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Leadership

The Ultimate Guide to Discovering Your Own Leadership Strengths, Skills & Style

July 16, 2022

As a leader, you may often feel like you have no idea what you’re doing. However, you have an innate leadership style – built from your beliefs, values, skills and strengths. ‘Knowing what you’re doing’ isn’t something a leader may ever feel, but understanding how to discover and deftly wield your leadership style is absolutely attainable – and essential to success as a leader. 

Every effective leader has a unique style that defines how they motivate, inspire, and guide their teams towards their goals. Understanding your leadership style, strengths, and skills is not just about self-awareness; it forms the backbone of your leadership journey. This post is your roadmap to defining your leadership style and recognizing the skills and strengths that make you a successful leader.

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Defining Leadership: The Driving Force of Change

Before diving into the intricacies of your leadership style, we must first lay the groundwork with a foundational understanding of what leadership truly entails. Even if you’re well-versed with the concept, let’s take a moment to ensure we’re on the same page.

At its core, leadership emerges from our innate desire for growth, progress, and challenging the status quo. It is the driving force behind all transformations, propelling the world towards constant improvement. Thus, there’s always room for new leaders, each one capable of making a significant impact.

But how do leaders manifest this change?

What precisely do they do that sets them apart?

  1. Perceiving the Need for Change: Leaders have an uncanny ability to sense when something’s not right, when things could be better. It’s like a sensor alerting them to issues others might miss. So, if you’ve ever thought, ‘It shouldn’t be this way,’ or, ‘Things would be so much better if…’, congratulations! You’re tapping into your inner leader.
  2. Envisioning a Better Future: Not only can leaders identify what’s wrong with the present, but they can also envision a more promising future. They can see beyond the immediate, painting a picture of what could be. This vision becomes their guiding star.
  3. Strategizing: Once the vision is set, leaders assume responsibility for plotting a course to reach it. They collaborate with others to identify efficient, effective, and profitable paths forward, aligning resources to the intended actions.
  4. Executing the Plan: Leaders then rally their team around the selected strategy, outlining clear action steps, projects, and objectives that align with their goal. They ensure everyone knows their part and how it contributes to the overall mission.
  5. Collaborating and Inspiring: Achieving all of the above while managing and inspiring others is no small feat. Leaders cultivate an environment of collaboration, mutual respect, and motivation, enabling their team to contribute their best.

Leadership, then, is not for the faint of heart. It calls for a combination of perception, vision, strategic thinking, execution, and people skills. It’s about seeing the world as it is, imagining it as it could be, and then doing the work to bridge the gap. And that’s where the unique value of your leadership style comes into play.

Understanding Leadership Strengths: Harnessing Your Innate Potential

Your leadership strengths are your unique set of proficiencies, talents, and skills that set you apart as a leader. They are the areas where you excel, where things seem to flow naturally. When you’re leveraging your leadership strengths, you feel confident, energized, passionate, and in your element.

But what do these strengths look like?

As a leader, you possess a diverse array of strengths spanning across core leadership and management competencies, each contributing to your effectiveness in guiding others. Here are a few examples:

  1. Communication: Your ability to clearly express your thoughts and ideas, while also understanding those of others.
  2. Providing Direction: The skill to set clear objectives and guide your team towards achieving them.
  3. Delegation: Knowing how to distribute responsibilities among team members, leveraging their strengths and fostering growth.
  4. Coaching and Mentorship: Guiding and nurturing the skills and potential of others, providing advice and feedback to foster their development.
  5. Supporting: Standing behind your team, being there to help when challenges arise, fostering a safe and encouraging environment.
  6. Decision Making: The capacity to make sound and timely decisions, even under pressure.
  7. Organization: Ability to structure tasks and resources to optimize productivity and efficiency.
  8. Planning: Skillfully outlining the steps needed to reach a goal, anticipating potential challenges and strategizing accordingly.
  9. Problem Solving: Using creativity and critical thinking to overcome obstacles, find solutions and improve outcomes.

These strengths are not one-size-fits-all but vary greatly from one leader to another. Recognizing your unique blend of leadership strengths is crucial as it enables you to lean into these areas, maximize your impact and be a more effective leader.

