Introduction
Leadership is one of the most important needs in any organization. Leaders provide guidance, support, vision, direction, decision-making, and accountability. They inspire workers and help to motivate them by fulfilling their needs and incentivizing them whenever possible (Gerhart & Fang, 2013). However, as there are all different styles of leadership that can be employed, it is important to understand the different options and approaches that may be utilized as well as the circumstances under which they are most likely to be most effective. This paper will define and describe four styles of leadership, discuss how they would apply in four different case studies, and finally identify which leadership style best fits my own personal style of leadership.

Transformational Leadership

Description

Transformational leadership focuses on motivating people to embrace change by inspiring them with a vision, explaining the purpose or need for the change in a logical manner, and providing the workers with the support they need to buy in to the change and make it a reality (Nawaz & Khan, 2016; Warrick, 2011). Transformational leaders have to be able to communicate well, connect with people, and—most importantly—articulate the vision required for the change in an ordered and logical way so that it appeals to rationally-minded workers.

Case Study

Advice for Harold

From a transformational leadership perspective, Harold needs to be more engaged with his workers in terms of opening up a two-way flow of communication. When he first arrived, he started making top-down changes without first obtaining feedback from his workers. As Kotter (2012) shows, it is essential that for a transformational leader feedback be obtained from workers before any big changes are made: that way the leader knows what the workers need and the workers feel empowered and that they have a stake in the decision-making process because they have been asked for their input.

A Clear Vision

Harold had a clear vision but he was not able to implement it effectively because he never received complete buy in from the workers and never really supported the workers enough for the vision to be embraced by one and all. Pockets of resistance developed in the form of suspicion and mistrust towards Harold. The workers failed to understand him: he drove a foreign car yet worked for an American car manufacturer. This sent mixed signals, which served to muddy his vision. To say one thing but do another is to communicate poorly. A clear vision has to be communicated in words as well as actions (Kotter, 2002).

Effective at Change?

To be effective as a social architect and change agent, one has to have a degree of social and emotional intelligence (George, 2000). Harold lacked this and did not demonstrate any sense of being able to read or understand or sympathize with his workers. This in turn led to a gap between them and him, which did not facilitate the change management process. In order to be more effective at change, Harold should have developed and used more social and emotional intelligence skills to help communicate his vision, promote buy in, and motivate his workers.

Strengths

The strengths of this style are that allows the leader to be himself and to use his special talents and skills to tap into what people need around him (Kotter, 2002). The leader using this style can assess for himself what the workers require and then set about giving that in a manner that he is best suited for. The transformational leadership style embraces the idea that a certain amount of character and charisma is required of the leader in order for this style to be effective—and for leaders who have both character and charisma it can be tremendously effective (Northouse, 2018).

Limitations

This style of leadership is rather general in terms of how it is taught. It does not provide a clear or strict set of guidelines on what a leader should do, as in a set of steps like what can be found in Kotter’s 8-step model of change management (Kotter, 2002). Thus, it is fairly open-ended, which can viewed as a limitation for leaders who need a bit of guidance in order to fulfill their duties.

Authentic Leadership

Description

Authentic leadership is based on the idea that transparency and trust promote positive relationships between leaders and followers and that if a leader shows that he is acting morally and ethically in an open and honest manner, he will earn the respect of followers and they will imitate his genuine approach to honest work (Boekhorst, 2015). As Northouse (2015) notes, authentic leadership is helpful for building trust in a company. When it comes time to motivate workers, the genuine example of a good and moral leader will do just that. Authentic leaders generally present themselves as are, without trying to fake like they are anything other than what they know themselves to be.

Case Study

The Role of Self-Awareness

For Sally, self-awareness was the bedrock of her story of leadership. By accepting herself as she was, she was able to become the person she wanted to be—a writer. Before accepting herself, she struggled to see herself as anything. But recognizing the fact that she did want the free lifestyle of a writer allowed her to take chances and go where the winds of change blew her. By living this life she found some truths that others needed to hear and was able to relay them, and for that she was recognized as a leader with something genuine to offer.

Sally’s Authenticity

The authenticity of sally’s leadership could be described as her ability to sit back and observe, see and reflect on what she had experienced. She added nothing to what she saw but simply reflected everything she took in. Her writing was a mirror image of what she observed. By being fair, honest, and accurate she earned both confidence for herself and high praise from others when her book become a success. Everyone wanted more insight and sought her out for...…that I admire.

First off, I admire transformational leadership because it gets to the heart of what it means to lead: it is about communicating a vision and inspiring others (De Vries, 1998). Servant leaders essentially do the same thing but they are more subtle and less direct in their approach (Northouse, 2015). They communicate a vision by way of example rather than by words. Although the transformational leader can also communicate the ideal by his example—however, in those cases he is also typically engaging in authentic leadership as well. That means he is impressing others and inspiring them by his authenticity, genuine desire to be good, and an ability to reflect the values that the organization wants to see instilled in all the workers.

Second, I admire servant leadership style because it is about focusing on the needs of others and doing whatever is required to help them succeed. This is also an aspect of transformational leadership in that transformational leaders have to provide support for individuals when needed (De Vries, 1998). It is a little different, however, in the sense that the servant leader is basically entirely dedicated to the needs of others.

Third, I admire authentic leadership because I think a leader should be true, open, good and honest. For one to be effective in leading he ultimately has to have all these qualities (Boekhorst, 2015). One may succeed in leading for a while without them but ultimately things will go badly, as the case of Enron shows. Those leaders though they were very crafty and did not have to worry about conventional theories of leadership. In the end, they drove their company into the ground with their shell games and they went to jail. That is the opposite of what it means to be an authentic leader.

In my hybrid model of leadership, I combine transformational leadership with servant and authentic leadership. I like to communicate the vision with words and then I like to demonstrate the vision in action and through my own example. I like to support others, inspire them and motivate them to strive for the ideal, but I also like to do this in small subtle ways so that I can get out of the way and let them go about becoming self-actualized. I also like to sit back and observe and see what I see and use this information to better understand what is going on. By immersing myself in the culture of my followers I can better have a sense of how their issues are impacting their work and then I can develop ideas about how to address those issues. Because I always aim to be fair and honest people come to appreciate what I have to offer and look to me as a leader who has been there and done that. I appreciate the respect in turn and together with my followers I try to become the leader they need.