What are the characteristics of effective leaders? (Top tip: inevitably this will involve regurgitating many of the lists of research findings but you need to do much more than this. Compare and contrast the lists, and synthesise them. You can add value with a short discussion about how leader effectiveness is defined at the start of the essay. You could also make the point, with examples, that leader effectiveness depends on the situation and the followers. You should then refer back to this discussion of effectiveness at least three times during the remainder of the essay.