Derek Jeter Essay Sample

People hold different believes about leadership. Some believe that leaders are born and not made, while others also hold the belief that leaders are molded into what they become in the society. All the arguments are correct because sometimes people are born with the leadership qualities and sometimes people who were never thought that can become leaders are seen becoming leaders. So both arguments can be correct. Leaders are believed to be in the top positions in the companies or big organizations or even the head of state. A leader is anyone who shows the good leadership skills as we are going to discuss below. However, what we should concentrate on is not whether leaders are born or made, but we should focus on the things that support good leadership qualities; what shows that one is a leader.

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Life of Derek Jeter

Derek Sanderson Jeter was born on 26th June, 1974 in Paquannock Township in New Jersey (January, 2000). His mother was an Irish and his father an African-American. His mother, Dorothy was an accountant and his father, Sanderson Charles Jeter was a substance abuse counselor. The parents of Derek worked for the United States army in Germany. His parents played a major role in shaping his life to a man he grew to be. For instance, his parents made him to develop good behavior by making him sign up a contract that guided him to behave the acceptable way. He was made to sign the contract yearly; this ensured that Derek grew guided by the right behaviors (January, 2000). Her mother, Dorothy played the critical part in his life in terms of instilling positive attitude in him.

His mother gave him the encouragement and kept on reminding him that everything was possible. His mother made him believe that nothing is impossible and one should not use the word cant (OConnor, 2011). Derek and his family stayed in New Jersey until he was four years old when the family moved to Michigan where Derek and his baby sister, Sharlee schooled. During the holidays Derek spent most of his time with his grandparents in New Jersey where he used to accompany them to New York Yankees games. Attending the games made him develop a passion for the game (OConnor, 2011). He used to accompany his grandparents anytime they were going for the games. He became one biggest fans of the Yankee baseball team and every time his grandparents were to attend the games he could not be left away. His interest in sports was mainly inspired by the family who liked sports. His grandparents never used to miss the New York Yankee games and his father also used to play baseball at Fisk University (OConnor, 2011).

While in school, Derek performed well in academic and in sports. He was a well-adjusted child and he could get along with anyone around him. This enabled him to associate and interact with his teachers and fellow students at Kalamazoo central High school well. He records show that he used to perform very well; his report card showed that he could get an A-minus. High school also shaped his interest in sports and the passion to pursue a career in baseball games (OConnor, 2011). He was active in both sports and in class. He participated in various sporting activities such as cross country marathon, playing basketball and mostly playing baseball. Amongst the games he played, he developed interest in baseball and decided to pursue it further. After completing his senior season, he managed to win several awards such as; all-state honorable mention which identified him as the best baseball player in Michigan (January, 2000). Apart from the above award, he also won high school player of the year in 1992 from the American Baseball Coaches Association, best baseball player of the year from Gatorade in 1992. After completing high school, he joined Michigan University and his talent in baseball made him to win an award of baseball scholarship from the University of Michigan (January, 2000). He played for the University of Michigans baseball team, Michigan wolverines baseball team.

Derek grew up adoring baseball game (Corbett, 2006). Right as a student at Kalamazoo, he had the ambition of becoming a great baseball player. He even predicted that one he would become one of the greatest players of Yankees. He once announced this ambition in front of his classmates and said that one day he would become the shortstop of Yankee team. This dream was realized later in the 1992 going ahead when he began playing for Michigan baseball team (Corbett, 2006). His dream was further supported by those who were around him. His father supported him to see that his dream come true. His father, Charles was a shortstop for Fisk University team and this motivated him again to love baseball. Additionally, his cousin, Gary was once a baseball player and served as the defense lineman for the New York Giants. All these people provided him with the support he wanted and guided him through the career as he grew up. The fact that he was from a bi-racial parents gave him the privilege to suit every situation. He could get along with people very well because he never concentrated on either of the side of his parents. His parents acted as a greatest pillar in his career in baseball through supporting him and letting him set his own goals and guided him to achieve them (OConnor, 2011).

