What’s Your Leadership Style: Quiz

Also known as the visionary leader, this style of leadership is less about telling people what to do, and more about inspiring them to follow.

It allows a kind of mentorship to bloom between the leader and team, where the team is inspired and motivated by the leader’s vision. These leaders are emotionally intelligent and will guide by example rather than dictation. Their vision allows them to bring clarity in times of uncertainty, and their confidence means they can provide clear direction to their team.

The main risk with this leadership style is coming across as overbearing. While they don’t instil rigidity in work processes, they still don’t allow employees free reign to work however they see fit. They set a clear direction and ask their team to follow, and some employees might push back on this. 

If you’re an authoritative leader, remember this:

• This style of leadership is best approached with empathy. Take time to understand the personal and professional challenges of employees, in order to help identify roadblocks and motivate people to succeed.
• Always take accountability for mistakes. You’re the one choosing the direction, so make sure you own it if it’s the wrong path.

As the name suggests, this leadership style is all about the leader setting an example of high pace, high performance and high quality – and their team is expected to do the same.

For pacesetting leaders, results are their top priority, and they excel at driving fast, high-quality results in the short-term. They also pick up on roadblocks quickly since they demand constant updates from their team, meaning they’ll always hit their deadlines. This style of leadership works best in a highly experienced team, where they understand and can utilise their own competencies. 

However, pacesetting leadership can have a detrimental effect on employee motivation in the long run. Many agree that when taken to the extreme, pacesetting leadership can be toxic in the workplace and lead to stress, overwhelmed employees. It’s also not a great style for breeding trust between leader and team, since the leader has a tendency to micromanage when things aren’t going smoothly.

If you’re a pacesetting leader, try:

• Taking some extra time to offer feedback and coach employees who aren’t keeping up with their workload.
• Giving your team breaks to avoid mental exhaustion and demotivation. Try to avoid constantly pushing them too hard and fast, instead only use this style when business objectives need to be achieved quickly.

Democratic leadership is a form of shared leadership between manager and team. Employees are encouraged to share their ideas, knowledge, experience and opinions about projects before decisions are made.

These types of leaders breed creativity and innovation on their teams, as well as creating a culture of trust and job satisfaction. Employees feel their competencies are being utilised, and the responsibility of being involved in the decision-making process is motivation to grow and learn.

The biggest advantage of this style is that it allows employees to understand the long-term vision of the organisation. This builds camaraderie on the team, and motivation to reach common goals. The main risk for democratic leaders is creating disharmony on the team, which will occur if one employee’s suggestions are consistently favoured over others (whether purposely or not). 

If you’re a democratic leader try to avoid:

• Fence-sitting: don’t sit back and let decision-making drag on, especially during times where a call needs to be made quickly. 
• Letting the majority make the decisions on your behalf: this is leaning towards a laissez-faire approach to leadership, which only works in highly experienced and competent teams.

Just like a sports coach harnesses each player’s individual talent and improves them to reach their full potential, a coaching leader supports individuals on their team to achieve their professional development potential.

This leadership style puts feedback at the forefront of everything, taking the time to support and challenge every team member. The main aim of a coaching leader is to help individuals reach their career goals and do extraordinary things. This makes coaching leaders unique, as they prioritise individual development over team development, where some employees may be overlooked. 

One of the best things about coaching leaders is that their employees love working with them. They see their leader as a personal mentor, who is able to push them beyond their comfort zone and transform their weaknesses into strengths. This leads to a highly motivated and eager team who love coming to work. These leaders also set clear expectations, and guide employees towards them.

The main disadvantage of this style is that it takes time and a lot of patience. With time being a valuable resource in any organisation, this leader may need to be strategic about who they coach and when.

If you’re a coaching leader, remember:

• This style works best in a team that is committed to learning. If yours lacks an eagerness for self-development, you may find yourself with too much responsibility and few results.
• Coaching works best with employees who have similar personalities to your own. As with any relationship, chemistry is important for creating a harmonious bond where your employees are willing to accept your feedback – good and bad.

This is an incredibly powerful style of leadership, where employees are inspired to set aside individual goals and development to focus on the bigger picture goals of the team and organisation.

Transformational leaders believe positive reinforcement will always motivate people more than negative reinforcement, and because of this, it’s considered a very humane approach to leading, especially compared to styles like autocratic. Transformational leaders employ empathy, confidence and passion to inspire their employees, and this often results in a highly engaged team producing high-quality output.

One of the downfalls of transformational leaders is that occasionally they’re so focused on the vision or bigger picture that they struggle with detail-orientation, and may need to rely on employees to pick up those pieces.

If you’re a transformational leader, keep these things in mind:

• Your passion shouldn’t become a substitute for reality. Sometimes you’ll face a bleak situation, but maintaining a facade of resilience and optimism will do more harm than good. Allow yourself and your team to acknowledge harsh realities.
• This style carries the potential for abuse of power. Adolf Hitler was an example of someone who employed this leadership, demonstrating the necessity to keep morals at the forefront of everything you do. Your passion is a powerful tool to be used carefully.

Also known as the delegative style, laissez-faire leaders are the most hands-off of all. If you imagine an autocratic leader, who makes all the decisions and demands, a laissez-faire leader is the exact opposite.

While these leaders are keen to step back and give much of the power to their team, they’re also waiting with their door open to any individual who needs feedback, support or training. The extent to which this leader is hands-off depends entirely on the person. Some may provide direction at the beginning of a project before stepping away, while others may only pop in for a few check-ins, leaving the direction and decision-making to their team.

Laissez-faire leaders encourage the personal growth of their team members as well as innovation. The autonomy for employees to make their own decisions also leads to faster results. One of the major pitfalls of this style of leadership is that it requires a highly experienced and competent team in order to be successful. Without self-driven employees, researchers found this style is associated with the lowest levels of productivity. 

Another issue is that the lack of direction and clarity from laissez-faire leaders may result in projects going off the rails, or not progressing at all due to employees being unsure of what needs to be done.

If you’re a laissez-faire leader, be aware that:

• You must take accountability for all mistakes. You’re making a conscious choice to leave power in the hands of others, but you’re still their leader and must accept responsibility for their mistakes.
• You might come across as passive or withdrawn. Think about the flow-on effect this may have on your team as well – if they believe you don’t care about projects, they may end up caring less themselves.