What Type of Leader are You?
Over the past month I have been spending most of my time in the classroom, leading a few of the many courses Pathways Training & eLearning offers related to excellence in team management, professionalism in the workplace and project management. As such I thought it would be interesting to discuss this week and next, one of my favorite topics that is part of our management training, and that is “What type of leader are you”?
Next week I will spend more time discussing why this is an important distinction to make, however for now I would offer that in a nutshell, understanding what type of leader you are will greatly enhance your ability to not only work well with your team, but also provide you key insights that will help improve your own personal wellbeing as it relates to managing stress and difficult situations.
So, to get started and before we review the first half of the leader profiles, to help determine what type of leader you are, ask yourself these questions…
“What matters most? How do I define success? Is a successful business career just as, or more important than a successful home life”?
Most successful leaders perceive themselves the same way as they are perceived by those they lead and work with. Understanding that, in most instances a successful leader could ask his/her team to answer the same questions on their behalf and receive, the same answers. By that I mean it would be no surprise to the team how their manager answered.
OK. So, let’s look at the different Leader types. For the sake of this discussion I am going to present a total of 10…5 this week, and then another 5-next week with additional commentary on how we work with these different leaders.
Democratic
Focus on team contributions. great way to build a happy team and make employees feel great about themselves and what they can give to the company. Good thing you’re so good at it! You probably know just how to motivate truly creative types to achieve their best, while making yourself look good at the same time. The down side is that it can lead to a little bit of (dare we say) inefficiency and delay in action sometimes. So make sure you have a way to keep your team on track and headed for success and go for it!
Strategic Leadership Style
Strategic leadership is one that involves a leader who is essentially the head of an organization. The strategic leader is not limited to those at the top of the organization. It is geared to a wider audience at all levels who want to create a high performance life, team or organization.
The strategic leader fills the gap between the need for new possibility and the need for practicality by providing a prescriptive set of habits. An effective strategic leadership delivers the goods in terms of what an organization naturally expects from its leadership in times of change. 55% of this leadership normally involves strategic thinking.
Transformational Leadership
Unlike other leadership styles, transformational leadership is all about initiating change in organizations, groups, oneself and others.
Transformational leaders motivate others to do more than they originally intended and often even more than they thought possible. They set more challenging expectations and typically achieve higher performance.
Statistically, transformational leadership tends to have more committed and satisfied followers. This is mainly so because transformational leaders empower followers.
Laissez-faire Leadership
Laissez-faire leadership gives authority to employees. According to azcentral, departments or subordinates are allowed to work as they choose with minimal or no interference. According to research, this kind of leadership has been consistently found to be the least satisfying and least effective management style.
Transactional Leadership
This is a leadership that maintains or continues the status quo. It is also the leadership that involves an exchange process, whereby followers get immediate, tangible rewards for carrying out the leader’s orders. Transactional leadership can sound rather basic, with its focus on exchange.
Next week I will continue this discussion providing the next 5 leader types, and as well we will discuss best practices for success.
