Leadership Style Assessment

Identify your leadership style with a leadership style assessment, and learn how to use your personality to your advantage. With increased awareness of personal leadership style, you will learn how to adjust your approach to become even more effective leaders.

19
jun
leadership_style

Leadership Styles in the Workplace: Benefits and Drawback to Each Style

Posted by Leadership, Leadership Style AssessmentNo Comments

Knowing your leadership style – and the styles of people around you – is important. If you are aware of your own style you can work with others better by adapting your style to meet the requirements of individual situations and personalities. If you can read others’ leadership styles you can handle workplace relationships with ease.

“Leadership style” is defined as a person’s unique way of influencing others to work toward goals. Within the specific styles there are also measurements of assertiveness and expressiveness that add to your own unique style. Assertiveness measures the degree to which a person tries to influence other people’s thoughts and actions. Expressiveness measures the degree to which a person displays his or her emotions when interacting with others.

These are the four leadership styles and their assertiveness/expressiveness levels:

  1. Direct – Direct leaders have high assertiveness and low expressiveness. They tend to lead by taking charge.
  2. Spirited – Spirited leaders have high assertiveness and high expressiveness. They usually lead others by inspiring them.
  3. Considerate – Considerate leaders have low assertiveness and high expressiveness. They lead by building group harmony.
  4. Systematic – Systematic leaders have low assertiveness and low expressiveness. They usually lead by planning carefully.

One style isn’t necessarily better than the others, and you could have traits of more than one style. The key is to know which one you are most like, and which ones your colleagues are. If you know these things you can use your style to interact with people better.

Benefits and Drawbacks of Each Style

Each type of leader has a time to shine. There are moments at work when being a specific kind of leader can be beneficial. Similarly, there are times when a certain kind of leader could have difficulty.

Direct: When there’s a work crisis, a direct leader’s take-charge style can help others push through tough situations. However, when delegating tasks to others is necessary, direct leaders may have trouble giving up control.

Spirited: If a group’s energy starts running low, a spirited leader’s spontaneity can provide a vital spark. However, their tendency to live in the present can be a problem in situations that require careful, long-term planning.

Considerate: Team harmony is vital, and a considerate leader has the ability and empathy to accommodate everyone. However, this could cause issues when one person pushes for a special interest and the considerate leader easily caves.

Systematic: Accuracy and objectivity at work are important, and they are strengths of a systematic leader. Their analytical style can be a valuable asset. However, when time pressures build their thoroughness may slow down projects.

Learning More About Leadership Styles

Learn more about leadership with HRDQ’s product What’s My Leadership Style!

18
feb
courageous_leadership

Courageous Leadership for Your Team

Posted by Leadership, Leadership Style AssessmentNo Comments

By Bill Treasurer

Leadership is commonly associated with action – trying, doing, achieving. However, there is another side to leadership that focuses on the followers: trust. Leaders need to actively trust their followers to show courageous leadership. This may sound simple, but it’s often harder for goal-oriented achievers.

The act of trusting often requires letting go of our need to control outcomes or people, our defense mechanisms, and our preconceptions about what is “right.” For hard-driving controlling types, such as the coffee-clutching professionals who make up much of today’s workforce, this goes against the grain of everything they stand for. Trust runs counter to the take-charge ethos that epitomizes today’s business world. In many companies, the most valued employees are those who, when encountering challenging situations, control chaos, force order, and take decisive action. As the Roman poet Virgil said, “Fortune favors the bold.”

“Trust Courage,” for managers, is a tricky thing. On one hand, you need your employees to trust you so that they follow your direction enthusiastically. On the other hand, you have to monitor their performance, which, if done too closely, often feels like distrust. Plus, many managers work in companies layered with systems that are inherently distrustful. It is more difficult to fill workers’ “trust buckets” if you’re an extension of a system that doesn’t trust them. “Sure,” your workers may say, “I’ll trust you… just as soon as you get the company to stop random drug testing, monitoring our e-mails, and making us submit time reports.”

New managers in particular are challenged with Trust Courage. Consider, for example, how hard it is for new managers to delegate important tasks to employees. In such instances, if the employee screws up, it can reflect on the manager, not the employee. Consequently, many new managers struggle to fully let go of delegated tasks, choosing to hover above direct reports like smothering parents. In so doing, they become Spillers, thwarting employee development and keeping themselves mired in tasks that they should have outgrown by this stage in their careers.

