Armstrong essay thoughts or criticism?

[Silva Bullet]

Hello, thanks for taking the time to click on this thread. This is my first draft for the Armstrong award essay section. Any thoughts would be great, I'm not asking for help, this is my own thing. What I'm asking for is criticism or positive thoughts, no matter how awful or helpful they may be.

Thanks.

Word count: 400

The Difference between Followership and Leadership

   Followership and leadership are two sides of the same coin. Both are paramount in Civil Air Patrol, and in day-to-day life. As cadets progress through the program they learn to be responsible and set higher standards for themselves. Once an individual has followership ability, he or she can become a leader.


   In followership, one is learning to become a leader, or learning to be an example to his followers. People do not follow leaders, they follow effective followers. Leaders, summarized, are just effective followers. Followership can be defined as "the ability or willingness to follow a leader." Or, "the willingness to cooperate in working towards the accomplishment of the group mission, to demonstrate a high degree of teamwork and to build cohesion among the group." For example, a brand new cadet will behave awkwardly when first exposed to drill. But the cadet is willing to learn, under the guidance of an experienced follower (leader), to further his knowledge, and learn to become a leader.


   In leadership, one is leading followers and setting examples for them to follow. Still a follower, a leader is learning all the time. Effective leadership requires effective followership. Leadership can be defined as "accomplishing tasks through others." Or, "The process of guiding and directing, the behavior of people in the work environment." Leadership is something practiced more and more as the cadet advances. One will be put in charge of tasks and given responsibilities. For example; staff positions, mentoring new cadets, teaching drill and leading followers, all the while, following too.


   In conclusion we see that followers set the levels of acceptance for leadership. One of the biggest differences that separate leaders from followers is the fact that many leaders have charisma. Research has consistently shown that under conditions of crisis, threat, and stress, followers seek and respond positively to individuals who are bold, confident, and appear to have clear solutions to existing problems. Many followers have charisma too, but it is most usually in the development stage. But ordinary people achieve greatness every day. Effective followership is the building block to effective leadership. You can't have one without the other. Remember, there is no perfect leader, no single right way to lead, and no one-size-fits-all formula for leadership. As a leader, it's up to you to make your life as profitable to other people as it is to yourself.

[Honorguardsmanflwg]

Looks good, nothing to say.

[Silva Bullet]

Thanks, I might post the second draft sometime this week.

[Honorguardsmanflwg]

Ok

[MajorPayne]

 I am beginning to work on my Armstrong as well. Good luck to you. It looks really good to me.

[coudano]

   Followership and leadership are two sides of the same coin. Both are paramount in Civil Air Patrol, and in day-to-day life. As cadets progress through the program they learn to be responsible and set higher standards for themselves. Once an individual has followership ability, he or she can become a leader.

Personally I would find a way to explicitly state your topic sentence here in the introduction.
Could someone who doesn't know what the essay assignments are, tell you what the essay prompt was, just from reading the introductory paragraph?

In followership, one is learning to become a leader, or learning to be an example to his followers. People do not follow leaders, they follow effective followers. Leaders, summarized, are just effective followers.

Can you think of contrapositive statements to these? (I can)
Can you think of a follower who is just a follower, and NOT a leader in training? (I can)
Can you think of someone who is an effective leader, in that they have a lot of followers, but aren't very good followers themselves?  (I can)

Followership can be defined as "the ability or willingness to follow a leader."

Ok, sure.

Or, "the willingness to cooperate in working towards the accomplishment of the group mission, to demonstrate a high degree of teamwork and to build cohesion among the group."

This isn't a sentence, is it?  Can you identify the subject and verb?

For example, a brand new cadet will behave awkwardly when first exposed to drill. But the cadet is willing to learn, under the guidance of an experienced follower (leader), to further his knowledge, and learn to become a leader.

Is first exposure awkwardness a necessary component of followership?
For consistency with what you have said above, I would just say "under the guidance of a leader" (lose the 'experienced follower')
It will also clean up the construction of the sentence.
Instead of learn to become a leader, you might say "to further his knowledge and contribute to the team effort" or something like that ??

In leadership, one is leading followers and setting examples for them to follow. Still a follower, a leader is learning all the time. Effective leadership requires effective followership how/why?. Leadership can be defined as "accomplishing tasks through others." Or, "The process of guiding and directing, the behavior of people in the work environment." Leadership is something practiced more and more as the cadet advances. One will be put in charge of tasks and given responsibilities Not true of followers?.

For example; staff positions, mentoring new cadets, teaching drill and leading followers, all the while, following too.

Also not a sentence.   Subject?  Verb?

