarguments, if any, and explain why you believe them to be wrong. Also, make sure to choose different arguments to back your ideas and do not present the same things in different words.
Leadership essay conclusion role
In conclusion, you should summarize your arguments and ideas to convince your audience that the main statement of your work is to the point. Re-pack it to present from a broader point of view, show perspectives for its further study or explain the influence your findings may have. Don't introduce any new information in your leadership essay conclusion and don't repeat the same statements, ideas and arguments word for word. Write a strong sentence to finish your essay so that to make your paper memorable.
Leadership essay ideas for excellent writing
If you are free to choose a topic for your paper, have a look at our leadership essay ideas, which can help you write a great work.
- What is the difference between a manager and a leader?
- Competencies promoting leadership skills.
- Leadership styles through countries culture.
- Leadership techniques in parenting: are they applicable?
- Leaders aren't born, they are made?
- How bureaucracy affects leadership in government employees.
- Leader's ethics: are there higher expectations?
- Gender and leadership.
- What it takes to be a good leader.
- Comparative analysis of leadership strategies.
Use effectively all these tipps and guidelines to succeed in your writing and conquer an academic mountain! Good luck!