Theme 1 - Leadership

1.2. What styles of leadership are there?

There is no "right" or "wrong" style of leadership, but some leadership styles work a lot better than others in particular situations. Your style of leadership will depend on your personality, attributes and communication skills.

To find indications of your personality:

• Take one, or all, of the online tests (Remember these only categorise personality traits, they do not define you)
• Look at the explanations of what the personality traits mean
• Consider how this affects your relationships with others, particularly members of the team

Your leadership style might be:

• Directive
• Democratic
• Non-Directive
  Or a combination of two or more, depending on the circumstances

Leadership Styles

Directive	Democratic	Non-Directive
Authoritarian/Autocratic	Participative/Facilitative	Delegative/Laissez-Faire
Prefers tasks	Prefers to weigh it up	Keeps out of it!
Likes acting	Likes talking about "How" to do it
Task behaviour	Relationship behaviour	Defers to others
Initiates actions	Leads/Facilitates discussions	Refuses to make decisions for others
Structures activities	Asks questions to involve others	Uses silence in the group until someone in the group contributes
Motivates others	Encourages others to take on responsibilities	Gives non-verbal encouragement to others who show positive leadership
Delegates responsibility	Voting for consensus decision-making	Gradually fades out of the group when others show a willingness to take over

The Big Dog’s Training and Development website has a good check list to decide on your leadership style. The Community Tool Box website discusses leadership styles

To find indications of your personality:

Step 1. test your personality type.

• One personality test is the Big Five provided online at the Out of service website
• Another well known test is the Myer-Briggs, the following two websites offer shortened versions of this as the full test can only be undertaken by a trained counsellor. Remember these are not the complete tests, for a simplified Myer-Briggs questionaire with explanation of the personality types (try this link).

Step 2. think about what having this personality type means.

• Look at the explanation provided at the previous sites
• Have a look at the Kiersey site that talks about temperament
• This MTR-I site will help you work out your team role