20 Apr 2010, Posted by Cris Buckley in Entrepreneur Change Stages,Self-Discovery, 1 Comment. Tagged entrepreneur, leadership, strengths

Do You Know Your Leadership Style?

Photo by Hamed Saber

As entrepreneurs, we are all leaders–people of influence who can greatly impact the lives of others. And the best way to do that is to discover our own leadership style and maximize it.

There is no one-size-fits-all leadership style. No clones!

Do you remember the story of David and Goliath? Goliath was a 10-foot giant in the enemies’ camp who challenged Israel to find one person who could fight him. Winner take all.

David was a teenager who had been living out on the hills–taking care of the family’s sheep. But while caring for them, he had run into bears and lions–and taken them down.

He accepted the giant’s challenge.

To equip him for the fight, Israel’s king put David into his own armor and gave him his sword. And David tried to move out–all decked out in the king’s gear–but he couldn’t. Because it wasn’t what he was used to.

So–he took the king’s stuff off, and picked up his own slingshot and five smooth stones. And nailed the giant.

The moral: It will never work to adopt someone else’s leadership style. You have to find your own “five smooth stones”.

Strengths-Based Leadership

A great tool to help us do just that is the Strengths-Based Leadership book put out by Gallup Press. Included with the book is a code to access the 35-minute Strengthsfinder 2.0 Assessment, which uncovers our top five strengths (smooth stones?).

Then we can download our personalized Strengths-Based Leadership Guide (also included) based on those strengths.

The Strengths-Based Leadership Guide will help us apply our own leadership strengths to these primary needs of followers (according to Gallup research): Trust, compassion, stability and hope.

The book will also promote our understanding of our leadership style through helping us find our main domain of Leadership Strength:

• Executing: Making things happen.
• Influencing: Reaching a broader audience.
• Relationship Building: The glue that holds a group together.
• Strategic Thinking: Focus on what could be.

NOTE: I have used the Strengthsfinder assessments and books personally, with clients, family and friends and have found them to be pretty spot-on. Not only that, but I’ve found that when we tap into our own strengths, it’s a real confidence-builder.

I do recommend Strengths-Based Leadership and its accompanying assessment and Leadership Guide for discovering our leadership style. (Disclosure: I am an Amazon affiliate.)

Have you discovered your leadership style? What is it? What isn’t it?

Related posts:

1. You Are Not Your Job Description