Introduction
Leadership plays an essential role in many spheres, including business, healthcare, and others. This competence allows managers to lead their subordinates, motivate them to promote change, and follow high safety and quality standards during their work. That is why employees should draw sufficient attention to ensure that they utilize appropriate and effective behavior to achieve the required goals. Thus, the paper will present my personal model of leadership, comment on the servant, transformational, and authoritative leadership styles, analyze their effectiveness to bring about change, and develop two goals for my leadership style improvement.
My Personal Model of Leadership
Since I am a doctorally prepared advanced practice nurse, I should draw sufficient attention to ensure that I deal with effective leadership. The rationale behind this claim refers to the fact that I should be able to lead others to cope with multiple tasks. For example, my professional practice implies diagnosing health conditions, promoting public knowledge about health, managing chronic illnesses, and involving in life-long education. Thus, there is no doubt that these activities can be productive if I know how to influence others and motivate them to act in a particular manner. That is why the following paragraph will comment on what model of leadership I use.
Since my work implies cooperating with different individuals, I rely on the team-oriented leadership model. According to Indeed (2021), this approach leads to the creation of a collaborative environment by admitting individual strengths and motivating subordinates to achieve their highest potential. Thus, it is reasonable to explain how my professional practice benefits from this model. Since I actively cooperate with patients and other healthcare professionals, team-oriented leadership helps establish productive relationships with many individuals. It results in the fact that they are willing to participate in the activities that I implement.
My Model of Leadership and Servant Leadership
It is possible to mention that my leadership model has some features that are characteristic of servant leaders. Eva et al. (2019) explain that this style denotes that managers should be other-oriented, which leads to prioritizing follower’s individual needs over personal ones. I meet this requirement when it comes to working with patients. Since I understand that these individuals require my help, I can ignore my desires to ensure that their needs are satisfied. Simultaneously, Gandolfi and Stone (2018) mention that servant leaders should have excellent skills and characteristic features, including empathy, listening, commitment to people’s growth, awareness, and building community. They all are present in my professional practice to some extent. For example, listening and awareness are irreplaceable skills when it comes to diagnosing. Even though I follow some servant leadership concepts, I do not entirely rely on this style.
Comparing Servant Leadership to Two Other Styles
There are a few essential concepts when it comes to comparing servant and transformational styles. Firstly, the two approaches differ regarding how they try to influence subordinates. While servant leadership aims to satisfy their personal needs and admit their values, the transformational approach focuses on inspiring people to ensure that their internal potential is fully utilized (Fox, 2019). Secondly, the two styles aim at improving organizational performance, but they use different strategies to achieve it. Servant leaders are considered successful when their subordinates’ psychological needs are met, while transformational managers prioritize attaining organizational goals (Eva et al., 2019). This information implies that the two styles under analysis have similar objectives, but they try to reach them differently.
Furthermore, it seems reasonable to compare servant and authoritative approaches. In the beginning, one can claim that these two styles are significantly different, meaning that they do not have any shared features. This statement has some reasoning because authoritative leaders do not draw any attention to satisfying their subordinates’ individual needs. Instead of it, such managers set specific goals and make others want to follow them (Coleman, 2019). It is a notably different approach when compared to servant leadership that takes care of subordinates. However, the two styles are similar in a way that they focus on establishing empathy with those who follow them. This step is necessary to ensure that subordinates feel in contact with their leaders.
Implementing the Models
This section will comment on how leaders can implement the leadership styles under investigation. Servant leaders prioritize their subordinates, meaning that this approach makes managers avoid conflicts by suppressing their own thoughts and desires. Gandolfi and Stone (2018) admit that it is a challenging task for leaders, implying that this model requires many efforts. Simultaneously, transformational leadership can be implemented when managers use transparency in establishing goals and explaining them. This model also means that leaders should consider their team members’ concerns and address them; providing a good example is an effective strategy. Finally, authoritative leadership denotes that managers are more concerned with organizational goals compared to the transformational approach. This model significantly relies on leaders’ self-confidence since it allows them to set specific purposes and make others actively participate in achieving them.
