Episode 35 – What Leadership Style is Right for Me? (The G.R.I.T. Podcast)

Episode Transcript

Hello everybody and welcome back. My name is Steve Nathenson, CEO and Found of Strive For More. And today I want to talk about a follow up to our last episode. When we talked about the different styles of leadership to answer the question is which style is right for me? So today’s episode is going to be a little bit shorter. It’s going to be more on the practical exercise side of the house, where I’m going to read you a number of different questions and ask you how much you agree or disagree with them, or if it falls somewhere in between, and that’s going to help us understand what style or styles resonate with you more or the most to help figure out what leadership style are right for you. So with that, we’re going to go ahead here and get started. So the first style leadership that I will ask a question around is going to be trait leadership.

And in order to do that, I’ll ask that if you have pen and paper handy, or you could keep track in your mind, it may be helpful though to have something to write on and do it in that way, you can always revisit the episode to do it in that fashion. So if we picture a piece of paper on the left hand side, let’s say we agree, on the right inside, let’s say we disagree. And then in between is every single type of variation that you can think about in between.

And we may even look at it say zero to a hundred percent. How much do I agree or disagree? And where do I fall on that spectrum between agree and disagree? As I read you a question, feel free to mark for that question where you fall. And that’s going to help us see which styles resonate with you the most. The styles that have more tick marks or check marks, or however you characterize it on your paper to the left hand side are going to be the ones that resonate with you more. So with that, we’ll go ahead and get started. Again, this first question is around trait leadership.

Are we born with traits that make us leaders? How much do you agree or disagree? Go ahead and write down on your paper with a check mark, an X, however you want to label it. How much you agree or disagree. Again, picturing the left hand side of your paper as a hundred percent agree and the right side of your paper is a hundred percent disagree. The next style leadership we’re going to ask a question on is skill leadership. The question is, do we possess certain skills that make us leaders? Can go ahead, write down on your piece of paper where you land between a hundred percent agree on the left hand side and a hundred percent disagree on the right hand side.

The next question, it’s around style leadership. Are leaders defined but what by, excuse me, what they do and how they do it? I’ll ask that again because I fumbled it a little bit. Are leaders defined by what they do and how they do it? In other words, their style. The next question is about contingency leadership. The question is, is leadership contingent upon the right person for the right job? The next question, this is regarding path goal leadership. I’ll explain that briefly here in a second. First I want to ask you the question. Do leaders need to adapt their style of leadership to the people they are leading? Briefly, path goal leadership is a theory that’s around exactly what it sounds like. There’s a path to achieve a goal and our job at as a leader is to remove obstacles and help people achieve that goal. So we adapt our style to help those people in the best way possible to achieve the goal and walk the path to achieving that goal. That’s what path goal leadership theory revolves around.

So this next question, this is around servant leadership. Is leadership about serving those you lead and putting them first? Again, go ahead and mark on your paper how much you agree and how much you disagree. Where do you land from a hundred percent agree on the left to a hundred percent disagree on the right? Just three more questions. This is regarding transformational leadership. Is leadership about lifting yourself and those who lead up to achieve something greater than any one person? What do you think? Next question, this is regarding authentic leadership. Is leadership about authentically being who you are?

And the last question, this is around situational leadership. Do leaders need to adapt to the situation at hand? Now that we’ve walked through these questions, let’s take a look at what you have on your paper. I’ve given you the names of different leadership styles and theories. I’ve asked you a question that characterizes each of those, and you should have marks on your paper on the left hand side or the right hand side or anywhere in between for each of those questions and each of those theories. So as you look at your paper, what do you notice about the left hand side of your paper?

Are there ones that stand out more? Are they all over there? Are none of them over there and you disagree entirely and there’s something different, which is okay about how you define leadership. This exercise, it’s pretty simple and straightforward. There’s a lot more to each of those theories and I’m going to hold up a book for you. This is a great book on leadership, Leadership by Peter Northouse.

There’s a lot of information in this book. It will define those theories for you more. It’ll give you the research and the application behind it. It will even give you assessment instruments in there that you can go through and you can answer to help you identify how much you resonate with each of those. It’s a really good tool to assess leadership and present a lot of different models on it. But for now, those questions can give you a quick glance at what styles may resonate with you more than others and help to start answer the question we’re going to tackle next is, who do you want to be as a leader? So until the next time, as always, be the movement in your life.

 

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