1) Description of my leadership vision and philosophy:

A review of the different leadership theories reveals that the definitions, conceptions of leadership have evolved over the past century. According to me, new leadership theories emerge as long as the society change. That’s why we will never have a totally accurate “global definition”of leadership but only a good definition depending on the historic context and way to conceive the world.

The early theories focus on a very individualistic approach of leadership. Trait theories tends to define leader just by naming key characteristics (clever, creative, persuasive…) But all the leaders are different and have a unique combination of qualities.
For me, the behavioural school and even more the situational school describes leardership in a a more complete way.
The behavioural school emphasizes on relationships. It’s essential to me because you can’t be a leader with no people to lead or without taking people into account. But it’s not all about the people too. The Blake Mouton Managerial Grid is an interesting tool to illustrate the point. It’s a grid with concern for production on the horizontal axis and concern for people on the vertical axis. Blake and Mouton come to conclusion that “Team Management” (high concern for both employee and production) is the most effective way to manage people. A good balance is necessary.

The situational school argues that the leadership style to be used depends on environmental variables. I totally agree with this assumption. Be a leader in the automotive industry or in a service company don’t require the same qualities, way to communicate than in a service company. Even in a same company, leadership style varies with economic situation.

Personally, I think that the main role of a leader is to shape followers, motivate them, help them in order to achieve organizational goals. Burn and Bass speak about transformational leadership.
Here the Burn definition: