Why it’s Valuable to Know about Different Leadership Theories

In my leadership coaching in London, I often state to my clients that there is no “method” or skillset to be a great leader. Leadership is about authenticity and being connected to your higher goals that come from your true nature.

Those goals, true nature, and authenticity will not follow a mold but rather be unique to each leader. As it says in the best leadership book, the commonality is that they bore not fear, of ego or victim ego, but of a higher nature of creation.

When on a lake and sailing to a beautiful island, the route doesn’t matter as long as you get to the island. Different leadership theories are like different routes to the island, which show different paths and routes that previous leaders have taken over the years. It is useful to know these paths, but know that they are essentially false constructs. They are all water – there are no paths on the lake. What this show is that if you feel inclined to follow a certain path it can take you to the island as it has been traveled along before.

So learning about situational leadership , Level 5 leadership, servant leadership, trait theory, great man theory and so on are very useful inputs if you know that these are just different maps of how to get to where you truly want to get to. The aim is not to evaluate which leadership type is best and will get the best results. As most, these can help you find different models of leadership where one or more may speak to you, to your soul, as being the type of leadership most aligned with who you are as a leader. This is useful for self awareness and self knowledge, not a how to guide.

The core processes of leadership are to know yourself, your goals, your true purpose, the culture you want to create to enable these goals through your organisation. And to do all of these from a higher place, a place untouched by ego and fear driven aims.