In order to conduct an assessment of my leadership skills, I completed Leadership Legacy Assessment Test. According to the results of Leadership Legacy Assessment Test, I was classified as an authoritative delegative leader. In the past, authoritative type of leadership was considered to be the most effective. However, modern theoretical approaches to the analysis of leadership emphasize the importance of leader’s ability to influence, rather than to monitor, or to control, which is usually associated with an authoritative type of leadership. According to Shaffer (2015), the most effective leader is the one who is honest, has a clear understanding of the company’s vision and mission and continuously translates them into practice, and adopts an effective strategy of communication.

The authoritative type of leadership has been empirically proven to be ineffective, especially in Western individualistic societies that value freedom highly. Therefore, it might be helpful for me to switch to the type of leadership that is relationship rather than task oriented. One example of such types of leadership is servant leadership that recently has grown in popularity. Effective servant leaders possess the ability to both evaluate corporate culture and assess the potential of each individual employee. Spears (2002) defines the following characteristics of servant leadership – healing, awareness, listening, empathy, persuasion, foresight, stewardship, commitment, and community.

Listening implies that a leader is able to listen to the needs of his or her subordinates. The concept of empathy emphasizes leader’s ability to emphasize with employee concerns and problems. In the meantime, healing implies that a leader needs to be able to promote and implement integration within a company. The concept of awareness has the embedded message that a good servant leader needs to possess a high level of self-awareness. Stewardship means that a leader is responsible for proving himself or herself as a trustworthy person and encouraging trust within an organization. Conceptualization and foresight come together. Namely, with the ability to foresee the consequences, a situation is easier to define and therefore easier to assess. Servant leaders need to demonstrate commitment both to employees and stakeholders. Finally, the concept of community emphasizes the importance of building a community within the institution. Community as such has been lost, and therefore employees seek for their community needs being satisfied in the workplace.

Authoritative leadership that, according to the test, is my leadership style, is usually focused on decreasing employee autonomy. However, studies show that employee autonomy in general leads to higher rates of productivity (Thompson, 2014). In case employees are given a certain level of autonomy, they rate higher their potential from the point of view of introducing changes. In addition to this, the company benefits from employee autonomy because the later creates an opportunity to take the perspectives of employees of different ranks into account. Thus, my leadership strategy might be more effective if a company that I am a part of switches from vertical to horizontal system of power.

It is also important to work on the development of a visionary type of leadership. Namely, a visionary leader constantly seeks for improvement. He or she is never satisfied with the status quo and continuously introduces changes to improve company’s productivity. Given the highly competitive environment, successful companies today should be in the constant process of change. A leader who has an eye towards the future might make a very important contribution to it. In addition to this, employees should also be actively involved in the process of introducing changes. In this situation, a leader is responsible for creating the environment where employees would be encouraged to share their perspectives on the areas where change is needed and the process of how this change is to be introduced.

Finally, the process of globalization brings individuals with different cultural and ethnic backgrounds together, which presents both a challenge and an opportunity for organizations. Taking different perspectives into account that are based on unique cultural experiences significantly increases company’s potential. However, it is also important to understand that leaders in multinational companies often face the problem of differences in employee values and drivers for engagement. In addition to this, a failure to appreciate diversity in international companies might lead to conflicts. A good leader is the one who is able to solve problems that demand both analytical and creative type of thinking. Also, an effective leader has the ability to persuade employees that the solution that he or she offers is the best option. This ability also positively correlates with the leader’s perceived ‘credibilty’ among employees.

Leadership and management roles are often mentioned as synonyms. Although sometimes the roles that are supposed to be performed by a leader and a manager might overlap, there are also strong differences between them that are to be taken into account. As it has already been noted, a leader is someone who encourages, creates, and affects positive changes within the company. In contrast, according to Caroselli (2000), the main role of a manager is to maintain the status quo. In addition to this, the difference between leaders and managers lies within the field of the ability to influence/ability to control. While leaders’ task is to positively affect a company by positively influencing employees, managers achieve it through the process of control and monitoring. Also, while leaders achieve the ability to influence by motivating employees, encouraging trust and demonstrating their credibility, managers are usually autocratic. As it has been noted before, leadership was found to be more effective, if compared to leadership.