My Leadership Style – Learn the Different Styles!

I’ve taken many leadership profiles over the years in the workforce, so I have a good idea of where my leadership style should fall in my current roles as Mentor Chair and Vice President of Public Relations in Omni Toastmasters. Still, I was curious to see the results of this recent assessment. I was pleasantly unsurprised.

I’m sharing my leadership style because it determines how I interact with my team. If you want to adapt to your team, you should first know your style. Styles can be dependent on my current role as the skill that I’m utilizing skews the results towards my strength.

The big question was, “Will my leadership style help me deliver my responsibilities?” If not, I will need to change it. The highest score on the below chart shows my current leadership style.

 

My current style is authoritative. Let’s review the top two criteria for this style.

• Provides long-term direction. Does that match with my goals of Training and Development? Yes, I think it does. I have specific goals to reach by pre-determined dates.
• This style has more experience and knowledge than those they lead. I cannot say that I have more experience in Pathways and the training curriculum, but I have the most experience on my team. I have almost 40 years of managing new product launches on a very rigid timeline and have always managed to launch on time and within budget due to my planning and time management skills. This leadership style is supposed to help me get members the skills they need.
• Motivates by inspiring enthusiasm. Motivating is currently my most difficult task as a leader on this project. I’m working with new technology where team members have different skill levels and attitudes toward learning.

My biggest takeaway was that my skills are closely aligned with only one point separating each category. I’m utilizing all skills very closely with my team. I use the Authoritative style most of the time; however, I’m utilizing the different techniques just as efficiently.

Improving your leadership skills helps if your team knows their profile. That way, adjustments can be made on both sides for effective communication. I hope my analysis can give you the impetus to take a personality profile test, especially as a Toastmaster.