Leadership Skills: An Umbrella Term

While the above skills are important, they are part of a broader spectrum of leadership skills categorized into Administrative, Interpersonal, and Conceptual skills.

Administrative Skills provide structure, aligning the team with the company’s mission and goals. These skills help to manage people and resources effectively and include time management, organization, delegation, and clear communication.

Interpersonal Skills or ‘people skills’ involve understanding, empathizing, and effectively communicating with others. This domain involves being perceptive, active listening, managing conflict, and coaching team members.

Conceptual Skills, although often associated with high-level executives, are essential for leaders at all levels. These skills allow leaders to see the bigger picture, make connections, resolve complex problems, and set a clear vision and goals for the team.

What Do These Leadership Skills Look Like in a Leader?

Leadership skills encompass an array of attributes that enable an individual to lead, guide, and motivate others. These abilities are vital in any capacity but become critically important when one assumes a position of power. Recognizing, developing, and refining these skills can set you on the path to success, both in business and in life.

Self-Awareness: The Foundation

Every successful leadership journey begins with self-awareness. This trait enables you to understand your strengths, weaknesses, motivations, values, and personality traits. A thorough understanding of oneself is the first step towards personal growth and effective leadership.

Empathy: Building Trust and Relationships

A key attribute of a successful leader is the ability to empathize with others. Leaders who can connect on an emotional level are more successful in building trust and strong relationships, thereby leading to more effective communication.

Accountability: Embracing Responsibility

Accountability is an important yet challenging aspect of leadership. It involves accepting responsibility for your actions, learning from your mistakes, and understanding how your actions can impact those around you. This sense of responsibility fosters trust and respect from your team.

Listening to Understand: The Pathway to Empathy

An effective leader needs to understand their team. To achieve this, you need to listen actively and attentively, observing behavior, and trying to understand the motivations behind actions. This helps to empathize and connect with your team on a deeper level.

Communication: Expressing Effectively

Effective communication is a cornerstone of successful leadership. It involves active listening, expressing yourself clearly and concisely, and ensuring a healthy, respectful conversation by not interrupting others.

Decoding Leadership Styles: Reflecting Your Unique Identity

Leadership styles are dynamic and multifaceted, much like our personalities. They are deeply embedded in our subconscious, reflecting who we are through our actions and behaviors. An online search might introduce you to various categories of leadership styles, and you might find that you resonate with some more than others.

However, the true essence of leadership style lies in its uniqueness. Just as no two individuals are exactly the same, no two leadership styles are identical either. Think of it as your Enneagram number. While you might share some similarities with others of the same type, there are also many differences, given that your unique experiences, beliefs, values, and worldviews shape you.

Your leadership style is deeply influenced by your upbringing, education, life experiences, beliefs, values, and expectations. All these factors come together to create a unique blend, shaping how you guide others, make decisions, and achieve goals.

Understanding your unique leadership style is a key step in your development as a leader, as it helps you leverage your strengths, work on your weaknesses, and ultimately become more effective in your role. So, embrace your individuality and allow it to guide your leadership journey.

The 7 Pillars of Your Unique Leadership Style

The path to effective leadership isn’t about emulating the styles of great leaders, but rather understanding and embracing your unique style. I believe there are seven components that converge to shape your distinct leadership style:

  1. Leadership Philosophy: Your leadership philosophy is your guiding principle, influencing your decisions, and actions as a leader. It’s a blend of your values, beliefs, and vision. Understanding your philosophy can help you stay aligned with your true north, especially during challenging times.
  2. Core Strengths: Your strengths are the abilities or traits you excel at. These could be innate or developed over time. Understanding your core strengths can help you leverage them to lead effectively. For example, if one of your core strengths is strategic thinking, you may excel in planning and guiding your team towards long-term goals.
  3. Weaknesses: No leader is without weaknesses. Recognizing them is not a sign of defeat but an opportunity for growth. By understanding your weaknesses, you can work on them or delegate tasks to team members who possess strengths in these areas.
  4. Communication Styles: Your communication style is how you express your thoughts and feelings to others. Some leaders are direct and assertive, while others are more diplomatic or empathetic. Identifying your communication style can help you navigate discussions and effectively relay your expectations and feedback.
  5. Internal Motivation: This is what fuels you, what drives you to take action. Your internal motivation could be a desire for achievement, a sense of responsibility, or a passion for your work. Recognizing what truly motivates you can ignite your drive to lead and inspire your team.
  6. Inner/Outer Expectations: These are the standards you hold for yourself and others. Your inner expectations reflect your self-imposed standards, while your outer expectations are the standards you set for others. Balancing these expectations can help maintain a harmonious team dynamic.
  7. Emotional Intelligence: While not explicitly mentioned in the initial list, emotional intelligence is a crucial aspect of leadership style. This is the ability to understand and manage your emotions and those of others. A leader with high emotional intelligence can foster a supportive and positive team environment.