The information above demonstrates that my personal model of leadership has some features that are peculiar for the three styles under analysis. Firstly, servant leadership is found because I do my best to ensure that patients’ needs are satisfied irrespective of what challenges it brings to me. Secondly, the authoritative style is present since self-confidence plays an essential role in my cooperation with colleagues. I tend to set specific goals and make others want to achieve them together since it will result in shared benefits. Thirdly, the transformational style fits my personal model because inspiring subordinates is essential because they can contribute to achieving organizational goals. Thus, it is evident that my professional practice utilizes characteristic features of various leadership styles.
Leadership Models and Change in an Organization
Implementing change is a practical approach to achieve better outcomes, meaning that leaders should invest many efforts to cope with this task. That is why the given section will contrast how the three models deal with this task. Transformational leadership is considered the most effective in this case since it focuses on achieving organizational goals. In particular, this approach invests in motivating subordinates to achieve these targets, which helps implement the required change (Eva et al., 2019). The other two styles can only be effective in this domain if they are perfectly balanced. It refers to the fact that servant leaders can draw much attention to serving subordinates’ needs, which will endanger bringing about change. Simultaneously, authoritative leaders can deviate from achieving the stipulated goal when their self-confidence makes them focus on generating personal gains (Coleman, 2019). It means that managers should attentively choose and implement an appropriate leadership style to ensure that they achieve the stipulated objectives.
Personal Model of Leadership in Conjunction with My Leadership Style
As has been mentioned above, my leadership model has some shared features with the servant, transformational, and authoritative leadership styles. This fact provides me with an opportunity to choose appropriate and effective behavior for specific situations. For example, I utilize servant leadership principles when working with patients, while transformational and authoritative concepts guide my relationship with colleagues and other subordinates. This information allows for supposing that the combination of the personal model and the three leadership styles leads to the fact that I am an efficient manager. It implies that my behavior can both contribute to better health outcomes among patients and promote achieving organizational change that is possible when individuals are sufficiently motivated to reach the shared objectives.
However, the information above does not mean that my leadership competency does not require any improvement. Any healthcare profession needs life-long learning, denoting that it is always necessary to enhance the existing skills. That is why the given paragraph will present an action plan using two SMART goals to achieve personal improvement in two areas regarding my leadership style. Goal 1: I will reduce by half the number of conflicts with my colleagues within a month by increasing my emotional intelligence. Various disputes often arise because negative feelings and emotions overwhelm me when I am tired and exhausted. That is why it is reasonable to minimize such cases to become an unbiased leader. Goal 2: I will improve my listening skills by avoiding situations when I interrupt partners in conversation within one month. It means that being an effective leader implies having an active listening skill.
Conclusion
The paper has commented on my model of leadership and three leadership styles. It has been identified that my professional behavior has some shared features with the servant, transformational, and authoritative approaches. Each of them is more effective in a particular situation, meaning that it is reasonable to combine them. Since it is necessary to keep improving leadership skills, the paper has offered an action plan consisting of two SMART goals that contribute to my personal development.
References
Coleman, B. (2019).Different leadership styles compared to servant leadership. Alpha Kappa PSI. Web.
Eva, N., Robin, M., Sendiyaya, S., van Dierendonck, D., & Liden, R. C. (2019). Servant leadership: A systematic review and call for future research.The Leadership Quarterly, 30(1), 111-132. Web.
Fox, M. (2019). Transformational leadership vs. servant leadership: 3 key differences.Berrett-Koehler Publishers. Web.
Gandolfi, F., & Stone, S. (2018). Leadership, leadership styles, and servant leadership. Journal of Management Research, 18(4), 261-269.
Indeed. (2021). 5 common leadership models for your business.Web.