Reflective Essay: Leadership Styles and Their Impact on My Life

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REFLECTIVE ESSAY
Contents
INTRODUCTION............................................................................................................................. 3
BODY.............................................................................................................................................. 3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................. 5
REFERENCES...................................................................................................................................7

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INTRODUCTION
At present, in various situations of life, ‘leadership’ is a notion which can be useful to make the
things effective and beneficial. Leadership is basically the actions of the leaders to lead an
organization or group of people or rather have the ability and skills to do so (Northouse, 2018).
Leaders the people with a particular vision, motivation, need to serve people with empathy and
innovate by managing, team building and risk-taking skills to attain improvement in future.
Similarly, in my life, the leadership has posted a great influence on several events and helped
me to make tasks easier and effective (Raelin, 2011). My personal leadership traits and skills to
handle different situations like my education, career and then my job life and future needs.
Here, in this particular reflective essay, I am going to describe leadership, my personal
experiences and expert views which has changed my life with several events. The essay will
include some leadership definitions and skills possessed by the leaders which were described
according to the reflective models and theories like Maslow hierarchy of needs, Gibb’s
reflective cycle etc.
BODY
There are different types of leadership styles, models and theories defined by the practitioners
in different sectors, experts, scholars and leaders themselves. The most effective leadership
styles are the trait theory, behavioural theory, autocratic and democratic styles and Laissez-
Faire Leadership etc. The leadership styles named here are some of the best methods to lead
the people and attain the desired goals and objectives rather common or personal (Goleman,
2017). According to the trail theory of leadership, people are born with the leadership traits and
skills and just because of this certainty, people with correct traits and capabilities are best
suited for pursuing leadership. In my perception also, this theory is an elaborated form of the
behavioural of leadership which both are amongst the oldest theories that define that who are
a good leader and who are not (DePree, 2011). After understanding this theory, I had tried to
use it in my life and after which I also found that the using this theory need to have skills like
tenacity, positive energy, flexibility etc. Since the trait theory and the behavioural theories are
mostly related to each other and hence the leaders practising these styles might have the same

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set of skills and abilities (Chemers, 2014). There is a model which can effectively define the
behavioural theory of leadership; the Tannenbaum and Schmidt Graph which states that their
can has two directions of the use of leadership styles and skills which are boss centred and
subordinate centred. The first way emphasizes on imposing duties and responsibilities with
authority while other provides a sense of freedom to the subordinates and colleagues (MALOŞ,
2012).
In addition to this, the evaluation of the leadership style by the Tannenbaum and Schmidt
Graph is also helpful in determining the variation in the authority in autocratic and democratic
leaders. An autocratic leader will always have directed towards the final decisions made by the
managers and leaders which might be not beneficial for all whereas in democratic leadership
the imposition of the decisions on staff and colleagues is done after discussing with them and
providing them freedom and no limits to deal any kind of situation (Chaudhry and Javed, 2012).
Moreover, there is another leadership theory given by Laissez Faire, which says that the leaders
are the people who gave full authority to the team members and subordinates and make
decisions with their support and help. In addition to this, the leaders using this style force
people to solve problems on their own so that they can understand the intermediate events
and knowledge. In my personal opinion, this should be used in case of any urgency, important
work or while communicating directly on phone or face to face (Metcalf and Benn, 2013).
People using these styles as their weapon eventually may lead to slow success and experience
numerous hindrances in their path.
Above mentioned are some of the most used leadership styles by people all over the world and
also by me. Analysing these different types of leadership styles and models I come to know that
the leadership is not a simple set of rules or a defined practice, rather it is a very complex
process which includes several internal processes like planning, deciding, understanding etc.
Hence leadership is very important for the professional workplaces and personal life also.
Leadership styles like democratic and lasiez Faire theory help in focusing on the vision and
motivate people or enhancing the morale of the subordinates.