Leadership Styles – Uncovering Your Team’s Strengths and Weaknesses

Recently, I was invited to conduct a Leadership Styles workshop for a Korean software company. This Korean software company is an established company with a global footprint with its global headquarters based in Seoul, Korea.

Over the last decade, this company has grown by leaps and bounds and have established bases as far as the United States of America. Its entity here in Singapore is a small but rapidly growing one, and it has plans to grow and expand here in South East Asia over the next several months.

As part of its aggressive plans for expansion here in S.E.A, the Managing Director of the Singapore office realised that it was important for them to build and establish a strong culture here in Singapore and within the South East Asian region, that includes offices in Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia.

When I met with the M.D. to discuss the details of the workshop, he made it clear that he wanted to the leaders in this region to be effective leaders leading the growth of the organisation over the next several months.

Different Strokes for Different Folks

So based on the information gathered from the M.D. during the meeting, I decided to discuss Leadership Styles with the leadership team for the workshop. As this is a growing team, the leaders needed to understand how their leadership styles would affect the organisation at different stages of organisational growth and maturity.

We all know that we can’t use the same leadership style for all people in different circumstances. But the challenge is that most of us are not aware of which styles we use most often and how to switch between styles in different situations and when dealing with different people.

The Power of the Team View

So the workshop focused on the six leadership styles by Dr. Daniel Goleman but we discussed only the Consolidated Group Style Report as shown in the picture above.

From this report, it is very obvious which style the leadership team tend to gravitate towards. For those who are familiar with the six leadership styles, the Democratic Style has a strong correlation to positive performance. However, we all know that too much of a good thing can be bad. And it is no difference in this case.

A leadership team that is too democratic tends to breed mediocrity in the long-term. The team will most likely end up in endless meetings and discussions. Coming to concrete decisions may be an extremely long drawn-out process.

And herein lies the power of the consolidated leadership styles report.

The report avoids highlighting the individual styles of each individual, but instead highlights the leadership style of the entire leadership team.

I have conducted this same exercise for different leadership teams and the conclusion is always the same – the leadership team knew exactly why they have been ineffective just by looking at this chart, and instantly knew what they needed to do in order to be more effective going forward.

What about YOUR leadership team?

Do you feel that your leadership team is ineffective in leading your organisation, but don’t know exactly where the problem is?

Do you feel that your leadership team can do better leading your organisation, but don’t know how to go about improving?

If the above questions resonate with you, then the Leadership Style Questionnaire™ is just the tool for you. It will show you exactly why your team is ineffective and what you should do to improve.

Discover your own Leadership Styles here

Author Bio

Steven Lock is the Founder of FutureTHINK! Training & Consultancy LLP. He is a Trainer, Author and a Leadership Coach. Steven brings with him 20 years of corporate experience.

Steven is passionate about helping organisations transform their teams into high performing teams. He does that by first helping organisations identify and hire the right people, and then training their leaders and managers on how to manage and lead their people to achieve peak performance consistently.

Steven is the developer of The CAAP® High Performance Model. The model focuses on Culture (cultural fit), Attitude, Aptitude and Personality dimensions of their employees and job candidates. It is a highly practical, effective and proven approach.

Steven believes that for organizations to be truly successful and perform at their highest levels, they need to shift their mind-sets to having the RIGHT people on-board – and not necessarily the best or the brightest.

Steven is the author of two books:

• “Hiring for Performance: The CAAP® Model to Hiring and Building High-Performance Teams.”
• “The Right Talent: The Agility-Focused Interviewing Approach™ to Hiring the Right Candidate Every Time.”

He is the developer of The Leadership STYLE Report™ that is based on Dr. Daniel Goleman’s research on leadership styles.

Steven has been interviewed twice on MediaCorp’s live radio show The Breakfast Club on 938FM, and has contributed numerous articles to Singapore Business Review, ST Recruit, SHRI Human Capital, LinkedIn and other publications.

His comment on Team Collaboration has been quoted in the Harvard Business Review OnPoint Magazine.

Steven is certified in MBTI® (Step I & II) & DiSC® Personality instruments.