LEAD 6021 Module 2 Comparison of Two Leadership Styles in Practice Example

The Visionary and the Steward: Comparing Transformational and Servant Leadership in Two Educators Who Run One Hospital's Nurse Residency Program

Student Name

American College of Education

LEAD6021: Leadership Seminar

Module 2 Assignment

Instructor Name

October 19, 2026

Introduction

Module 1 ended with a question: does servant leadership offer something distinct from transformational leadership, as one meta-analysis suggested, and would it suit a department whose work is developing nurses? This paper looks for an answer close to home. The nurse residency program at my composite Michigan community hospital is run by two educators whose styles differ sharply. I compare them using each theory's defining behaviors, what residents and preceptors say about working with them and what research suggests each style is good for. The names used here are pseudonyms.

Two Theories in Brief

In the full-range tradition, a transformational leader offers a picture of the future worth working toward, sets a personal example, pushes people to question routines and pays attention to each person's needs. Servant leadership begins elsewhere. Van Dierendonck (2011), synthesizing the field, described servant leaders as people who combine a motivation to lead with a need to serve and who show it by empowering and developing people, expressing humility, authenticity, interpersonal acceptance and stewardship and providing direction. Liden et al. (2008) developed a multidimensional measure of servant leadership, with dimensions that include helping subordinates grow and succeed, putting them first, empowering them, behaving ethically and creating value for the community, and found that it explained outcomes such as commitment and performance beyond what transformational leadership and leader-member exchange accounted for.

The difference, in short, lies in the leader's primary focus: the organization's vision for transformational leaders, the followers' growth for servant leaders.

Dana: The Residency Coordinator

Dana coordinates the twelve-month residency for about 60 new graduate nurses a year. She is a vivid speaker who opens each cohort by describing the kind of nurse the hospital wants them to become, uses stories from her own early practice and sets high expectations: every resident completes an evidence-based practice project and presents it at a hospital poster day. She is quick with praise in public, pushes residents to question routines on their units and is the person residents name when asked who inspired them. These are textbook transformational behaviors: an inspiring vision, role modeling and intellectual stimulation.

Her limits show in the details. Residents describe her as hard to reach between monthly seminars, and preceptors say she sets standards for the projects without asking how residents on night shift will find time to complete them. She leads the program toward a vision, and the program follows, but the people carrying the load are not always the ones she sees.

Marcus: The Clinical Education Specialist

Marcus is the clinical education specialist for the medical-surgical units, where most residents start. He rarely speaks at seminars. Instead he spends three shifts a week on the units, works alongside residents during their first difficult admissions, meets each preceptor monthly and asks what they need. When night-shift residents fell behind on their projects last year, he arranged protected time and a quiet room on two nights a month. Preceptors describe him as the person who "takes things off your plate." His behaviors map onto servant leadership's dimensions: helping others grow, putting them first, empowering preceptors to make decisions about their residents and showing humility about his own role.

His limits are the mirror of Dana's. Residents like and trust him but rarely mention him as the person who changed how they see nursing, and he has never set a program-wide direction; his improvements stay on his units.

What Residents and Preceptors Report

The program's end-of-year survey asks residents to rate support from the residency staff and to name who most influenced them. Last year, residents on Marcus's medical-surgical units rated support at 4.6 out of 5, compared with 4.1 on other units, while Dana was named as the most influential person by 31 of 58 residents. Preceptors on Marcus's units were also more likely to volunteer for a second year. First-year retention of residents was similar across units, so neither style can be credited with keeping nurses. The survey is the program's own, unvalidated and completed by residents who know both educators, so these figures describe a pattern, not an effect.

How I Gathered the Evidence

The descriptions above come from three sources rather than from my impressions alone. I attended two of Dana's seminars and spent two shifts shadowing Marcus on the medical-surgical units, taking notes on what each did and said. I reviewed the residency's end-of-year survey, including the open comments. And I asked four preceptors, two on Marcus's units and two elsewhere, the same three questions: what the residency staff do that helps them, what they wish the staff did and whom they call when a resident is struggling. All four named Marcus as the person they would call, including the two who do not work on his units, which suggests his reputation has spread further than his formal role. Observation by a supervisor changes behavior, so both educators knew I was watching; that limits what I saw, but both styles were plainly visible anyway.

Comparing the Styles

Placed side by side, the two styles appear to serve different needs. Dana's style creates direction and aspiration: residents know what kind of nurse they are working toward, and the poster day gives the program visibility with hospital leaders. Marcus's style creates conditions: preceptors feel supported, residents get help at the moments they need it most and problems are solved before they reach a seminar. The research pattern fits. Transformational leadership has a strong meta-analytic record for outcomes tied to motivation and satisfaction with the leader (Judge & Piccolo, 2004), while the measure Liden et al. (2008) developed captured servant leadership's distinct contribution to commitment and to followers' growth, the very outcomes preceptors describe on Marcus's units.

The Risks in Each Style

Each style has a characteristic risk. A transformational leader can pull followers toward a vision that ignores what it costs them, which is what happened with the night-shift residents. A servant leader can meet needs so well, one person at a time, that the organization never gets a shared direction, which is why Marcus's improvements have not spread. Van Dierendonck (2011) included providing direction among servant leadership's characteristics, a reminder that serving followers does not mean leaving them without a destination.

Implications for My Own Leadership

As director, I supervise both educators and lead the department they work in. The comparison suggests I should not choose between their styles but combine them in the department's structure: Dana's vision setting the program's direction, Marcus's practice of asking what people need built into how the vision is carried out. Concretely, the residency's project requirements will be reviewed this year with preceptors and night-shift residents before they are reissued, and Marcus will be asked to lead that review. For my own style, which leans toward Dana's, the lesson is to spend more time where the work is done and to ask before I set expectations.

Conclusion

Comparing two people in one program made the theories concrete. Dana shows what transformational leadership does well and where it can overlook the people carrying the load; Marcus shows what servant leadership adds and where it can stay local. Neither style is sufficient alone, and the research suggests why: they contribute to different outcomes. The question for my philosophy, which this seminar will ask me to write, is how to hold both.

References

Judge, T. A., & Piccolo, R. F. (2004). Transformational and transactional leadership: A meta-analytic test of their relative validity. Journal of Applied Psychology, 89(5), 755-768. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.89.5.755

Liden, R. C., Wayne, S. J., Zhao, H., & Henderson, D. (2008). Servant leadership: Development of a multidimensional measure and multi-level assessment. The Leadership Quarterly, 19(2), 161-177. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2008.01.006

van Dierendonck, D. (2011). Servant leadership: A review and synthesis. Journal of Management, 37(4), 1228-1261. https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206310380462