What did I learn from leadership theories?

After taking the midterm, I realized that my concept of leadership changed due to all the things that I have learned in this class. I have learned from different theories that there different types of leaders. However, some of these theories have limited our opinions because they tend to categorize people in groups without realizing that leaders don’t act the same way all the time. I believe that one of the most significant things I have learned this semester is that a leader is constantly changing. I used to think that a person needed to have a number of specific characteristics in order to be a leader, but fortunately that is not true. After all the leadership theories that I have studied, I learned that theories such as the trait based leadership theory and the archetype theory are a good reference for people that is looking for specific skills or traits in a person for a specific position in a group, organization or company, but we should not let those theories label people with a permanent tag.

Furthermore, taking the PMAI assessment proved me that a person changes depending on the situation they are facing. My results in the PMAI said that I was a sage, but I know that I'm not a sage all the time because I tend to be a jester and magician in some circumstances and I am sure that the same happen with the rest of the people that took this test. Therefore, I believe that we have certain traits that stand out among the rest, but as I mentioned before, that is not a reason to label people. On the contrary, it should be a way to learn from the people we are working with in order to find the best way to communicate with them and have a better relationship. Another test that made me learn new things about my leadership skills is Leadership Practices Inventory test because it showed me that the perspective that people have from you as a leader might not be the same as the one you have from yourself. And that is the reason why a leader needs to communicate with its followers with the intention of finding out what they think and what they expect from their leaders.

Besides learning the new theories and learning about myself by taking the assessments, I learned how to apply all my knowledge to fictitious and real life situations. First, by identifying the different phases of the LMX theory in the serie LOST and then by figuring out what leadership theory fitted each character in the movie A Knight’s Tale. I’m proud to say that now I am able to identify the different types of leaders by their actions, attitudes, and skills, but I also learned that leaders change constantly so I have to be open minded all the time and not fall in the tramp of locking up someone in a category that they don’t belong to.