There are many theories of leadership. But, for now, I will explain only three.
First, there is servant leadership which appears to be a paradoxical concept. The leader is attentive to the follower—they empathize, empower, and nurture them. Servant leaders seek the good of whom they are serving and encourage the growth of their followers. As they give authority over to the followers, they promote interdependence, respect, trust, in addition to personal growth. Leaders are concerned about the less privileged and aim to remove social injustice and see it as their social responsibility. Most often, servant leaders have been shown to have the following characteristics: listening, healing, empathy, persuasion, conceptualization, awareness, foresight, stewardship, focus of follower growth, and community building. A factor contributing to this leadership model besides the servant leadership behaviors and leadership outcomes previously mentioned are “antecedent conditions.” “Antecedent conditions” are the context and culture, follower receptiveness, and leader characteristics. I identify with servant leadership as I exhibit several of the characteristic leadership behaviors. I am a listener, a healer, empathetic, an abstract thinker, vigilant, forward-thinking, a nurturer, an encourager, and team constructor. My greatest joy is to help people heal and to watch them grow in their character and abilities as I encourage them.
Second, there is adaptive leadership. The leader in this theory focuses on helping people cope and adapt to new and changing situations. Followers are encouraged by their leader to engage in problem solving for themselves—the leader does not enable them. Leaders help followers to overcome adaptive challenges. They tend to have the following characteristics in sequence: (1) get on the balcony, (2) identify adaptive challenges, (3) regulate distress, (4) maintain disciplined attention, (5) give the work back to people, and (6) protect leadership voices from below. The end result of adaptive leadership is adaptive work, which requires the existence and development of a holding environment that is created by the leader and offers a secure arena for followers to deal with adaptive challenges. My life has been full of adaptive challenges. As a result, I am able to see the big picture, identify the problems, keep calm and extremely focused, provide a plan, and let the followers in the situation take the lead and have confidence in themselves. I tend to remain open-minded and listen to all voices in the group and take their contributions into account. My family, which consisted of my mother and I, functioned on adaptive leadership and our relationship was our holding environment, which allowed us to be successful and safe in the midst of change.
Lastly, transformational leaders connect with their followers and, therefore, increases motivation in the leader and followers alike. They pay close attention to the needs and intentions of followers as they assist followers in achieving their fullest potential. These charismatic leaders are often good role models, appear to be competent, communicate ideological goals and morality, have high expectations for and confidence in their followers, stimulates motives. As a result, followers trust their leader’s goals, share similar beliefs, are unquestioningly acceptant, fond of their leader, obedient, identify and are emotionally connected with their leader, and have greater goals and confidence. I identify very much with the characteristics of this leadership type and the leader’s relationship with followers. In the majority of my relationships, people look up to me, trust me, share similar beliefs to mine, like me, identify and are emotionally attached with me, and are inspired to achieve and be better. I think that I appear capable, communicate my morals and plans, am encouraging. Also, I do have high expectations of others because I believe that they can reach them.