Leadership Styles in My Community

Leadership in My Community

In my community, our church had always wanted to do something to give back and provide assistance to people but no one in the parish could decide on an appropriate task. I came up with the idea of having a ravioli dinner to celebrate the community\'s Italian heritage and having an all-day benefit by selling pots of ravioli (the community could come in with whatever size pot they had and fill it up with ravioli for $10 a pot) and giving the proceeds to the local homeless shelter. I utilized my servant leadership skills to help move this idea into action by leading others through giving them whatever assistance they needed. I surrounded myself with like-minded individuals from the parish -- about half of dozen (to help organize) and asked them what they needed to make this idea a reality; through these discussions I was able to supply these helpers with the tools and time they needed to make this change in our parish and turn this event into an annual fund drive to benefit the homeless in the community. We arranged cooks, clean-up, neighborhood businesses to provide support (ingredients), and a team to promote the dinner. Every year we do this event and I continue to lead the team by providing servant leadership each year.

Critical Analysis

My main approach to leading this event was to provide servant leadership, but I also utilized authentic leadership because there were individuals within the parish who had organized events like this before and had some advice to give (so I sought them out and listened to their advice before beginning any work). I was very transparent with all volunteers, telling them that I had no experience in this sort of project before but that I was committed to seeing it successfully implemented and that whatever they needed any time to come to me and I would assist them. I made myself transparent and available and thus utilized both authentic and servant leadership styles (Wong and Laschinger, 2013; Dinh et al., 2014; Spence et al., 2013; Parris and Peachey, 2013).

What I wanted to change was the parish church\'s orientation to the community. For many years the parish had been in the community but there had been virtually no outreach to the community, nothing done by the church to connect it to others outside the parish. The idea I had was to connect the church with locals from the community and develop a more significant relationship. Thus, I struck upon the idea of the ravioli dinner because this celebrated the community\'s heritage (mainly Italian) and allowed many different people to come to the church, meet others, and enjoy a lot of ravioli for a cheap price. It also allowed local businesses an opportunity to contribute to the event by donating materials and ingredients. Many people who never before worked together now were all part of an event designed to celebrate the community\'s heritage and give back to the community by donating proceeds to the local homeless shelter to help unfortunate persons.

I was very successful in leading this operation because I took the time to interview persons who had organized events like this before, which provided me with the necessary information to develop and implement a successful operation. This was the essence of my authentic leadership approach. I also used servant leadership because this was a big event and the half dozen helpers I had needed motivation, assistance with their designated tasks, and information on how best to proceed. For instance, the person responsible for advertising the ravioli dinner was having trouble knowing how to promote the affair. I discussed the issue with her and we found that what she really needed was help passing out fliers and getting word out to the community. I told her that I was at her service and would assist her in passing out fliers on a designated day. In this manner, we were able to canvass many neighborhoods.

As Northouse (2016) points out, the ability to provide emotional healing and conceptualizations are essential aspects of servant leadership, and I was able to provide both. Some of the stress that the team experienced while performing their tasks affected them on an emotional level and when that happened I was able to provide calm, reassuring guidance and support for team members. This simply required a little patience and attention on my part -- often it was just a matter of hearing out a team member\'s individual issues and how other aspects of their lives were impacting them in the moment and their ability to function at an optimal level on the team. I provided them with a concept of the bigger picture that we were trying to achieve -- namely to do something good for the community and connect with a wider audience outside the parish. I gave them this idea as a way of guiding them towards the ultimate goal, and on the way I offered my support that they might be able to emotionally deal with the trials that this brand new event, never-before conducted in our parish event would surely bring about.

Northouse (2016) notes that a servant leader must have a deep understanding of the mission, the values inherent in it, and the ability to feel what others are going through and put himself in their shoes to help them through difficult times. I was able to do this all throughout the process and it really helped to bring our team together. The parish also became inspired by the activity and renewed the call to make it an annual event. The community also responded with great heart and appreciation and the event has become a staple in the community and something that is looked forward to by all every year. As bringing the church closer to the community and vice-versa was the ultimate goal, it is satisfying to see that through my leadership, the church was able to accomplish the mission I laid out for it.