Leadership Defined

Leadership is the process of guiding the behavior of others toward the achievement of some common objectives. It is encouraging people to get things done – readily! To a standard and quality above their norm to achieve a shared stretch goal. As an element in social interaction, leadership is a complex activity involving a process of influence; actors who are both leaders and followers, and a range of possible outcomes – the achievement of goals, but also the commitment of individuals to such goals, the enhancement of group cohesion and the reinforcement of change of organizational culture.
What is Leadership? Three simple one-line answers by Paul Taffinder
· The easy answer: leadership is getting people to do things they have never thought of doing, do not believe are possible or that they do not want to do.
· The leadership in organizations answer: leadership is the action of committing employees to contribute their best to the purpose of the organization.
· The complex (and more accurate) answer: you only know leadership by its consequences – from the fact that individuals or a group of people start to behave in a particular way as result of the actions of someone else.
Effective Leadership as a Source of Competitive Business Advantage, Leadership is imperative for molding a group of people into a team, shaping them into a force that serves as a competitive business advantage. Leaders know how to make people function in a collaborative fashion, and how to motivate them to excel their performance. Leaders also know how to balance the individual team member's quest with the goal of producing synergy – an outcome that exceeds the sum of individual inputs. Leaders require that their team members forego the quest for personal best in concert with the team effort.Super-leaders help each of their followers to develop into an effective self-leader by providing them with the behavioral and cognitive skills necessary to exercise self-leadership. Super-leaders establish values, model, encourage, reward, and in many other ways foster self-leadership in individuals, teams, and wider organizational cultures.

American Academy of Arts and Sciences

The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS) is an organization dedicated to scholarship and the advancement of learning. It serves as a nationwide honor society for the United States. James Bowdoin, John Adams, and John Hancock founded the Academy in Boston during the American Revolution. Their objective, as stated in its charter, was to "cultivate every art and science which may tend to advance the interest, honor, dignity, and happiness of a free, independent, and virtuous people." Robert Treat Paine and 58 local community leaders to charter the organization in 1780 joined them. Other prominent men soon joined, and early members included Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton. With over 170 Nobel Laureates on its membership roll, in terms of prestige, a Fellowship or a Foreign Honorary Membership of the Academy is regarded as second only to the Nobel Awards; in recent years, most Nobel Prize recipients were elected to the Fellowship prior to becoming Nobel laureates as perusal of the list of Nobel Laureates and current membership of the Academy would reveal.

The modern academy is headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts. It sponsors conferences, organizes research projects, and publishes a quarterly journal, Daedalus. Today's Academy has 4,000 fellows and about 600 foreign honorary members. Throughout the academic year, members are invited to regularly scheduled talks and meetings in Cambridge and at regional centers headquartered at the University of Chicago and the University of California, Irvine.

Educational Attainment In The United States

The educational attainment of the US population is similar to that of many other industrialized countries with the vast majority of the population having completed secondary education and a rising number of college graduates that outnumber high school dropouts. As a whole the population of the United States is becoming increasingly more educated. Post-secondary education is valued very highly by American society and is one of the main determinants of class and status. As with income, however, there are significant discrepancies in terms of race, age, household configuration and geography. Overall the households and demographics featuring the highest educational attainment in the United States are also among those with the highest household income and wealth. Thus, while the population of the US is becoming increasingly educated on all levels, a direct link between income and educational attainment remains. Educational attainment is one of the primary indicators of social class in the United States. While the American social class system is vaguely defined concept with many contradicting theories, educational attainment emerges as one of the top measurements of social class. Not only is a high educational attainment a status symbol by itself but it also is very closely related to the other two main indicators of social class: occupation and income. A graduate degree and the roughly seven to eight years of post-secondary education serve as the main requirement for entering "The professions" and becoming part of the professional middle class. Education is a major key in becoming a more privileged member of the American middle class. Overall, educational attainment is the main entrance barrier into more privileged parts of the middle class as it is not only of high value but is also the requirement for becoming a professional and earning the corresponding income. The only exception are entrepreneurs who can rank anywhere in the class system but are usually not referred to as professional middle class unless they are of the professions.

Qualifications For President Of The United States

The President of the United States of America (sometimes abbreviated as POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president is at the head of the executive branch of the federal government, whose role is to enforce national law as given in the Constitution and written by Congress. Article Two of the Constitution establishes the president as commander-in-chief of the armed forces and enumerates powers specifically granted to the president, including the power to sign into law or veto bills passed by both houses of Congress. The president also has the power to create a cabinet of advisors and to grant pardons or reprieves. Finally, with the "advice and consent" of the Senate, to make treaties, appoint federal officers, ambassadors, and federal judges, including Justices of the Supreme Court. As with officials in the other branches of the United States government, the Constitution restrains the president with a set of checks and balances designed to prevent any individual or group from taking absolute power.
Article Two of the Constitution sets the qualifications required to become president. Presidents must be:

• Natural-born citizens of the United States
• At least thirty-five years old
• Must have been resident in the United States for at least fourteen years

Citizens at the time of adoption of the Constitution were also eligible to become president, provided they met the age and residency requirements. While not an official requirement, the vast majority of presidents had prior experience as vice presidents, members of Congress, governors, or generals; in addition, thirty-one of forty-two presidents served in the military, all but one of them, James Buchanan, as an officer. During the electoral process, experience or lack thereof is often given as a point in a presidential candidate's campaign.
Candidates usually must receive the backing of a major political party. This is not strictly required in order to be considered as serious candidate. Third-party candidate Ross Perot received nearly 19% of the vote in the 1992 election.