Application: Leadership Style Inventory
Write a 1- to 3 page paper that addresses the following:
�Summarize your leadership style, including your strengths for leading others and any
research you completed on your own.
�Describe potential challenges that you have experienced in the past or could foresee
related to your leadership style.
�Explain how you plan to improve your leadership competencies and effectiveness. Be
specific in terms of your goals and plans related to your personal leadership
development.
Application: Leadership Style Inventory
Introduction
Leadership has diverse definitions; there is no single definition that fits all situations.
Surveys from global leaders such as Steve Jobs, Mahatma Gandhi, Richard Branson, Martin
Luther King and Winston King among others shows that there different ways of leading
people (Anderson, 2010). The common leadership styles identify with Transactional
leadership style, Autocratic leadership style, Bureaucratic leadership style, Charismatic
leadership style, Participative/Democratic, Laissez-Faire Leadership, Task oriented
Leadership and Relations/People-Oriented Leadership among others (Kippenberger, 2002).
My Leadership Style
My leadership style is Task-Oriented Leadership, although I sometimes mix a number
of leadership styles. Task oriented leadership style only focus at the end results. I’m the kind
of persons who clearly define roles and work to the followers; structures are already in place
as I’m busy involved in monitoring, planning and organizing work. My workmates argues
that I maintain and develop performance standards in the workplaces (Anderson, 2010).
Top management teams in organizations I have worked for have embraced me in
meeting deadlines through effective management of time (Kippenberger, 2002). I value less
on the importance of teams in the workplace, as I regard the practice as a waste of time; and
as a long process of coming up with simple solutions.
APPLICATION: LEADERSHIP STYLE INVENTORY 2
Potential Challenges
There is a possibility of my Task-Oriented Leadership resulting to Autocratic
leadership. I have faced a number of challenges in retaining employees and motivating
employees (Scouller, 2011). Autocratic leadership is an extreme form when reflecting on
transactional leadership, in a way that I at times find myself with the extreme powers, while
my juniors are left with no power. Team members and the staffs have no opportunities to air
their suggestions even if the suggestions are directed for the goodness of the organization.
Majority of people I lead feel that I exercise excessive power on them, which results
to resentments. I have realized that my leadership style is characterized with high employee
turnover and absenteeism (Kippenberger, 2002). There are situations that my leadership style
has resulted exemplary results, especially when dealing with casual laborers that are not
educated and in times of crisis; dealing with educated employees has resulted to a number of
conflicts. I find myself excising military like method of leadership.
Improvement of my Leadership Style
Improving my leadership effectiveness and competencies will be guided by
incorporating Relations/People oriented leadership. I have realized that my major challenge is
including people in the decision making processes, I tend to lock people from the decision
making processes. Relations/People oriented leadership will enable me to learn on ways of
organizing, developing and supporting people in teams (Anderson, 2010).
Relations/People oriented leadership will encourage me to develop participatory
approach, where the teams will be subjected to creative collaboration. I will learn to treat all
members of the teams equally, without any discrimination. I will do away with my hostility
and encourage members of the teams to approach me directly and address to individual needs
of the team members as we strengthen the organization. Highly effective teams are willing to
APPLICATION: LEADERSHIP STYLE INVENTORY 3
endure risks and more productive since the team members are confident that the leader will
offer the support (Scouller, 2011).
Conclusion
Different leadership styles are applied in different platforms, there is a need for the
leader to exercise due diligence in selecting which type of leadership style that is best suited
to certain scenarios (Scouller, 2011). Leadership is complex and not fixed on certain
timelines, indicating the reasons why some leaders excel in certain fields but not in other
fields (Anderson, 2010).
APPLICATION: LEADERSHIP STYLE INVENTORY 4
References
Anderson, M. (2010). The Leadership Book: How to Deliver Outstanding Results. Upper
Saddle River, New Jersey: Financial Times/ Prentice Hall.
Kippenberger, T. (2002). Leadership Styles. Mankato, Minnesota: Capstone.
Scouller, J. (2011). The Three Levels of Leadership: How to Develop Your Leadership
Presence, Knowhow and Skill. New york: Management Books 2000 Ltd.