Leveraging the Strengths of Your Leadership Style and Personality Strengths

Knowing how to manage others starts by knowing how to manage yourself. Each of us starts with existing preferences, workstyles and aptitudes that may be different from the people we manage, and having a framework to help determine what the best approach is for a given team or individual can make what you already may know how to do that much faster and more efficient.

Leadership styles is a complex topic and there is no right or wrong style, no silver bullet. Each will have its advantages and disadvantages. And it is your job as a manger to recognise when and how to use each one.

First, lets look at the most common forms of leadership style categories that exist:

Dictatorial style

This is when a manager is operating like a dictator. They make all the decisions, how things are done, when things are done. And if you fail to follow them, you will be severely disciplined or punished. They do not allow others to question a decision they have made or their authority. Some more passive manager that use this style may cloud their unrealistic demands in humour, or allow questions about decisions (on the surface) but ignores them.

Needless to say, you should avoid using this style. It’s only advantage is to be used in extreme emergencies, for example, when an employee safety is at risk, or when sever disciplinary action needs to be taken.

Authoritative style 

People who like to keep control. Many managers opt for this style of management. This type of manager feels he/she is the most qualified and experienced and considers his/her point of view as the most valid. They do not have confidence in the ability of others and rarely give recognition. This person is action orientated and highly competitive. And uses others for his/her benefit. These managers produce ACTION when needed.

This is a good style to use with new hires who are unfamiliar with their jobs. Or if there is constant misuse of authority, or when company rules are broken. So this style will produce great results in a short amount of time, but long term use will decrease productivity and job will become repetitive.

Consultive 

This manager uses the skills and experiences and ideas of others, and involve them in problem solving. But they will still retain final decision making power. They will tend not to make major decisions before consulting with those that will be affected. 

This manager delegates, but keeps “veto power”, retaining the right for final decision. So they look at all alternatives, before final decision is made. This is best used when you need creative problem solving.

Participative  

These managers share control. Many feel uncomfortable with this style because most of the authority is given to the team. Everyone’s input is considered and the leader acts as a coach/player, sometimes accepting the teams’ ideas over his/her own. The focus here is on stimulating creativity. 

You can use this style when you have a competent team and when you need creativity and innovative work or when motivating top managers. 

so..

No one right model for leadership style assessments seems to exist. Harvard Business Review says key leadership types include: Pace-setting, Authoritative, Affiliative, Coaching, Coercive, and Democratic. Forbes Magazine suggests the four leadership styles are: Pragmatist, Idealist, Steward and Diplomat. Inc Magazine begs to differ and says managers have to manage all four styles: Directive, Participative, Laissez-Faire, Adaptive. The well-established Situational Leadership model holds that “modes of being” is most relevant: Directing, Coaching, Supporting, Delegating. Often different systems take into account various aspects of the work environment as well as team experience.

Having said that, Meyers Brigg Temperament Indictor (MBTI) is the most well-established with 89 out of the Fortune 100 companies using it. Created by a mother and daughter team during World War II to help women entering the industrial workforce for the first time determine the best fit war-time job for them, MBTI is based on Jungian archetypes and specifically designed to be applied to the work environment. Jung created some of the best known psychological concepts, including the archetype, the collective unconscious, the complex, and extraversion and introversion. Although many of MBTI’s claims have been scientifically debunked, it is useful to know as one of the most common workstyle assessments and similar to any system also based on Jungian principles.

The usefulness of knowing your own style to be a more effective manager is three-fold:

• Knowing how you process information, make decisions and evaluate situations can help you be more precise in explaining to your direct reports how best to communicate and work with you
• Understanding how others work and the different perspective they may be bringing to the situation can help you value a point of view that is different from your own
• Often the people we find most “difficult” to work with are those that are opposite from us, and having a system to explain how those differences work can make bridging to that individual faster and more effective

A brief overview of the terms so when they show up in your test results, you have an idea of what they mean:

Attitudes

• E: Extraverts draw energy from action – they tend to act, then reflect then act further – their motivation tends to decline when inactive. They seek breadth of knowledge and influence with more frequent interaction
• I: Introverts expend energy through action – they prefer to reflect, then act, then reflect again and need to rebuild their energy away from activity with quiet time alone. They seek depth of knowledge and influence and prefer more substantial interaction

Information Gathering Functions

• S: Sensing trusts information in the present, that is tangible and concrete (understood by the five senses), the meaning is in the data
• I: Intuition tend to favor hunches, information that can be associated with other information to discover a wider context or pattern, with more interest in future possibilities, the meaning is in the underlying theory and principles which are manifested in the data

Decision-Making Functions

• T: Thinking decides fro a detached standpoint, using what seems logical, consistent and reasonable while matching a given set of rules, concern with the truth as more important
• F: Feeling decides by empathizing with the situation, looking at it from the inside with objective to achieve balance and harmony, consensus and fit, considering the needs of the people involved

Lifestyle Preferences

• J: Judging refers to the preference to have matters settled, decide and take action
• P: Perceiving refers to the preference to keep decisions open, explore and discover

Rather than list all 16 MBTI styles, for both how you prefer to lead and how your team members may prefer to be led – we’ve designed the exercises below to help you focus on the key relationships that will make the most difference to your being successful in your new role.

The link below can help you understand how to manage an introverted team when you’re an extrovert or vice versa. It can help you more consciously bridge to your direct manager or peer or team member when you may have a very different preferred approach. In any case, it means that the golden rule doesn’t necessarily work – in that we cannot safely assume that others want to be led in exactly the same way we do because they may have very different workstyle preferences from us.

Exercises

1. Take the Jungian Workstyle Assessment free at http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/jtypes1.htm
2. Once you have your MBTI type, please complete the following survey for yourself:

• What surprised you most
• What did you feel like you knew already
• How is this consistent with your friends or family would describe you
• What are the key learning styles for your preference (find your type on the same website)
• What are the key communication styles for your preference (find your type on the same website)
• In what ways is your direct manager different from you in preferences, and how can you best bridge that when you communicate with your direct manager
• In what ways is each member of your team different from you in preferences, and how can you best bridge that when you communicate with them
• Please think of someone at work with whom the relationship is difficult or challenging – but if it were to go smoother, would make a big difference to your effectiveness. Consider how they are different from your preferences – and consult the website for what you think their type might be. Focus on Extrovert vs Introvert, and Thinking vs Feeling. Then brainstorm alone or with a friend, what could you do differently the next time you communicate with this person.
• What are the next three actions you will take at work to put this knowledge to work and increase your effectiveness as a new manager (please include deadlines: I will do X by this time on this day).