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Definition of Leadership
Leadership is the process by which individuals can guide, direct and influence other’s behaviors towards the accomplishment of set goals. It is the ability to influence others towards the realization of a goal. A leader plays various roles to induce follower to take their roles with confidence and zeal including developing future visions and motivating to attain the visions. Leadership denotes the number of qualities to be present in an individual. Leadership is situation bound, and there is no best style of leadership (Nahavandi, 2016). There is a difference between the concept of leadership and the concept of management. Managers are fundamentally focused on directing people and allocating resources to accomplish tasks (Grohar et al., 2016). Managers employ strong administrative abilities, given that much of their role involves providing instructions to subordinates and reporting results to superiors. Leaders can be managers.

Personal Skills/Weaknesses

Strengths
As a leader, my greatest strength lies in being Open-minded. I keep my mind open while being flexible. This enables me to adjust when necessary. I am also committed to investing, developing and maintaining great relationships. I consider myself a decisive person. The rapid pace of processes and increasing time pressures necessitates dealing with the speed amidst the complexity. I tend to make sound, justifiable decisions in a timely manner, particularly in times of uncertainty and crisis. I am also inspirational. People say I am self-driven and fueled by my beliefs as well as an internal drive and passion. I am a persistent individual. I believe that persistence beats resistance. Some things take the time to accomplish. To achieve them, there is a need for persistent. As a result, I am always willing to go beyond where others stop. I am also a good communicator. I easily make people aware of my expectations, thoughts, and ideas.

Weakness
I have various weaknesses. The first weakness lies in my tendency to be a perfect. I get things done right. However, this leads to attrition and burnout. As a result, it may diminish potential returns over time. I realize the importance of being more accommodating and accepting of small failures, letting go and delegating, allowing for diversity of action and thought and understanding that good enough is often good enough. The second weakness is that I am Over-optimism about strategies and people. The tendency has negative impacts as I may hang on to lower-performing individuals and strategies for too long. As a leader, there is need to recognize the grace in realism so as to see things accurately as they are versus how they should be.

Description of Leadership Experience
One of the most memorable leadership experiences was a picnic trip in summer 2016. The event took place on the month of August. Throughout the trip to Andover City Park in Kansas, I played the role of a leader. My role was to lead my group of 15 members. As the recreation trip leader, I was responsible for planning, leading, instruction and facilitating activities. Safety, as it pertains to the picnic, the skill level of students, and location that the trip was of main concern. I comfortably managed a diverse group of people during the outdoor setting and made decisions for the good of the group. In addition to leading the group, I assisted patrons with their outdoor adventure equipment needs including training, fitting and educating students about the outdoor adventure kits. I was expected to correctly operate cash and reconciliation procedures and engage students in a supportive and friendly demeanor. As the leader, I felt proud that students recognized my leadership skills.

Leadership Skills Used
Communication

The activity required the leader to use a number of skills. Communication skill was the most commonly used throughout the activity. As a leader, it is necessary to be able to clearly and succinctly express expectations to your followers. As a leader, it is important to master all forms of communication through all available means. A large part of communication involved listening. The first step was to establish a steady flow of information between team members through regular conversations with team members.

Motivation
As a leader, I inspired my team members to go the extra mile for the purpose of achieving our objectives. I motivated my teammates through different ways. These include building their self-esteem and giving them responsibilities to increase their participation in the activity.

Strategic thinking
This was perhaps the most critical skill I utilized. Application of this skills involved having an objective of what was expected and influencing team members to achieve that objective. It could not be possible to achieve objectives without communication, optimism, crisis management and effective solving of conflicts between team members. It is clear that working in a team may prove difficult than working as an individual. This is particularly so when team members have conflicting goals, fail to share information and lose themselves in an unproductive argument. Critical thinking helped create a sense of urgency also contributed to the effectiveness of the team. I was able to propel team members to get busy and carryout the activity at the desired pace.

Summary
Leaders focus on influencing others. Unlike managers, followers follow leaders due to their personality and their beliefs. As a leader, my greatest strength lies in being Open-minded, persistent, commitment to investing, developing and maintaining great relationships. I have various weaknesses including perfectionism and Over-optimism. My leadership experience was a picnic trip in summer 2016. As the recreation trip leader, I was responsible for planning, leading, instruction and facilitating activities. Skills used include Communication, Motivation and critical thinking.

Many people have been identified as true leaders with the assumption that great leaders are ‘born as leaders.’ Leadership is an action that involves guiding a group of people in an organization. An effective leader ought to create an inspiring vision of the future, motivate and inspire the subordinates to work towards realizing the vision (Spahr, 2015). The discussion presented regards a leader who exhibits ‘transformational leadership style’ and why the leader was so successful.

Transformation leadership seeks to inspire other people to achieve remarkable success. The workers have autonomy on their specific jobs and can make decisions based on the acquired training skills (Spah, 2015). Among the many transformation leaders I have read about across the world, Nelson Mandela from South Africa stands out to be among the best in the African history. Some leaders find it challenging to change even a small company, but Mandela transformed the entire Africa continent. Transformational leaders ought to have some basic characteristics that drive them to do their work efficiently. They are inspirational, good in mobilizing and at conflict resolutions and never lose morale. It is apparent that Nelson Mandela exhibited the traits and many others that made him stand out among other leaders in transforming his country and the continent.

