Throughout the Introduction to Leadership LLC course this semester we learned about various leadership approaches, theories and styles. For me there are 3 leadership components that interest me and I would like to reflect on. The 3 are the Contingency Approach, Relational Leadership, and Transformational Leadership. I chose these 3 because I feel that these three I have continually seen expressed through the lectures we have had to attend. All three have some similarities, these similarities are that the leader should be able to clearly communicate goals, are concerned about the process, and in some ways based on relationship motivation between the leader and the member.

In the contingency approach there are two basic styles task motivated and relationship motivated. The style I will be focusing on is the relationship motivated style because it also correlates greatly with the other 2 leadership characteristics that I will be talking about. According to the Contingency Model High LPC’s (Least Preferred Coworker) are motivated by relationships. According to the model these kinds of leaders are satisfied from interpersonal relationships, see positives in coworkers even if he or she is the least preferred coworker, and attends to tasks after the leader is certain the relationship between people are good. I wanted to reflect on this leadership characteristic because I feel that in order to be a good leader one must foster the relationships in order to create an atmosphere of trust and the leader must figure out the individuals weaknesses and strengths so that he will be able to know how to how to empower them and how they will aid in the effectiveness of the group to complete a task.

The contingency approach relates to the Relational leadership style in that it is based on 3 principles. Knowing, Being and Doing. What they mean by knowing is to know ones self, how change occurs and why others may view things differently. Being is to be ethical, principled, open, caring and inclusive. Doing is the leader must act socially responsible, and consistent they should be using the skills that they have to effectively lead. Other than the 3 basic principles there are 5 components of relational leadership that are being purposeful, inclusive, empowering, ethical and process-oriented. These components and basic principles of the relationship theory style I greatly admire. This model focuses on the leader knowing both about his or her self and everyone else in the group. It exemplifies how the leader is not necessarily the top dog but that he or she is trying to do everything so that both of them are effective and can learn and grow from each other. As a result of trying to learn more about each other this leads up to the next and final leadership characteristic: Transformational Leadership.

Transformational leadership is the process that changes and transforms individuals as well as involves exceptional form of influence that moves individuals to accomplish more than expected. Similarly to the relational leadership it is concerned with ethics, values, standards and long-term goals. An advantage is that this type of leadership is a process of being engaged and connecting, which also raises motivation and morality in leader and follower relationship, and lastly the leader is attentive to the needs and motives of followers so that they can reach their fullest potential. Being a transformational leader is just encompasses what leadership is all about in my opinion. A leader is someone who advocates and is not afraid to go against the status quo in order to speak for justice and to bring up a new perspective about the world and about life! Transformation is to transform the people of the world so that they will be ready to take on the world and create it to be a future we always wanted. And with this a leader has to be authentic and relate to their followers or just individuals who believe in the same ideals as they do. Its about growing and maturing and learning more about the world. Because even to day we die there is still something we can learn from someone, something we can learn to be better citizens of the world each and every day.