Dereks career of baseball started officially in 1992 when he started playing for the Gulf Coast Yankees. He began playing for the minor leagues where he grew stronger after every game he played. The first game he played, he never performed as expected. He got zero hit out of the seven hit, (0-7) (OConnor, 2011). He attempted five times but never succeeded in securing any hit. He never lost hope that he could not perform, he continued to play in the following games in that season. At the end of the season he managed to score 202 after playing 47 games. That season he never performed well and therefore, his coach decided to place him on the bench so that his performance could not come below 200. After completing the season, he got depressed and stressed up with his poor performance. Derek was moved to another team, Greensboro Hornets of class A, South Atlantic League (SAL) to get more training. At SAL, Derek managed to improve on his performance and after 11 games he was able to gain a score of 247 (OConnor, 2011). He continued to maintain the good performance throughout the season and coming the following season, he was selected one of the top 100 best baseball players by the Baseball America. He was ranked at the 44th position and this motivated him to even perform better in the games that followed. When he came back home from SAL, he managed to play well and score 295 with five runs. Things turned out good for him and the following games he played very well attaining the highest scores. The SAL team managers selected him the best player in the team and entire league that season. He continued to perform well in the next season and he was selected the best defensive shortstop in1993 (OConnor, 2011). The next season Derek gained more motivated and he performed well that convinced the Baseball America to choose him the 16th best baseball player of the season. After the 1993 season, he got recognition from various teams in South America which wanted him to play for them. During that season, he played for most of the teams such as; Tampa Yankees of class A, advanced Florida state league (FSL). Apart from the Tampa Yankee of FSL he also played for other several teams like; Albany-Colonie Yankees and Columbus Clippers in 1994. During that season he received an award of minor league player of the year from the Baseball America (OConnor, 2011). In the following year, 1995 he performed much better than the previous seasons and he was selected the 4th best player of the league again by the Baseball America. He was then chosen as the starting shortstop by the Yankees. With all the awards and good performance, he managed to move to play for the major leagues as from 1995 henceforth.

He could have been assigned to the major league in 1994 but due to the injury he had on his shoulder the team assigned another player, Fernandez. But in the early 1995, Fernandez also got an injury and it gave Derek the perfect opportunity to join the team. He was assigned uniform number two. In his first game, he never attained any score; he obtained a five hitless score. He never gave up or got demoralized either, he continued to work hard and the following day he was able to attain two scores which acted as his mark point in the career (January, 2000). He continued to play and managed to attain 250 hits and committed two mistakes in the first 13 games he played with the new league. The new team never got a long with him well and after some time, he was demoted from the team and replaced by Fernandez who had recovered from his injury. Things turned out better for him the following season in 1996 when Fernandez was also demoted after the Yankees lost their game to Seattle mariners. Derek was again recommended for the starting shortstop position by the Yankees team manager, Joe Torre. Derek had almost all the leadership qualities as he grew up and thrived to his career. Derek joined the major league from 1995 and continued to improve in his performance (Corbett, 2006). The team never had a captain since Don Mattingly retired in 1995. His dedication and commitment to the team convinced the management to choose him the team captain on 3rd June, 2003. Someone cannot be liked by everyone around him/her especially when they dont do well as before. 2009 in his career proved to be more challenging as the performance of both Derek and his team started to go down and that is when fans found their perfect opportunity to mock him on how he couldnt perform. Some started saying that maybe it was his declining years that were approaching. The team also turned to their leader at that but he couldnt make any change. The team lost their match to their opponents. Most times people will always turn to you when they have a problem and if you dont deliver to their expectation, they turn to criticize you. Good leaders take that challenge to their advantage and work towards making the change and improving the teams performance. Derek was very patient and humble leader to his team and after realizing that the team was losing, he took responsibility to make a change for the team. During that season he managed to attain 212 hits and 18 runs in 35 attempts. He turned out to be the second in MLB and also won the Gold Gove during this season (OConnor, 2011). He turned out to save his team during the season through his hard work. In some cases, you find when the team start to perform poorly there many blames within the team where people blame one another for the mistake. Performing poor does not mean that the team cannot perform better any longer and instead of shifting blames from one person to another, it is good to take responsibility (OConnor, 2011). The team is not the work of one individual person to change, every member of the team is important and their little contributions are what move the team to the better performing level. Derek as any good leader never blames any of his team and even if others were still blaming him, he never lost the courage and hopes to bring the good performance in the team again. People normally associate with you when you prosper and when things start to get rough the same people you think you stood with are the first people to criticize you and turn away from you. Leaders persevere no matter how intense the challenge might be (Kouzes & Barry, 2006). This is the time when leaders who are not competent lose their faith in their capabilities to lead and turn away too. One has to stand and make the changes. Leaders take responsibility and take their challenges as positive reinforcement that show th...