Why blended leadership works best.

When I was working on my doctorate last year, Peter Northouse’s “Leadership: Theory and Practice” was a text in one of my classes. It’s a deep dive into different leadership models, including transformational, transactional, adaptive, et cetera. 

What struck me most about this book was the sheer number of leadership models and how differently leadership can be practiced. Leadership isn’t one-size-fits-all, and honestly, many of us only ever scratch the surface of these models, if we know about them at all.

Take servant leadership, for example. Before my doctoral program, it was the only leadership model I ever heard people reference. When I interview people for jobs and ask about their leadership style, I often silently wager whether they’ll name servant leadership because it’s that ubiquitous. 

Although we didn’t study it in-depth in my program, I’ve seen how frequently servant leadership is applied—and, in some cases, overused—in leadership discussions. It’s often held up as the gold standard, but I suspect that’s because it’s the one model most people know. While it has its place, I’ve found that servant leadership doesn’t always provide the depth or adaptability needed to address the complexities leaders face today.

For me, adaptive leadership—a model we did explore deeply—resonated. It’s a framework designed to tackle change, uncertainty and the hard questions that don’t have obvious answers. While servant leadership focuses on the needs of others, adaptive leadership challenges both leaders and their teams to confront difficult realities and find new ways forward. It also challenges the leader to determine when the team needs to be empowered and when they need decisive direction. 

In today’s higher education landscape, I believe the combination of these approaches is what’s truly needed.

Why Servant Leadership Feels Familiar—But Not Always Enough

Servant leadership is built on the idea of empowering your team and leading with empathy. It’s a leadership style that feels particularly at home in higher education, where collaboration, support and mission-driven work are central. It also aligns with the ethos of the modern workplace, where it’s no longer acceptable—or effective—to focus exclusively on top-down leadership.

But here’s where I think we need to dig deeper. Servant leadership often emphasizes “leading from behind”—listening, supporting and stepping back to allow others to shine. Although there’s obvious value in this, it doesn’t address the moments when a leader needs to step up, make tough decisions and guide their team through complex challenges.

Conversely, adaptive leadership is designed for managing complexity. It helps organizations and teams navigate change, tackle uncertainty and address systemic challenges. Unlike a servant leader, an adaptive leader identifies when it’s time to step back and let the team solve the challenge versus the time to direct the team and push people out of their comfort zones.

The Strength of Combining Servant and Adaptive Leadership

Although my understanding of servant leadership is admittedly surface-level, I do see its value as a foundational approach—particularly in building trust, collaboration and a sense of safety within a team. However, adaptive leadership takes this foundation and adds the tools to tackle complexity and change. 

Effective leadership isn’t about choosing one model over another. It’s about knowing when to apply each approach based on the situation at hand. The ability to blend these styles seamlessly can make a leader more responsive, resilient and impactful.

Leadership in Action: When Strategy Matters More Than Support

Let’s be honest: you can’t always lead from behind. There are moments when stepping forward is non-negotiable. As much as I admire the principles of servant leadership, I’ve seen firsthand that leadership often requires more than listening and supporting. It requires decisiveness, strategy and the courage to bring your team through difficult transitions.

A Real-World Leadership Challenge

Imagine a university grappling with declining enrollment, and you are the new leader of the marketing and communications team. The team is bogged down in projects, overwhelmed by the workload and can’t dig out. 

This is exactly what I experienced when I took over a marcomm team several years ago. The team needed structure and process, as well as guidance on how to prioritize work.   

• A servant leader might focus on supporting staff, listening to their concerns and ensuring collaboration in decision-making.
• An adaptive leader, however, would step forward to guide the department through tough decisions—like defining priorities, establishing strong project management or investing in additional staff.

In my scenario, I knew what needed to happen and saw an urgency in putting structures in place. A major issue was a lack of project management, for example. My first new hire was a person who could lead the development of processes and implement a new project management system. However, when I reflect on my approach, I believe I focused too much on action and not enough on being a servant leader. The adaptive leadership model needed to carry more weight to address the challenges, but a servant leadership approach could have managed the cultural shift better and prevented some unnecessary staff turnover. 

This is why balance is key.

Why Leadership Training Needs a Fresh Approach

These are only two models of leadership that I find interesting and use in my work. As I continue to mature in my style, I reflect a lot on the good, the bad, the different approaches and the process of growing. 

I realize that leadership is so critical to the success of an organization, yet we don’t put enough time into growing our leadership expertise. Nobody is born a good leader. We may have strong leadership tendencies, but leadership is a learned skill that needs more focus, attention and training. 

The most effective leaders I’ve worked with—and aspired to emulate—never stop learning and improving because they realize they play a critical role in the lives of their teams. They take that responsibility seriously. 

They work to build trust, but they don’t shy away from difficult decisions. 

They lead with empathy, but they also lead with purpose.