Over the course of this semester I have learned a great deal about the different theories of leadership as well as how they can be implemented in everyday life. Surprisingly, I was shocked about how many different theories and approaches have been studied in order to better define what leadership truly is. However, I still don’t believe that leadership can be simply put into a box defined by certain theories and practices. Instead I believe leadership is defined by many different factors that consistently force the leader to change their style or approach in order to lead more effectively. Out of all of the approaches and theories, I believe that transformational and servant leadership are the most important approaches described in the book. Both approaches put the focus on how the leader treats their followers and how they can better them to in turn better the group. These approaches are imperative for any leader to understand and utilize as leadership in itself should be slightly altruistic in nature in order to fully devote one’s self to bettering the group and society. For this reason, I plan on trying to focus more on helping others whom I lead in order to help them achieve both personal and team goals. I also feel strongly that experience does play a large role in leadership development and implementation as leaders are simply not made over night. This sentiment, for the most part, was agreed upon by most of the theories as leadership is developed through social interaction and awareness rather than simply being natural at it, although a natural tendency does make leadership easier to learn and utilize effectively. Nonetheless, the combination of both experience, social awareness, and having a follower focus prove to be an effective means of implementing leadership in certain scenarios.

I don’t believe this semester has drastically changed my values much in regard to leadership. However, there is one specific theory that has given me a better frame of how I should better utilize leadership. The authentic leadership approach has helped me better understand why it’s important to keep leaders accountable to their followers in that it forces them to be genuinely invested in the both the group’s goal and their follower’s lives. This approach seems fairly obvious but it is important for leaders to have a genuine drive to help others otherwise followers will not be inclined to respect or follow someone they don’t feel as if cares about them.

Overall, my initial leadership thoughts have not been significantly altered after learning more about leadership. The one thing that has changed, however, is my initial thoughts on how I think that leadership is just managing individuals. I now believe leadership is designed to instead support the individuals through collaborative efforts to achieve the team or the individuals goal. This paradigm shift from managing people to helping them I think is a big step for me and my leadership abilities and how I might approach leadership in the future. I also still believe that leadership in itself should be built upon mutual respect of both the leader and the person being lead, much like the ideas expressed in the leadership ethics chapter of the book. This mutual respect between the two parties is paramount to maintain a positive and effective team within the scope of leadership.