Am I Leader in My Field? If I Am, What Kind of Leader Am I?

My journey to go back to school for my Master's degree at age 52, surprised some of my family and colleagues.  I love to learn and want to learn all that I can about early childhood so I can in turn guide others to a better level of understanding through my work as a trainer and consultant.

I applied for the Iowa AEYC Leadership Fellowship which involved creating a project to demonstrate my leadership qualities and improve the quality of early childhood in some way in our state.  In return, they awarded me $4000 towards my Master's program.

So I come to question of,  if I am indeed a leader in my state, what kind of leader am I and what kind of leader do I want to be?

I ran across an article "Reconciling Leadership and Partnership Strategies to Empower Professionals and Families" by Allred and Hancock in the May 2015 issue of Young Children that speaks to this question.  It poses two types of leadership models. The traditional leadership model versus a servant leadership model. In the article Allred and Hancock compare and contrast these two models based on "who can be a leader"; "what leadership looks like"; "how is leadership maintained"; "what are the significant characteristics of a leader?(Young Children, p. 47, May 2015)

The traditional model focuses mainly on leadership that must be earned and recognized by others, whereas, the servant model focuses on how when we give up our own power to others and empower them to do something, we are leaders in a different way.  This type of leadership doesn't require anyone else but ourself to achieve it. (Young Children, May 2015)

The article was very interesting and made me think.