Introduction. Leadership is one of the most mysterious phenomena that occur in our society. Leaders appeared in the ancient times and since then the necessity in leadership has increased. Our society has become more complicated. Today there are a lot of social units on different levels that need leaders to function effectively. But it has been a difficult task to understand how leadership occurs. Leaders are different, their tasks vary, as well as the way they lead their teams. Being an effective leader in one organisation does not presuppose the same success in other organisation. There are many "but" in this field of study, leadership raises lots of questions. No wonder that there are several approaches to leadership. The aim of this paper is to assess the applicability and value of different approaches using a service organisation as an example. I have chosen Quality Arcticus Hotel in Harstad and three of its leaders as a field for my research. I work at this organisation, so I know the personnel and I have observed the style of their work for some period. Now I will use my knowledge and the method of interview to go deeper into the question. Quality Arcticus Hotel is a typical service organisation that offers lodging and catering. The restaurant and the cafe belonging to the hotel are both very popular among the citizens of Harstad. The hotel itself is the second best in the town, following Rokenes Gjestegard (which takes the first place due to its exclusiveness) Such success of Arcticus Hotel would be impossible without effective leadership. My work consists of theoretical and practical parts. In the theoretical part I describe the approaches that we have been introduced to. In the practical part I take a look at the structure of the Quality Arcticus Hotel and try to apply different approaches to leadership to understand the style of work of the three leaders that I have chosen as the subject for my study. I describe what, in my opinion, helps these three persons to be effective leaders (if they are so in reality) 2. Theory about leadership. 2.1 Definitions of leadership Defining leadership has been a complex and elusive problem largely because the nature of leadership itself is complex. A lot of studies have emerged from every discipline "that has had some interest in the subject of leadership: anthropology, business administration, educational administration, history, military science, nursing administration, organizational behaviour, philosophy, political science, public administration, psychology, sociology, and theology." (Rost, J. C. Leadership for the Twenty-first Century, p. 45) Joseph Rost -- and many others, including James MacGregor Burns, Warren Bennis, and Henry Mintzberg -- goes on to argue that the entire history of modern leadership studies has been seriously flawed. First, because while everyone talks about leadership, no-one has satisfactorily defined what it actually is. Like art, we seem to know it only when we see it. (www.infinitefutures.com) We can see how definition of leadership changed: 1927: "...the ability to impress the will of the leader on those led and induce obedience, respect, loyalty, and cooperation." (Steward, in Moore, 1927) 1930's: "...interaction between specific traits of one person and other traits of the many, in such a way that the course of action of the many is changed by the one." (Bogardus, 1934) "Leadership may be broadly defined as the relation between an individual and a group built around some common interest and behaving in a manner directed or determined by him." (Schmidt, 1933, page 282, quoted in Rost, page 48) 1940's: "Leadership...is the art of influencing...people by persuasion or example to follow a line of action. It must never be confused with drivership...which is the art of compelling...people by intimidation or force to follow a line of action." (Copeland, 1942) 1950's: "...the process (act) of influencing the activities of an organized group in its efforts towards goal setting and goal achievement." (Stogdill, 1950/1958) 1960's: "...acts by persons which influence other persons in a shared direction." (Seeman, 1960) 1970's: "...a process in which an individual takes initiative to assist a group to move towards the production goals that are acceptable to maintain the group, and to dispose the needs of individuals within the group that compelled them to join it." (Boles and Davenport, 1975) Warren Bennis and Burt Nanus in their book "Leaders" said that "Leaders lead by pulling rather than pushing; by inspiring rather than ordering; by creating achievable, though challenging, expectations and rewarding progress toward them rather than by manipulating; by enabling people to use their own initiative and experiences rather than by denying or constraining their experiences and actions. (Bennis, W.,Nanus, B.,1985:225) In 1993 Joseph C. Rost defined leadership for the twenty-first century: "Leadership is an influence relationship among leaders and followers who intend real changes that reflect their mutual purposes." Four essential elements must be present: 1. The relationship is based on influence. The influence relationship is multidirectional; the influence behaviours are no coercive. 2. Leaders and followers are the people in this relationship. The followers are active; there must be more than one follower, and there is typically more than one leader in the relationship; the relationship is inherently unequal because the influence patterns are unequal The definition given by Rost comprises all the previous attempts to define leadership, as it includes the elements reflected in the other definitions. However, most of the scholars considered some elements to be more important than others, so we have a number of approaches to leadership. We will describe the major ones in the next chapter. 2.2 Leadership evolution Our world is changing and these changing surroundings need new leaders. When the world used to be stable, the tasks of the leaders were to control and predict. ............