Officially live only a few weeks, the Leadership Edge Quiz has already garnered a surprising amount of attention. But what was even more surprising — and we’ve double-checked the numbers — was some of the preliminary findings so far.
Our data revealed — over 70% of leaders who took the quiz found their primary leadership style to be The DIRECTOR.
As a DIRECTOR myself, I found these results fascinating. Over the coming weeks, we’ll reveal more statistics from our test — including some of the most common answers — but for now, I’d like to drill down and discuss The DIRECTOR in detail. If you haven’t taken the quiz yet and want to discover your primary leadership style, you can take it here.
So, who are the Directors…
In our research “The Director” was often referred to as the “Balanced Leader”. This is the type of leader who is not entirely “big picture” nor is he/she a micro-manager. I consider myself a “no surprises” leader who needs to be involved in the process of setting mission, vision, and values, and then participating in setting the high-level strategy for accomplishing our mission.
It’s always been important to me, that everyone on my leadership team understood where we were going and the ground rules (our values, and any other non-negotiables) for getting there. But I prefer to leave it up to my team to design how we will accomplish our mission. I strongly believe this is the best approach for me because the team takes on emotional and actual ownership of the strategy and its execution to meet our goals.
I have always tried to hire the very best people I could find, not wanting them to feel constrained by my own thinking. Instead, I wanted to empower them to release their own creativity and imagination to meet our goals. But I certainly didn’t abandon my team or allow it to struggle on its own during the implementation stage. While I have great confidence and trust in my leadership team, I do want to check in with everyone periodically to get feedback on progress and any unanticipated snags that arise.
Depending on the type of problems, sometimes I have had to address them myself so the team could keep making progress. Other times, I had the opportunity to coach someone through problems he or she faced. The important thing is no one ever felt abandoned by my approach nor did they feel choked by my insistence for periodic updates.
The DIRECTOR leadership style can work well in both larger and smaller organizations. This type of leader generally excels at delegating tasks and is very focused on keeping the organization moving towards the mission.
But with this style, there were two things I had to watch out for. Getting bogged down in too much of someone else’s details, and remaining available to meet with others and to keep my normal scheduling obligations.
Over time, I was able to come to an understanding with each team member, of just when I needed to know something that was going on.
Now it’s your turn. Can you relate to my own views on leadership? What is your style and how has it impacted your leadership? Are you a DIRECTOR, like 70% of us, or do you fall into one of the other unique styles?