Essential Ingredients of Leadership: An Analysis

What does it take for someone to earn the title of leader? In other words, what essential ingredients make up a leader? All leaders are different, and not all leaders go through the same path to earn their title. However, there is one crucial element that a leader requires in order to even be considered for the position and have other follow him or her. In the song “Fight Song” by Rachel Patten, Patten exclaims to listeners how the song they are listening to is her way of changing her life around and being a different person. She also sings about how she will not let her past demons take over her life anymore. Comparatively, the poem “Still I Rise” by Maya Angelou uses a lot of similes and metaphors to compare the author’s ascension from the

An example of this in the story is when the author describes her mother’s history and how, despite it, she saw a better future in store for her family and thrived to make it a reality. The author explains, “America was where all my mother's hopes lay. She had come to San Francisco in 1949 after losing everything in China: her mother and father, her home, her first husband, and two daughters, twin baby girls. But she never looked back with regret. Things could get better in so many ways” (Tan 1). This shows that the author’s mother did not let her crippling past stop her from having hope for the future and the will to give her family a better life. She always saw that things could and would get better with hard work. Through this light inside her, she became a leader and role model to her family who followed her without a second thought into an unknown land with an unknown culture. This leadership quality is necessary because if those who lead let their past get ahold of them, then they will not be effective or good at leading

This poem compares the hatred that people show the author and how she counteracts them. She does not let the opinions or words of others hurt her or have an affect on her. The author sees herself as much better than other people’s opinion of her. She shows this when she says, “You may shoot me with your words,/ You may cut me with your eyes,/ You may kill me with your hatefulness,/ But still, like air, I’ll rise” (Angelou). In this quote, the author shows her persistence to not let the hostility that people show her get to her. She is determined to rise through all their words no matter how cruel they are. This quality is pivotal for anyone hoping to be considered a leader because there will always be those who oppose a leader's decisions and try to bring them down through words or actions. A good leader would not let others’ hatefulness affect what they think is