Developing Your Leadership Style

If you're a new manager or even just an aspiring leader, it's important to develop your leadership style. This can be a tough task, but it's essential to succeed in any position.

If you're struggling to find your leadership style, start by taking a quiz to determine what type of leader you are. Then, make a game plan to strengthen your skills in that area.

1. Know Yourself

Knowing your leadership style is one of the most important things you can do to help you become an effective leader. It helps you know how to motivate and communicate with your team so they can achieve their goals.

It also lets you lead effectively in a variety of situations, including high-pressure times. It can also help you avoid burnout.

Developing your leadership style takes time and practice. But it can also help you be more successful in your career and improve the lives of those you lead.

To develop your leadership style, first, you need to understand yourself and your personality traits. You can do this through a variety of assessments, such as the Strengthsfinder, or with some coaching.

You should also identify your values. The best leaders lead from their values and use these as a guide for making decisions and choosing behaviors.

You should know your strengths and weaknesses so you can improve them as needed. For example, if you are an action-oriented person who often leads from the front, you should work on being more collaborative and empathetic.

2. Know Your Team

If you want your team to work well together, it’s important to know them on a personal level. This means learning about their lifestyles, identifying their strengths, and making sure they feel valued.

Knowing your team also helps you to understand their communication style and what instructions they need from you. This knowledge can help you to share important information with them and prevent confusion or problems in the future.

It also helps you to better understand when someone may be struggling with a task. If they’re overwhelmed, you can take action to alleviate their stress or get them more resources so that they can complete the task successfully.

Getting to know your team is also an excellent way to build a strong work culture. It also improves teamwork and increases productivity by ensuring that all members are working towards the same goals.

3. Know Your Goals

Leadership style can have a significant impact on your team members’ level of engagement and ability to grow. You can be a great leader by choosing a leadership style that resonates with you and your team, regardless of whether you’re managing a large or small organization.

A great way to start is by identifying your goals and writing them down on paper. Whether you want to build more habits, complete specific projects, or even travel to a new place for the month, write them down so you have a clear idea of what you’re working toward.

Once you have a list of your goals, it’s time to figure out how to achieve them. One of the best ways to do this is by setting up SMART goals: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound (see above).

Once you’ve got your goals set, it’s time to create an action plan to help you reach them. This will help you hold yourself accountable and ensure you stay on track. It will also help you avoid getting bogged down and distracted by other things that don’t move you forward.

4. Know Your Audience

Regardless of your role or industry, knowing your audience is essential to communicating effectively. It helps ensure that your content is relevant, useful, and targeted.

There are many ways to learn about your audience, from social monitoring to surveys. The information you gather over time can be invaluable to your overall content strategy, product development, and customer support.

For example, you can use online metrics (like comments and likes on your blog or social media channels) to gauge the impact of your content marketing efforts. This can help you determine which topics your target audience enjoys and which types of messaging aren’t working well for them.

Another way to get to know your audience is through interviews with current and former customers. These interviews will help you understand their habits, preferences, and goals.

This is especially important for people in research, design, or product management roles who often work with clients and don’t have direct access to the audiences they serve. This also helps you identify areas where you might need to rethink your strategy, so you can create more relevant content for your clients.

5. Know Your Strengths

It’s important to know your strengths because they’ll make a huge difference in your success as a leader. Whether you’re trying to improve your skills in a new profession, or you want to develop your leadership style, knowing what you’re good at will help you achieve your goals.

A great place to start is by writing down your strengths and reflecting on them regularly. This is a great way to track your progress over time and discover new strengths you haven’t even realized you possess.

In addition, speaking to others who know you well can also give you a deeper understanding of what you do best. Asking a manager, coworker or someone who supervises you for their feedback can give you additional insights that you might not have considered on your own.

Finally, it’s crucial to surround yourself with people who can help you grow your strengths and develop your leadership style. This will allow you to become more confident and successful in your career.

6. Know Your Weaknesses

As a leader, you need to be aware of and work on your weaknesses. This is particularly important if you are responsible for managing others. Strong leaders understand that they can make mistakes, and they are willing to find creative ways to overcome these challenges.

It can be easy to get into a rut when it comes to your weaknesses, but being honest about them can help you improve. You can also talk to people who know you well, such as your coworkers or family members, for feedback on where you could improve.

When you are interviewing, you should be aware that you may be asked to list your weaknesses. This can seem intimidating, but it’s not something you should be embarrassed about. Instead, you should use it as an opportunity to show your interviewer that you are self-aware and committed to improving your leadership skills.

7. Practice Your Skills

Developing your leadership style is an essential part of becoming a successful leader. Learning and practicing these skills will make you more effective in your job, help you become more empathetic, and develop strong relationships with others.

Practicing your skills isn’t always easy, but it’s crucial if you want to improve them. You’ll need to practice your strengths, learn from your mistakes, and set realistic goals.

You can start by identifying your natural leadership style, which can be democratic, visionary, coaching, affiliative, or pacesetting. Identifying your leadership style gives you a clear picture of what works best for you and opens the door to building managerial skills that complement your true nature.

Having an understanding of your leadership style also helps you to identify weaknesses and strengthens them through training or coaching. If you are a democratic leader, for example, you may have trouble handling crises. But if you are a visionary leader, you may lack the ability to plan and execute. You’ll have to work on these weaknesses with a growth mindset so that you can continue improving your leadership style.

8. Get Feedback

One of the best ways to improve your leadership style is to get feedback from people around you. This can include your direct reports and other employees at work.

Giving feedback is a critical skill for leaders and an essential part of developing a healthy culture within your workplace. This is because feedback can be beneficial to an individual's personal development and growth as well as the success of the organization as a whole.

However, it's important to be sure that the feedback you receive is helpful and constructive. This will help you to learn and grow from it so that you can better lead others in the future.

You can ask for feedback in a variety of ways, such as annual surveys or shorter pulse surveys. The latter will give you more frequent, real-time feedback that you can use to make decisions and improve your leadership style.