[Archived] Course 4. Foundational Leadership Principles: (Discussion #1) Understanding your Leadership Style
Please note: In order to successfully complete Course 4, you must respond to this post. Your comment/response should answer the questions/shows that you completed the given activity (if any). Read the post carefully and follow the instructions given. Save your responses to a document that you can later refer to. You will need to copy/paste your response in the course evaluation form at the end of each course to show that you have done the work and to refresh your memory.
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Hello everyone,
If you are reading this, it means you have come a long way in your leadership training. Kudos to you for all the effort and resilience you have shown! It is amazing how you all are open to learning and adapting to new environments: the environment of leadership!
Before we zoom in and talk more about learning and adapting, lets zoom back out first and talk about how you feel about leadership. Regardless of how you see yourself, there is a leader within you. The one who visualizes how things could have run in a better way if you were in the leading spot. Leading spot here means:
A desire for change;
Believing you got the abilities to make it happen;
Visualizing success while keeping in mind the bigger picture.
To lead others effectively, you need a good blend of 4 broad competencies area
If you have a surplus amount of knowledge on how to lead but not a good emotional quotient (EQ), you will find it hard to tackle leadership challenges. Having a good EQ is as important as having the right skills, and if you have skills but not the right attitude and values, you won't be able to achieve your full potential as a leader. Your attitude and values impact how others view you as a leader. We need an alignment in all 4 areas.
You have your very own leadership style based on your competency level. So, the next step is to label your original leadership style. Because you can switch to any leadership style with deliberate effort, thought, and adaptation.
Daniel Goleman categorizes leadership approaches in 6 broad styles. Authoritative, Coaching, Affiliative, and Democratic help one to promote harmony and positive outcomes while Coercive and Pacesetting styles of leadership need to be used in specific situations as they could cause tension.
Your original style could be one of them. So for the purpose of this course, we are going to use a leadership style test to help you identify your core competencies. In brief, we are using the test here to help you identify your leadership approach. So, when you know how you approach an event, you could think and put efforts to bring a change in it. It will allow you to polish your strengths and focus to improve in other different areas as well.
Lets get started!
- Please take the leadership style test here: https://www.energir.com/blogue/en/at-work/quiz-what-kind-of-leader-are-you/
Next step, below in the comments of this discussion, share
1. What is your leadership style?
2. What is one thing you learned about yourself?
3. What is one thing you would like to improve upon?
4. Please reply to 3 of your peers in this thread!
After fulfilling the requirements of this post, please check out the next post here! You must take part in the brainstorming/activities given in all of these posts to successfully complete the program.
This post is brought to you by the Leadership Development Program Team, find out more information about the program here.
1. What is your leadership style?
I have an affiliative leadership style!
2. What is one thing you learned about yourself?
I learned that my approach generally focuses on helping everyone work together as a team. This was a bit of a surprise to me as I myself used to find it scary and tense to work with teams, especially since teams can be prone to disagreements and conflicts. However, I've also realised that the method I use precisely tries to mitigate that, and help everyone work as harmoniously as possible.
3. What is one thing you would like to improve upon?
I used to think that there were only a few good ways to lead a team, but in fact, there are many good ways to lead a team, and how we choose how to lead is usually dependent on our priorities. If we prioritise getting the work done well, then we'll focus on gathering ideas and listening to everyone, then assigning work as productively and efficiently as possible, which will help us achieve this particular goal. On the other hand, if our focus is on the learning and emotional wellbeing of the team, then we'll spend more time encouraging and supporting team members, as well as encouraging them to work together and think as a team.
@hopebeyondpain
I love your opinion on emotional wellbeing and working productively.It's really well said.
@hopebeyondpain
Love your post! I just know now too that there are many good ways to lead a team efficiently!
@Heather225
What is your leadership style?
You are an Affiliative Leader. You have a leadership style that encourages relationships between people, prompting them to work together. Your approach involves focusing on the importance of working together. You also understand the needs of your team and your partners very well, and you try to satisfy them. Your greatest strength lies in your ability to ease tensions or motivate all your team members during difficult periods. You also have a knack for getting people who are accustomed to working alone to work together instead.
What is one thing you learned about yourself?
I care more about connection and relationships between my team in order to ease the tension of the work environment, tasks, and short schedules.
What is one thing you would like to improve upon?
I’d want to improve and control my expectations as sometimes I mistakenly aim for high standards and perfection near goals, and then eventually expect everyone to act accordingly.
@Anexmos
I have the same weaknesses as you are. I hope we could improve ourselves together towards better management in leadership.