In conclusion we see that followers set the levels of acceptance for leadership.Can we logically conclude this from the main ideas and evidence you have provided above??? One of the biggest differences that separate leaders from followers is the fact that many leaders have charisma.followers don't? Research has consistently shown that under conditions of crisis, threat, and stress, followers seek and respond positively to individuals who are bold, confident, and appear to have clear solutions to existing problems.This might be a decent main idea for one of your differences between L&F, if you can actually show the research as supporting sentences.  By the way, what research shows that?  Did you actually read that somewhere? Many followers have charisma too, but it is most usually in the development stage.Ok, so the whole 'more developed charisma' thing might be a paragraph above, which you can support with supporting sentences, if you can make that case But ordinary people achieve greatness every day. Effective followership is the building block to effective leadership. You can't have one without the other. Remember, there is no perfect leader, no single right way to lead, and no one-size-fits-all formula for leadership. As a leader, it's up to you to make your life as profitable to other people as it is to yourself.

Not a bad first stab.
What you've done here is
1.  Introduction
2.  Definition of followership
3.  Definition of leadership
4.  Conclusion

I don't see anything in here at all that identifies or explains a -DIFFERENCE- between leadership and followership.
If anything, you have highlighted more similarities between the two.
You kind of openly contradict yourself a little bit (which shows a lack of internal consistency, one of the grading criteria)


See if you can think up three or more differences between L&F, and just write them down.
If you think there isn't any difference between the two, then state that as one of your 3 main ideas, and then support the idea


Broken record time:
Do an outline.  Just populate this outline with your ideas,
i've tried to extract a few of your ideas into the paragraph main ideas below,
but if you can think of better ones, by all means, replace these...
then transition them into paragraphs and clean sentences.

1.  Introduction (state thesis here)  "there are many differences between leadership and followership, here are three of them"
2.  Diff L&F #1  "more developed state of charisma"
2a.  evidence to prove #2
2b.  evidence to prove #2
2c.   evidence to prove #2
3.  Diff L&F #2  "in crisis, people look to strong leaders (not followers)"
3a.  evidence to prove #3
3b.  evidence to prove #3
3c.   evidence to prove #3
4.  Diff L&F #3 "leaders get put in charge of stuff (followers don't?)"
4a.  evidence to prove #4
4b.  evidence to prove #4
4c.   evidence to prove #4
5.  Conclusion

[Silva Bullet]

Thank you very much for pointing these things out for me, very much appreciated!

I meant to say that this was pretty much my thoughts on the topic, brain-stormed.

[Silva Bullet]

Second draft! Thoughts?

Word Count: 449

Followership and Leadership, you can't have one without the other.

                                                     
 

Followers and leaders are both paramount in Civil Air Patrol, as well as day-to-day life. As cadets progress through the program they learn to be even more responsible, and set higher standards for themselves. Once an individual has followership ability, he or she can become a leader. Followership and leadership are two sides of the same coin.


   Followership is the building block to leadership. In followership, one is learning to become a leader. Followership is defined as "the ability or willingness to follow a leader" or, "the willingness to cooperate in working towards the accomplishment of the group mission, to demonstrate a high degree of teamwork and to build cohesion among the group". For example, a brand new cadet will behave awkwardly when first exposed to drill. But the cadet is willing to learn, under the guidance of a leader, to further his knowledge and contribute to the team effort. 


   In leadership, one is leading followers and setting examples for them to follow, still, the leader is learning all the time. While there is no universal definition for leadership, it can be defined as "a process of social influence, which maximizes the efforts of others, towards the achievement of a goal". Leadership is something practiced more and more as the cadet advances. For example, one will be put in charge of tasks and given responsibilities, such as a staff position. Staff positions allow for mentoring new cadets, teaching drill and leading followers, all the while, following too.


   Through going through the definitions of followership and leadership we see that followers will follow a leader, and that a leader will lead followers. A follower's first step is usually to lead themselves. This includes learning how to contribute to a team, how to wear the uniform, how to drill, and how to follow the guidance of the leaders above them. In contrast, a leader will lead his followers to accomplish an assigned mission or goal. New leaders will have to transition from being cared for, to caring for others. Leaders will set standards and give examples, teach, and learn too. Leadership is not about controlling people, but serving them. Leaders are constantly teaching because their actions are always on display.

   In conclusion we see that followership and leadership are similar, yet have distinct differences, you can't have one without the other. Followership comes before leadership, learning to become a leader while working with the rest of your team. Remember, there is no perfect leader, no single right way to lead, and no one-size-fits-all formula for leadership. As a leader, and as a follower, it's up to you to make your life as profitable to other people as it is to yourself.