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Leadership Style

Written by: Marshall W. Northcott

Article Overview: What is your Leadership style and what impact will it have on those that you wish to lead? Read on...

Leadership Style

Being in a leadership role is an awesome responsibility! It provides you with the power to shape minds and influence actions. The subject of leadership is somewhat open to interpretation and perception. For this reason I can only provide you with my perspective of what I believe makes a great leader. From personal experience I would conclude that leadership is a combination of traits, qualities and abilities possessed by an individual, backed up with action, that followers respond to in a positive and productive manner.

Leaders lead in a manner that either they personally respond to or in a way that they believe others will respond to. Descriptively there are many types of leaders such as bullish, transparent, dictatorial, ruthless, charismatic, controlling, micro managing, incompetent, insincere (false or fake) reluctant, eccentric, selfish, hands on, flamboyant, uninvolved, and driven leaders. If you search carefully enough you can find an individual who has had some degree of success leading with each of these leadership styles.

What is your leadership style or more importantly what type of leader do you want to be known as and become? Another way to look at it is what kind of followers or team do you wish to develop? What kind of people do you wish to attract? You get to choose!

An untrained, uneducated leader leads in a manner that they perceive to work best based on personal preference and past experiences. A narrow leadership style limits your ability to build a team of diversity. Have you ever noticed that ruthless sharks tend to attract the same types of people into their circle and then they can never turn their back for fear of being blindsided. Do you want people to live in fear of you? Would a team of weak minded followers serve your purpose or do you need mature independent thinkers? Is it important that they trust you? Do you want to help people become stronger and stretch to their personal potential? These are questions that you should ask yourself as you begin your leadership journey. Once you've established a reputation for being a certain type of leader it will be difficult to change that perception.

Your natural personality style will have a significant impact on the type of leader that you gravitate towards being. Power is important to drivers, they have an overwhelming need to be in control and have difficulty relinquishing this control to others. Although they are high spirited and fun loving people, expressives can be disorganized and chaotic at times which can frustrate and annoy followers. Amiables are caring and nurturing leaders, however, they fear hurting peoples feelings. They can be indecisive, and fear making mistakes because they don't wish to be the centre of attention. Everything has to be done by consensus which can grind progress to a halt and make team members nervous and uneasy. Analyticals are precise number crunchers. They demand perfection in everything they do and from the people around them. For that reason they tend to be overly critical, lack enthusiasm and can easily squash the spirit of others. Knowing and understanding your personality style is vital. Tapping into your personal strengths will make you a better leader. Recognizing your weaker or negative traits and striving to replace those tendencies with positive qualities will make you a more effective, compelling leader.

An effective leader is a well rounded, well grounded, centered and stable individual. They have an ego that is in check and are at peace with themselves! Above all things they understand themselves incredibly well. They know their strengths and they aren't afraid to accept their weaknesses. They are constantly working on themselves to gain and maintain the edge they require to move towards the next level of achievement in their life. Each mistake and lesson is treated as a learning opportunity, for their biggest competition is themselves. They are excellent communicators who listen and learn before they speak. They know that there will always be more leadership roles available then there are competent people to fill them and for that reason they encourage and inspire rather than oppress and destroy. They take risks, invest in themselves and take action while onlookers are paralyzed by fear and complacency.

"A wise leader inspires and motivates, rather than intimidating and manipulating."

Related Articles
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  What is Leadership
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  What Does Leadership Mean

Article Tags: Business Management, Leadership Style, Sales Leadership, Sales Management, Team Building



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