I believe that good leadership is one of the most important elements of organizational success and one of the main factors in creating positive organizational cultures. Therefore, I have chosen leadership as my scholarly interest area, and I have written about it extensively. Leadership is an authentic self-expression of who we are and by becoming better leaders we become better human beings transforming people so that they can live better lives. One is not born to be a leader, but one can evolve into a good leader thought a developmental journey. In my dissertation long time ago, I wrote about this journey discussing the archetypes involved in leadership development. In my life, I have traveled this journey and evolved into the authentic servant leader that I am today. As a lifelong student to analytical psychology, I am constantly analyzing my archetypal manifestations. Archetypes are around us and impact our lives whether we are aware of them or not. Our lives follow these archetypal patterns. Therefore, they also influence our leadership development journeys as we become more authentic leaders.

Authentic Leadership, in turn, refers to a leadership style in which the leader remains true to oneself. Authentic leaders perceive themselves as being active participants in their own life stories and actively evaluate their own leadership behaviors. They take responsibility for their own decisions and actions and seek to learn lessons from their experiences. They are true to themselves, proactive, and self-aware. I see myself this way and take active responsibility for all my decisions and actions. I see myself as an existentialist and embrace the concept of continually thriving to be better. I also recognize that I am responsible for my own choices and finding my own meaning in everything that I do. I have chosen leadership in higher education to be my meaning and purpose. I am constantly moving forward on my leadership development journey. I believe that once you start on your journey of being authentic and learn self-discipline to stay on this learning path, you will expand your consciousness and increase your empathy for yourself and others in an ever-evolving cycle.

I see myself as a servant leader because I always seek to help and support others. According to the servant leadership model, the goal of leadership is to serve. Together with the authentic leadership ideals, servant leadership is a particularly applicable approach to leadership during these modern times, and especially in higher education. A servant leader shares power and puts the needs of the employees first. A servant leader helps people to develop and perform as well as possible. The leader exists to serve the people, instead of the people working to serve the leader. The benefit of servant leadership is that both the leader and the followers benefit from personal growth and development. In addition, organizations grow and prosper because of improved organizational commitment and engagement. Due to these benefits, servant leadership is being practiced in many top ranked organizations, including universities and colleges. In these institutions, the leaders go above and beyond the call of duty, and experience higher sense of satisfaction about their leadership roles. I am one of these leaders.