Understanding my leadership style for recruiting and building teams
As a leader in your startup, you need to take the time to identify your management style. This is because you need to recruit other executives and employees who will work well in the environment you create. Working with people who understand and appreciate your management style will increase your likelihood of business success.
Why management style matters
Understanding your leadership style, and that of the rest of your management team, is an important part of defining your company culture. A company’s culture, standards and expectations are driven by the philosophy and style of the management team.
Your leadership style is an expression of who you are as a leader
Your leadership style is really an extension of who you are. To dig deeper in this area, ask yourself the following:
- Am I generally more directive or collaborative with my team members?
- Am I comfortable “letting go” of operational or development tasks?
- Am I more comfortable with a structured or flexible workplace?
- Do I encourage others to ask questions and challenge me?
- Am I a risk taker?
- Am I reactive or proactive?
- Am I innovative?
- Am I decisive?
- Am I an early adopter of new ideas, or do I prefer to let others “get the bugs out” before I adopt something?
- From a social and communication perspective, am I formal or informal?
- Am I approachable?
- Am I trustworthy?
- Do my actions mimic my words?
Often, our perception of how we behave—or lead— is different than how others see us. There can be great value in participating in a more objective assessment process.
Several tools are available to help management understand their strengths, preferences and style. These can be helpful in laying the groundwork for building a company culture. Generally, you would work with a certified professional to do an assessment and help you better understand yourself, your peers and team members.
Three common, effective assessment tools are listed below.
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, DiSC and True Colors
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)
Myers-Briggs helps people and teams to understand themselves and each other better to support continued learning and growth. The MBTI measures four areas on a scale and yields insights to help people work together more effectively.
The four areas of focus are:
- Introverted vs. extroverted
- Sensing vs. intuition
- Thinking vs. feeling
- Judging vs. perceiving
Using the MBTI to assess your management style can be quite in-depth. Working with a certified professional will add a valuable layer of understanding that cannot be achieved from a “do-it-yourself” approach.
DiSC Assessment Tool
DiSC is a personal assessment tool that focuses on increasing productivity, teamwork, and communication. It builds profiles and zeroes in on behavioural differences between team members, which can help you leverage their different strengths.
This management assessment tool highlights possible challenges that may arise between team members based on their differing profiles and provides objective feedback to promote discussion.
DiSC focuses on four areas:
- Dominance
- Influence
- Steadiness
- Conscientiousness
True Colors personality assessment
True Colors provides general insight into personality styles. This tool categorizes people using a combination of four “colours,” with one colour usually being dominant.
Each colour (blue, green, orange and gold) corresponds to a typical set of attributes. This analysis can strengthen teamwork by shedding light, for example, on one’s motivations and preferred means of communications.
References
The Myers-Briggs Foundation: http://www.myersbriggs.org/my-mbti-personality-type/mbti-basics/
DiSC Profile website: https://www.discprofile.com/what-is-disc/overview/
True Colors International: http://truecolorsintl.com/about-us/what-is-true-colors/