Delegation involves not acting on the temptation to grab the task back from the employee. The ability to delegate is directly proportional to how much trust a manager has in an employee. Trust doesn’t come easily for new managers (or immature experienced ones), because it involves intentionally refraining from controlling an outcome (or a person). If the manager doesn’t trust that the employee will get the job done, they will grab the task back and do it themselves — or worse, they won’t even give the task to the employee in the first place. The result is a sort of leadership dependency whereby workers wait to be told what to do, like baby birds waiting to be fed. When this happens, a dangerous spill cycle begins; the leader keeps doing the tasks, which keeps the workers from gaining the skills to do the tasks, which keeps the leader from delegating the tasks, which keeps the leader doing the tasks, etc.

Trust Courage involves taking risks on other people and accepting that you might get harmed in the process.

Trust is risky. When you trust, you become vulnerable to actions that are beyond your direct control. Your success becomes dependent upon someone else’s action. The challenge here is one of reliance; you have to give up direct control and rely on the actions of others. It is this lack of control that makes trust so difficult. Trusting you can harm me. Because of this risk, it takes courage to place trust in others. It takes Trust Courage, for example, to let employees do their jobs without interference. It takes Trust Courage to accept that, despite their best efforts, employees will make occasional mistakes.

To learn more about how to develop courage, attend HRDQ’s webinar “Courageous Leadership: How to Build Backbone, Boost Performance, and Get Results”. This webinar will allow attendees to understanding why courage is the premier personal and professional virtue while learning how to create an environment that supports ongoing courageous behavior. Participants will also receive tips on how to increase their courage while inspiring more workplace courage.

This webinar is based on the HRDQ product “Courageous Leadership.” Courageous Leadership is a comprehensive training package that introduces courage-building, which is a practice that guides leaders to readily meet challenges, fully embrace change, and speak more assertively.

 

Learn More
8
feb
Effective_Leadership

How to Improve Your Leadership Skills

Posted by Leadership, Leadership Style AssessmentNo Comments

Effective leadership is a skill that every manager needs to master. Effective leadership means more success – for the individual, team and organization as a whole. With strong leadership a business can thrive.

There are four types of leadership. One type is direct leaders who take charge and are forward and honest. Spirited leaders are energetic and assertive, and they lead by inspiring. Considerate leaders lead by being empathetic and building group harmony. Finally, systematic leaders are logical and they tend to plan carefully. Managers can encompass some or all of these leadership styles. Knowing your style is important, but also knowing ways to improve is crucial.

There is always room to improve one’s leadership skills. A few of them are listed below:

Create Your Vision

Vision is the ability to imagine the organization’s future and inspire others to work toward achieving goals. Leaders should continually look for new ideas and opportunities and ways to achieve them. Staying focused on the goal and assessing tasks and responsibilities as they unfold is essential.

Pursue Excellence

Leaders should set high expectations for themselves and identify ways to go the extra mile for employees and customers. They should strive for the best results from their staff and take risks when necessary. They should also seek new ways of doing things and be open to other suggestions.

Communicate Effectively

Communication is one of the most important ingredients for effective leadership. Managers should show their passion for the organization, voice ideas in a clear manner, listen to others, and share personal anecdotes to increase understanding. They should end with a call to action.

Build Trust

Managers should remain trustworthy in order to keep their team’s faith in them as a leader. They need to keep their promises, communicate directly and openly, be honest about problems, and take responsibility. If a leader is trustworthy their followers are likely to be trustworthy as well.

Inspire Others

Inspirational leaders are easier to follow. Managers who demonstrate their vision and communicate their ideas are inspirational. They can use a variety of approaches to inspire others around them.

Be Enthusiastic

If a leader is enthusiastic and appreciates their job, the positive environment will affect the entire team. When a leader shows enthusiasm they show others that work matters.

Develop your leadership by viewing HRDQ’s webinar Leading is a State of Being: Effective Leadership Skills . You will learn the key characteristics of effective leadership, how leaders can build trust and confidence with their employees, the behaviors that undermine leadership performance, and how to act decisively and demonstrate leadership during crises.

