Abstract Leadership is an essential part of any organization becoming and remaining successful. It is a prized commodity and not something that should be taken for granted or undervalued. The right leader can develop an organization into an effective and efficient powerhouse, where the wrong leader can single-handedly destroy the organization. Northouse (2013) defines leadership as "a process whereby, an individual influences a group of individuals to achieve a common goal." Fortunately, one can become a better leader by developing a better understanding of the historical, political, social, cultural, psychological, and organizational contexts in which leadership occurs. This paper explains what the author has learned in the Leadership in HR course and has as result become a better leader. The author details how he is able to identify leaders using the Trait Approach, Skills Approach, and Style Approach, as well as, match leaders with subordinates by using the Situational Approach, Contingency Theory, and Path-Goal Theory. The author also explains how he has become more cognizant of his own leadership style and how he can develop his style and implement other techniques to better understand and influence subordinates. Keywords: Leadership, Situational Approach As a Senior Human Resources Officer and a Leader in the United States Army, I found this class not only to be very informative, but very useful for future practice and application. Through the myriad of different leadership theories and approaches, I have developed a better understanding of the historical, political, social, cultural, psychological, and organizational contexts in which leadership occurs. I am knowledgeable in several ways to identify personnel who may make for better leaders using the Trait Approach, Skills Approach, and Style Approach. I am also able to better match leaders with subordinates by using the Situational Approach, Contingency Theory, and Path-Goal Theory. Finally, and probably most importantly, I have learned different techniques of leadership that I can personally apply as a leader to better understand and influence my subordinates. The ability to identify leadership candidates will be a very useful skill set I can apply in hiring and promoting personnel into leadership positions. From the instruction in this course I have learned several approaches to identify potential leaders. Through the Traits Approach, which emphasizes the personality characteristics of a leader, the Skills Approach, which emphasizes leader capabilities, and the Style Approach, which emphasizes the behavior of the leader, I can select the right people to succeed in leadership roles (Northouse, 2013). All three approaches can be effectively used to identify people who have the potential to be strong leaders. I would potentially use the questionnaires for all three approaches during the hiring process to help determine if they have the traits, skills, and behavior of the type of leader the organization would like to hire. In my opinion, the Trait Approach is the most basic and primitive approach to leadership as I do not believe that certain people are simply born with the major leadership traits of intelligence, integrity, self-confidence, sociability, and determination (Northouse, 2013). However, using the Leadership Trait Questionnaire (LTQ) during the hiring/promotion process could help identify personnel who currently have those