Mandela served as the President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999, but his impact as a transformational leader was felt far and wide. His leadership style was characterized by authority, authenticity, commitment, good communication, and consistency. He demonstrated inspirational motivation and good working relations when he visited the wife of the champion of Apartheid, Betsie Verwoerd, after being released from prison. He demonstrated the need for leaders to be humble and focus on the future and not the past.

Mandela demonstrated transformational leadership by his character of ideal attributes and behavior. He worked hard to ensure that he brings on board most of the business leaders in support of his development agenda. He knew most of them personally, and his character enabled him to relate well to them. He earned respect and authority that was instrumental in influencing other people to work with him in transforming the country. He did demonstrate not only self-awareness but also social awareness in managing relationships with others. His transformational leadership style provides inspiration to many business leaders who learn from his legacy.

As a transformational leader, he stated that ‘it is better to lead from behind and put others in front when celebrating victory after nice things occur.’ He also emphasized that a leader ought to take the front line when in danger for the other people to appreciate his/her leadership. The leadership style he demonstrated is unique and only found in a selfless leader. It is contrary to what many business leaders behave; they demand recognition and credit when things are good, and blame others when everything turns sour. A transformational leader does not take all the praise and credit but considers others as important contributors to the success.

Mandela founded the African National Congress (ANC) and shared his vision to like-minded people who followed him in realizing that their sacrifices would lead South Africa to freedom. The courage, tolerance, and inspiration demonstrated during his arrest, and jail term by the colonialist was a great motivation to his followers who joined hands in the fight for their national freedom. Mandela was a true inspiration to his followers to stop at nothing less than success. His transformational leadership style is emulated and admired by many international leadership

Currently, technology has continued to develop dramatically. It has therefore made lives more convenient. One convenience is the online shopping which remains renowned as a business strategy on The Internet. While there are differences in several ways, the two methods have many similarities. This paper will compare as well as contrast aspects between online buying and traditional buying. With the increasing popularity of the Internet and the increasing options to online shoppers, more people continue to turn to cyberspace for shopping needs. As a response, retailers continue to enhance online stores, giving customers similar comprehensive experience available at a mall.

Like traditional shopping, online buying gives a great variety of stores. Nearly any store typically found in malls correspond online store with similar items. From departmental stores to specialty ones, many retailers find through Internet search. In both options shopping experience provides a large item selection to choose from. If one is looking for dresses, a simple search end up yielding hundreds of dresses with various styles, sizes, shapes as well as colors. Similar to visiting a specialized department in the store, the criteria for search can become narrowed to present the particular results like cocktail dresses or sundresses. Many retailers give similar deals in store as well as on their website. Like in the mall, online stores always have seasonal as well as end-of-season items, in many case having extra incentives like free shipping for online buyers. The retailer’s site end up reflecting seasonal promotions present in-store and enable buyers to redeem coupons as well as gift cards. Sales and promotions will typically start and end on the same dates both in-store and online.

The other similarity is that both the two shopping options have an interactive experience. Through the enhanced features on many retailer websites, buyers manage to see how an item look like in other color, in different sizes, or send links to friends for feedback. The Victoria’s online store Secret, for example, allows buyers to click on the color swatches to alter the color of items then click through alternate brands to know the exact fit as well as shape. Similar to purchases at the mall, items purchased from online shops also get returned to retailers for a refund as well as an exchange with conditions varying depending on retailer’s policy. Like in mall stores, most online stores allow buyers to return items for a total full refund while others only allow for exchanges. As one would expect, returns as well as exchanges of some personal items like undergarments as well as toiletries get not accepted at malls or online.

The two business methods pose some distinctive features. A basic difference is time operation. For instance, customers may buy and view things every time they feel like because online shops operate on a 24-hour basis as well as seven days a week. Contrary, stores, supermarkets, markets, as well as plazas, begin in limit time like 8 am to 9 pm. Hence, online buying remain more useful as compared to traditional shopping particularly those without time or those always working with a computer like office workers. The Second difference is the mode of the exhibition (Odyssey & the Standard’ 2000). Traditional shopping has direct alternative to a product through touch as well as handling to ascertain their quality as well as their material. On the contrary, online shops only display items on the Internet for customers to image the producers through their mind pictures, information in every produce. Hence, face many difficulties in making choices. As a consequence, traditional buyers remain more attracted as compared to the online customer.

The third difference is the communication. In specific, online buyers have no capacity to negotiate directly with the sellers since they face a screen while traditional buyers have a face to face interaction and can bargain with respective sellers. Therefore, communication in online buying remains more interesting as compared to traditional shopping. Fourthly, the investment also contrasts between the online and the traditional buyers. For example, online business have no huge budget of leasing space, rent employee as well as décor store while traditional shops need more money. Additionally, online business managers to save money in the investment and they manage to expand and produce over the globe in short time, making online buying easy. Lastly, one of the advantages of online buying is convenience. Particularly, online buyer access products not only from within the nation but also from other countries. Hence, buyers get items by their computer irrespective of their area of stay.

To conclude, while there are differences between the two shopping methods, there are many similarities. Many factors propel people to choose the type of shopping suits their demands. Hence, both methods have advantages and disadvantages, and while making chooses between them, it remains critical to consider the situation. Irrespective of the method both the two enables buyers to get what they want and satisfy their consumer needs. Hence, if opportunity dictates, they can shop online, and the same should apply in traditional shopping.