Leadership

Leadership qualities

A leader is someone who helps others to achieve a particular goal. Leadership looks different depending on the group of people they are working with. A person can be a leader at a local, national, or international level - a football captain, a Prime Minister and the Pope are all leaders, and all work with people to achieve goals, but the jobs they do are very different.

Check out these places to learn more about leadership, and how to develop your own leadership skills.

Academy of Achievement

On this website, leaders who have helped shape the world share six qualities that have given them the skills to be great leaders.

• Choose the tab Keys to success to explore these.

• Use Find my role model to see how people just like you became leaders.

• As well there is information on world visionaries and leaders and you can find this on the page The achievers from all walks of life.

Tips: Websites that have .org or .net in the address can have good information, but you need to assess how reliable it is. Check the About the Academy link on this website, if you can find one. That can tell you what the organisation’s mission and values are.

Skills you need

This website will help you learn more about different leadership skills, and how you can develop them yourself as you get older.

• Choose the tab Leadership skillsto find out about the skills that are important for good leadership.

• This site might ask you to buy ebooks, you can ignore this and just look at the information you need.

Tips: Websites that have .com or .co in the address can have good information, but you need to assess how reliable it is. Check the About us link on this website, if you can find one. That can tell you what the company’s mission and values are.

The University of Waikato

This is the official site of The University of Waikato. As part of their kaupapa Māori-based research, they spoke to Māori leaders about their leadership values.

• Search for Māori leadership.

• Look for the article Five key values of strong Māori leadership.

Tips: We like sites that are from government or other reputable organisations, because we can trust the information. You can sometimes tell these sites by their web address – they might have .gov or .ac in their address – or by looking at their About us or Contact pages.

KidsHealth

KidsHealth is a great website with all sorts of information about your health, and also includes information about the mind and how to develop emotional intelligence skills. There are three sections on the site – one for kids, one for teens and another for parents. Each article includes the name of the person who wrote it and when it was written, which helps us know it’s reliable.

• Select the for Teens tab and then Mind.

• Look through the menu for Being Your Best Self.

• Read Confidence to find out how to be more confident.

• Emotional Intelligence talks about what this is.

• Check out Understanding other people for information on how to build this skill.

SweetSearch

SweetSearch is a search engine that has been created by librarians to help students find trustworthy information.

• Use this search engine to find news articles and writing about what makes a good leader, and examples of leaders and leadership.

• Enter your search terms into the search space on the homepage.

• Use terms like 'leader' or 'leadership' and 'skills', 'qualities', traits, or  characteristics.

• Sort your results by relevance to get the best articles for your research.

Tips: Some websites have advertisements (or ads) which ask us to buy something or tell us to ‘click here’. These ads show up at the top of the list of search results and are marked 'Ad'. Ignore these ads and focus on the information we’re looking for.

Famous Leaders

Some famous leaders include:

• Julius Caesar (100-44BC): Roman politician responsible for making the Roman empire a really powerful and great nation.

• Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948): Led India to get independence from Britain in 1947.

• Nelson Mandela (1918-2013): Anti-Apartheid leader, and first President of the Republic of South Africa.

• Barack Obama (1961- ): American politician and first African-American President of the United States.

The websites below have information on these leaders and more.

Topic Explorer

The National Library has created Topic Explorer as part of its Services to Schools.

• Have a look at Leaders and People for photos, news articles and more about leaders over the years.

• Use the Filter by media type buttons to select the type of resources you need.

• Check out the Related topics to see some different types of New Zealand leaders.

Tips: We like sites like this because they’re reliable. You can tell because of their web address – they have either .govt or .ac, meaning they are from government or educational organisations. They’re also New Zealand sites, so relevant for us.

Britannica School Middle

Britannica School is an EPIC resource. EPIC is a collection of reliable databases covering lots of different topics. It’s put together especially for New Zealand school students and helps to answer questions like this.

Use this website to find articles, images, videos and more about leaders and leadership.

• Enter 'leaders' into the search bar.

• Go to View all results for leaders.

• Choose world leaders at a glance for a list of leaders by country and by topic.

• Choose women's history at a glance for lists of female leaders grouped by topic.

Tips: To get to the EPIC resources you will need a password from your school librarian first. Or you can chat with one of our AnyQuestions librarians between 1 and 6pm Monday to Friday and they will help you online. Some EPIC databases may also be available through your public library.

Biography (Gale in Context)

This is another EPIC resource. You can use this website to find out about different leaders through time.

• Use the search bar to look up particular people you want to learn about.

• Use the Browse People button and then choose a category in the drop-down Topics menu to see different types of leaders eg Contemporary World Leaders or Religious Leaders.

Books

Check out your local school or public library for books about renewable energy. Here are some that we found:

• Leaders who changed history by DK Publishing, Inc.

• Commanders: history's greatest military leaders by R G Grant

• Wolfpack : how young people will find their voice, unite their pack, and change the world by Abby Wambach

• Initiative, grit & perseverance by Randy Charles.

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