Further your leadership knowledge with the Leadership 101 customizable course. This is an effective training program that gives both newly emerging and experienced leaders and managers the tools and techniques for developing and refining their skills. This learning resource helps organizations retain employees and clients, make better decisions, and improve performance.

 

8
jan
leadership_styles

Looking at the Different Leadership Styles

Posted by Leadership, Leadership Style AssessmentNo Comments

Leadership is the process of influencing others to work toward predetermined goals. As a leader, knowing which of the leadership styles you are will help you navigate complex work situations with ease. Style is defined as the way a person usually behaves when he or she is able to do things their own way. If you put leadership and style together, leadership style is created: a person’s unique way of influencing others to work toward goals.

The most effective leaders adapt their leadership styles for each situation they encounter. They need to know when to be flexible, when to negotiate, and when to be firm. All styles have a degree of assertiveness and expressiveness. Assertiveness is how a person tries to influence other people’s thoughts and actions. Expressiveness is how a person displays their emotions when interacting with others.

Four Types of Leadership

There are four types of leadership styles. Some leaders can encompass more than one type – and people can also have varying degrees of assertiveness and expressiveness within the styles as well. The four types of leadership styles are:

  1. Direct – Direct leaders have high assertiveness and low expressiveness. They lead by taking charge.
  2. Spirited – Spirited leaders have high assertiveness and high expressiveness. They lead by inspiring.
  3. Considerate – Considerate leaders have low assertiveness and high expressiveness. They lead by building group harmony.
  4. Systematic – Systematic leaders have low assertiveness and low expressiveness. They lead by planning carefully.

Building Your Leadership Skills

Further your leadership knowledge with “What’s My Leadership Style?” product by HRDQ. The tool is a leadership style assessment where learners are given 20 pairs of actions relating to leadership behavior. The scoring shows people’s preferred leadership style: direct, spirited, considerate, or systematic. “What’s My Leadership Style?” is ideal for training anyone who is in a leadership role or needs to influence others towards achieving a goal.

22
aug

Do you Have What it Takes to be a Leader?

Posted by Leadership, Leadership Style AssessmentNo Comments

 
Read almost any job description and you will find references to leadership skills, whether the role has management responsibilities or not. But what are leadership skills, and how can you develop them?

The original theories of leadership centered on traits – things like intelligence, height, and charisma. At the time, researchers were studying people who were already in leadership roles to see what they had in common. Today we think about leadership quite differently. In both research and in the real world, we’ve seen that leadership ability not just something people are born having, but more of a skill and a practice that anyone can learn.

There are a variety of behaviors that are associated with leaders in the world of work. Some of the most commonly cited skills are these:

  • Have and share a vision
  • Pursue excellence
  • Communicate effectively
  • Be trustworthy
  • Build confidence in your employees
  • Be enthusiastic
  • Serve others

You might read this list and think “that doesn’t sound so hard”, but the truth is that most leaders, especially people who are new to the role, struggle to find ways to do all of these things effectively. It takes practice and a commitment to working hard on these skills to become excellent at all of them.

Learning leadership skills is similar to learning any other new ability such as a language or a musical instrument or a sport. It involves three different elements:

  1. Classroom or Formal Learning – When you first set out to learn something new, the first place you might turn is to a class or a book. This is a great way to learn the fundamentals, and the theories. But no matter how much time you spend in the classroom, you won’t be able to master a new skill through theory alone.
  2. Observation or Social Learning – Throughout our careers we’ve had a variety of managers. One of the best ways to learn how to be a leader is by observing others. That doesn’t mean you should try to copy exactly what another person is doing, but by taking a look at what works and what doesn’t and matching what you learned in the classroom with what you see in the real world, you can start to see how theory and practice fit together.
  3. Practice – We learn the most when we do something ourselves. When you take on a leadership role, such as managing a project or leading a team, and you begin to practice what you have learned, you will see where things go well, and where you still have room to grow.

Becoming a leader is a process, not an event. If you get a promotion into a management role tomorrow, you won’t go to bed with one set of skills and wake up with a new set, just because you have a new title. But if you approach the process with a growth mindset, are willing to seek out feedback, and are committed to the learning process then you have what it takes to be a leader!

This post was written by Katy Tynan

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