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What’s Your Own Style Of Leadership?

What Is My Leadership Style? – Here’s The Trick To Get It

Walking to a fresh job interview for an administrative position? Be prepared to confront the question- “what is your leadership style?” If you haven’t readied yourself for the query beforehand, you might flutter into a cloud of confusion at that moment asking yourself – “what is my leadership style?” However, remaining prepared for it will help you crack out the question smartly without any fear and will ensure your position for the job. How to know the intelligent answer to this question? Well! That’s why we are here! Come! Let’s converse about it.

Know About Leadership Style And It’s Various Types:

For getting a rational answer to the above question, you must first have clarity of thoughts about what leadership style is and what are its types. Well! Anyone’s leadership style implies his/her method for guiding, monitoring, or motivating his/her team. It’s not necessary that a person must possess only one leadership style.

You, as a leader might also possess two or more leadership styles. However, it’s necessary that you know how to manipulate your various leadership styles to perfection for achieving your objectives at a specific time. Some of the common leadership styles for inspiring an organization’s employees are:

• Autocratic leadership style: In the case of this style of leadership, the manager remains despotic and makes judgments on the basis of his/her beliefs without heeding to any viewpoints of his/her associates.
• Democratic leadership style: In the case of this leadership, the chief always makes critical decisions considering the viewpoints of his/her committee members.
• Laissez-Faire leadership style: Here, the leader allows his/her coworkers to act according to their opinions without any supervision of their work.
• Pacesetter leadership style: Here, the leader is responsible for setting hard work as well as excellence standards and motivating his/her coworkers for meeting/surpassing the benchmark.
• Coaching leadership style: Here, the leader, utilizing the coaching style, develops the talents of his/her employees by investing most of his/her time in them.
• Authoritative leadership style: Here, the leader instructs his/her team members to do something by giving thorough justifications for it, and the team members willingly agree to it, believing him/her.
• Affiliative leadership style: The leaders with this style of leadership always give priority to the emotional needs of their coworkers before coming to any decision.
• Procedural leadership style: The leader, in the case of this leadership, prefers tested and trusted methods for solving any problem and asks his/her employees to stick to the rules without trying out any new way to solve problems.

The Trick To Answer The Question Regarding Your Leadership Style- Some Important Tips:

Here are some do’s and don’ts that you need to follow for giving a perfect reply with confidence to your interviewer’s question – “what is your leadership style?” Read on –

1. Don’t Disclose That You Have Never Been A Leader:

Every person at some point or other in his life has surely experienced leadership experiences, be it in his school, college, playground, or in former jobs, even if he has not done the leadership job actively for a long period. So, whenever your interviewer asks you the question, don’t tell him that you have never been a leader in your previous jobs even if you have truly not become one in your life till now.

Instead, try to remember if you have led any sports team or the batchmates team before in your school, college, or anywhere and with confidence, share that experience of yours before him positively. In other words, if you want to get yourself hired in the company for which you are there for the interview, then find or manage something to tell without confessing that you are not really a leader.

2. Show Your Interviewer That There’s A Procedure Or A System That Operates For You:

What is your leadership style? – this is the question that your employer will ask you and you must know that there’s no individual “right” or “wrong” to it. However, the manager who is going to hire you wishes to know from you that you always work in a system or there’s a system that always works for you.

So, when he throws the question in front of you, you must be clever enough to understand that what he wants to hear from you is something about the system that you have figured out for yourself, the system that invariably works when you are placed into a leadership position. Say something that will sound reasonable to him and he will easily understand it. Remember, it will be unwise to say something that will point out that you believe in dictatorship as it will not work in case of your getting hired by the company.

3. If Possible, Illustrate Your Words With The Example:

After you’re complete with your answer to the basic question of your general leadership style, request the general manager for giving you some time so that you can illustrate what you have said just now perfectly with some examples. If he permits you to do so, tell him a specific story as to how with the help of your leadership ability, you have cracked a past project.

In other words, tell him any real success story of your past that is based on your leadership ability. You may also disclose before him your other real merits of the past like your role in making money for your former company, your winning of awards while you were in your school or college, etc. 

4. Describe Before Your Interviewer Your Common Leadership Styles:

Tell your employer that you always lead by example, from the front, and take action based on your intuition as to what needed to be done at any particular moment. Also, tell him that you constantly try to keep your team organized and lead by encouraging communication among them. You can say to him that you are great at delegating or finding strength in others and prefers to provide each individual with a chance in every work.

5. Figure Out Your Real Leadership Style By Communicating Or Asking Other People About It:

Sometimes it is hard to figure yourself out all alone. It becomes better if someone gives you an honest review about yourself. It helps you in determining your positive and negative sides and you can rectify your negative sides by knowing them for progressing in your life. So, in case you are not sure about your leadership style, you can know about it by surveying the opinions of different people you know. They will help you out with honest reviews and it will help you determine the exact leadership styles that you possess.

So, What Is Your Leadership Style? – An Example Of A Sample Interview Answer:

One can tell his interviewer that-

“I would define my leadership style or method as direct. I lead by example and always appreciate delegating assignments by working as a lead. However, it doesn’t mean that I don’t want to stay involved in the assignment actively. Actually, I actively wish to remain involved in any project with my team and inspire them to work dedicatedly by forwarding my helping hands in front of them. For instance, while I was at my former job, me along with my team faced an emergency condition in which the website of a client suddenly failed to work. In that situation, I instantly commissioned the tasks to four of my team members. When I realized that the time is short and it would be tough for those four members to complete the task within the given time frame, I myself put my hand into it with them to fix the issue. And, to my surprise, the problem gets solved within a few hours. This incident inspired my coworkers to work hard putting hand in hand in any crisis and they confessed it to me later.”

Wrapping Up:

So, from the above, you can understand that it’s not that hard to answer the question regarding your leadership styles to your interviewer. What you need is just a little confidence, smartness, and abidance to the rules about which we have discussed above. And, be sure that you will crack the interview.