by Rishika Gupta
In human interactions, you may feel there are few people whom you get along with easily, and few people that no matter how hard you try, their tend to be miscommunication and frustrating because there is just such a huge gap between what one conveys and what the other understands.
Now picture this happening in a business setting. When working or entrepreneuring, you interact with a spectrum of professionals and you have to prepare to work with every type of personality. A helpful way of gauging human personalities is by understanding yours. Taking a Myers-Briggs Test [MBTI] is a great way of self-reflection. Do note that this is not an accurate representation but a helpful tool in gaining an insight in your personality traits.
When you master what motivates you, wonder how you can motivate others? Be a leader in your workplace and life and inspire those around you, or better understand the nature of your managers to adjust your working style to match theirs, or vice versa.
As per Ivey Business School, there are 13 managerial leadership styles:
· Autocratic: Effective in showcasing strong leadership in times of crisis. For example: Elon Musk at Twitter. But what that may do is alienate the workforce as it essentially means that it is only the leader/managers whose opinion matters.
· Affiliative: They consider their team as their affiliates and important to business decisions. It’s people over profits and integral to ensuring that their opinion matters.
· Bureaucratic: Bureaucratic leaders tend to be traditionalist and believe in forms, policies and procedures.
· Coaching: A coach takes a mentor like role for their associates. They nurture their talent by identifying which characteristic is best suited for a role and provide opportunities to grow and succeed.
· Democratic: Involves considering their teams’ inputs in form of opinions and efforts. They believe that employees are closer to the problem than leaders and value their contribution.
· Laissez-faire: The leader takes minimal decisions and delegates the work. For example: if an upcoming event is to take place, delegating the preparation and decision-making power to his/her subordinate
· Emergent: This involves a sort of style which you may embody yourself. Emergent leaders are ones who take up the leadership mantle when no leader is elected or assigned. They earn goodwill within the organization for taking initiative and convincing teammates to organize and work together.
· Pacesetting: A leader who leads by example and would expect of his team members what he/she expects of himself/herself. Setting goals to achieve and surpass consistently is a key feature of a pacesetting leader.
· Servant: A servant leader places more emphasis on the stakeholders they’re responsible for. A CEO may be accountable and prioritizing shareholder interest, or a manager may do as the line manager says, with little consideration for himself or his team.
· Strategic: A great thinker who considers all aspects before making a decision. Growth is the name of the game and one who is empathetic but also strategic. For example: would help schedule leaves in such a way a team member is not left to manage the entire workload.
· Transactional: Such a leader is focused on the tasks completed, ensuring required needs are met and would do little to go above and beyond for his employees.
· Transformative: Someone who encourages you to go the extra mile little by little. If a target for 100 sales calls is set, they would motivate you to fit in 10 more and reward you for it, in turn helping you exceed your expectations and work better.
· Visionary: Finally, such a visionary is one who can bring about change. A changemaker to inspire and extract creativity to take the company ahead.
Learn more about leaders, leadership styles and see how you can grow in your career, sign up for the WorkEx Bootcamp’s Leadership Track featuring Leadership Principles by HBS Online in collaboration with Podar Enterprises.