@Anexmos maintaining a good and healthy relationship team can be challenging at times. kudos to you for having this concern and ability! all the best!
@Anexmos
controlling your expectations can be so difficult! Good luck with that I'm sure you are working on it already 😊
1. What is your leadership style?
My leadership style is affiliative leadership style.
2. What is one thing you learned about yourself?
I learned that I have the ability to ease tensions or motivate my team members during difficult time. It is such an amazing things to be able to it because not everyone is capable of doing it. I'm really grateful for my abilities.
3. What is one thing you would like to improve upon?
I would like to improve my skill in persuading others in doing the correct thing since it's hard for me to speak up for myself. Other than that, I could love to improve my social skills and accepting my team members' opinion.
@kdsyahirah being grateful for your ability does add wonders to your special skills. thank you for sharing your responses!
@kdsyahirah
Very well thought out answers. Good job
@kdsyahirah
Thanks for your post! It's great to know that you can ease tensions and motivate your team during difficult times!
1. What is your leadership style?
Affiliative
2. What is one thing you learned about yourself?
I learned that my greatest strength is to ease tensions during difficult times. I usually don't like pressures and don't perform really well in it. But the test results showed me that it's my greatest strength, so I probably should be working on that.
3. What is one thing you would like to improve upon?
Ability to ease tensions during difficult periods.
1. What is your leadership style?
Affiliative leader.
2. What is one thing you learned about yourself?
I learned that my leadership style encourages people to work together, I really learned how much I believe in team work and working together while supporting my team in any difficult situations.
3. What is one thing you would like to improve upon?
As a leader I would really like to gain more confidence in myself and believe and trust the decisions I make. Learn to accept compliments and be proud of myself.
@blitheEmbrace27
We've got the same results
Gaining confidance is something I should work on too
1. What is your leadership style?
Affiliative leader
2. What is one thing you learned about yourself?
I learned that I encourage relationships and promote to work together. I learned that I have the ability to ease tensions and motivate my team members
3. What is one thing you would like to improve upon?
One thing I want to improve is to focus more on the problems and work on it rather than adjusting.
@DreamTouch
fantastic concept of wanting to actually solve the problems not just adjusting, i think most of us would love to have thought of that answer! 😛
1. I have an affiliative leadership style, according to this quiz!
2. Honestly, before taking the test, I looked through the possible results and thought for sure that I would be considered to have an affiliative leadership style, so I wasn’t surprised when I saw the results. However, reading some of what the quiz had to say about this leadership style helped me understand some things about myself. Notably, I realized that my skills as a leader aren’t necessarily in leading itself but rather in being “the glue” that holds the group together and motivates individuals.
3. Despite my natural tendencies to bring people together, I do tend to try to do too much work on my own. I need to improve at delegating and sharing the workload with others—most importantly, perhaps, is that I need to learn to accept a standard of work that may be beneath that which I would expect from myself, without feeling the urge to go back and redo peoples’ work.
@Heather225
1. What is your leadership style?
I`m an affiliative leader.
2. What is one thing you learned about yourself?
That one of my greatest strength lies in my ability to ease tensions or motivate all my team members during difficult periods.
3. What is one thing you would like to improve upon?
I guess trying to find more creative ways to encourage people who prefer working alone to collaborate with the team whilst keeping themselves as comfortable as possibe.
@Ines1229
fellow leader of the same type, Great goal to have thinking creatively always comes up with the best solution and it's especially good you are mindful of what everyone's comfort zones are with their social abilities. 💖
1. What is your leadership style?
I`m an affiliative leader.
2. What is one thing you learned about yourself?
I encourage people to work together as people are always more effective as a team. I can get people who are used to working alone to become comfortable working in teams.
3. What is one thing you would like to improve upon?
For me it would have to be taking ownership when something goes wrong, I'm not someone who puts the blame on anyone else but nor do i tend to own up for it even if i am leading the project, this pride can be damaging and I recognise that and am trying to change it
@Azalea98 You can influence others to work in a team! That's incredible! Well done! :)
@Heather225
1. What is your leadership style?
I seem to be an affiliative leader.
2. What is one thing you learned about yourself?
I learned I have a mindset that encourages relationships between people, prompting them to work together. My approach involves focusing on the importance of working together. I tend to ease tensions or motivate all your team members during difficult periods.
3. What is one thing you would like to improve upon?
At times I feel unsure of the decision I am supposed to be taking. It's quite a conflict in the sense. I wish to improve myself on that front.
@wishfulMoment42
This is an eye opener! Lovely to see different leadership styles! It's really good that you like to build on the idea of team building :)