What’s your Leadership Style? | Hiring Strategies Limited

What’s your Leadership Style?

Knowing different leadership styles can help you apply simple changes and communication techniques to manage your employees, which could reap better results. So, what’s your leadership style? There are four common leadership styles in the UK, which one are you?

Have a go at our quiz below to see what type of leader you are:

1.     When it comes to critiquing someone’s performance, are you:

a.     Personal in your praise.

b.     Objective, providing fact-based feedback.

c.     Infrequent giving feedback with zero interference.

d.     Able to communicate openly with regular feedback.

2.     When you instruct one of your team to carry out some work, do you:

a.     Dictate the tasks required and specific colleagues to assist.

b.     Allow the team leader to decide tasks, but the team member can choose who to work with.

c.     Give complete freedom to your team member to choose tasks and people to work with.

d.     Explore the end goal and work collaboratively to determine what needs to be done and suggest suitable people to work with.
 

3.     In group situations, are you:

a.     Present but aloof, except for when you’re demonstrating a point.

b.     An active participant, encouraging and assisting with group discussion.

c.     Asides from supplying information, you don’t take part in discussions and leave the team to get on.

d.     Able to stimulate people’s thinking by facilitating communication.

4.     When it comes to company policies or important decisions, do you:

a.     Determine everything as the leader.

b.     Encourage group discussion, debate and decisions.

c.     Leave everything to your managers and teams to decide.

d.     Encourage active participation and support new ideas.

Now, check your answers and score as below:

·        Mostly A – you’re an Autocratic leader. You tend to have a dictatorial approach, determining all direction, strategy, policies and procedures for the business. You don’t like to collaborate, preferring to command and control your employees. On some occasions, an autocratic approach is necessary, especially when dealing with an urgent, chaotic or business-critical situation. However, when people feel constantly micromanaged, this can lead to bad feeling and low team morale.

·        Mostly B – you’re a Democratic leader. You like to gather input from your teams, giving everyone a chance to have their say and contribute to big decisions. Your approach is great at sparking creativity, especially when it comes to projects. This approach enables your employees to feel involved and helps to increase creativity, leading to positive results for the business. However, when people feel their ideas or input has been ignored, this could cause problems and lower team morale.

·        Mostly C – you’re a Laissez-faire leader. You have a “hands-off” approach to your employees, giving them full trust to make their own decisions and act accordingly. But you are available for feedback when required. This approach leads to faster decision-making, especially among groups of skilled and experienced employees. However, if your team don’t understand what’s expected of them or they cannot complete tasks unsupervised, this approach can cause issues.

·        Mostly D – you’re a Transformational leader. You like to develop a big vision, and then rally your employees around this idea. You enjoy developing your people and aligning personal and professional goals to achieve a common objective. This approach allows employees to feel valued and helps to build morale. However, if this constant level of feedback is disrupted, this can cause disharmony among your employees. So, this way of working requires a sound process and approach.

Once you understand your leadership style, you can reflect on whether you are getting the best out of your people. You might decide to try different elements of the above leadership styles to try managing your employees to achieve different outcomes. Simple changes can lead to big differences and great results for productivity levels and your profit margin.

And if you decide you need more people to help you support your business, then speak to our expert recruitment consultants. We can help you source, select and check candidates across a wide range of industries and roles.

Are you looking to expand your workforce or recruit a new role? Book a call with one of our consultants and we’ll explain how we can support your recruitment. Email: enquiries@hsl1uk.com to arrange a suitable date and time to chat about your needs.

Hiring Strategies Ltd. is a proud recruitment partner for a range of market-leading employers across the Midlands area.