What Kinds of Leadership Styles are Out There?

Leadership comes in various forms – authoritarian, democratic, transformational, transactional, servant, and more. Each style has its own unique characteristics, advantages, and potential pitfalls. For instance, an authoritarian leadership style may be effective in crisis situations, but could stifle creativity and initiative in a more stable, collaborative environment. Understanding these styles can provide a foundation to identify and define your own leadership approach.

The right leader can motivate employees, inspire others, and guide the company toward success. There are many, many different leadership styles that work best in the modern workplace, but here are my top five go-to leadership styles for reference.

The Autocrat – the lead, and final, decision maker

An autocratic leader will make decisions based on his own beliefs and values, regardless of what other people think. He might not listen to feedback or advice from others. This style of leadership works well when there is only one decision maker, such as a CEO or owner of a small business.

The Collaborator – the partner in getting the right things done right

A collaborative leader listens to input from others and takes into account their ideas before making a final decision. She encourages her team members to share their opinions and ideas so everyone feels included. This type of leader is good at building relationships and trust among employees.

The Individualist – the prioritizer of independence and accountability

An individualistic leader will often make decisions based on his or her personal values and beliefs and encourage her team to do the same. He or she might not listen to other people’s suggestions or advice because he or she has made up his or her mind about an issue. The individualist encourages her team members to function in the same way – prioritizing complete independence, trust, and accountability. 

The Mentor – the guide who helps you develop and grow

A mentor is someone who guides another person through life. They help their mentees learn new skills, gain confidence, and become more successful. In return, mentors receive something back from their mentees. This could be knowledge, skills, or even just appreciation.

The Coach – the challenger who sees and speaks into your potential

Coaches encourage people to take risks, set goals, and develop themselves. They also provide feedback and support when needed.

Steps to Discovering Your Own Leadership Style

With so much internal and external information to sift through, it can be difficult to even know where to start on your journey toward discovering your leadership style. Here are a few steps to getting started.

What Is Your Philosophy About Leadership?

The first step to discovering your leadership style is to understand your own leadership philosophy – or, your beliefs as to why leadership exists and matters in the first place. A leadership philosophy is a set of beliefs and principles that strongly influences how you interpret reality and guides how you react to people, events and situations.

Here are a few questions ask to uncover your leadership philosophy:

  • Why are leaders needed? 
  • Why are you needed? 
  • And, what is the nature of humans’ relationship with work? 
  • Leaders only exist where work needs to be done – why? What do you think this says about humans and work? 
  • What perception do you have about work?
  • What is the purpose of work?
  • Can it give us joy?
  • Or, does it come from joy?
  • Do you think humans like work or dislike work, and why?

It’s always interesting to look at our beliefs about work and leadership, because it’s not something that many of us often do – if ever. It’s important to note that there are no right or wrong answers here. 

The action of defining your leadership philosophy is to help you understand the why and the motivation behind the way you show up as a leader – or, your leadership style. 

Reflect On Your Past Experiences

Looking back at past leadership experiences can be a revealing exercise. Think about times when you’ve led a team, a project, or even a group of friends. What was your approach? How did you motivate and influence others? Were you more directive, preferring to lead from the front, or did you foster collaboration and lead from beside? Or maybe, you found yourself nurturing others’ abilities and leading from behind? This reflection can shed light on your natural leadership style.

Identify Your Strengths

Each leadership style aligns with different skills and strengths. For example, transformational leaders often excel in inspiring and motivating others, while democratic leaders are usually good listeners and decision-makers. Take time to identify your strengths. You might be an excellent communicator, an empathetic listener, or a strong strategic thinker. Recognizing these strengths can help you leverage them to enhance your leadership effectiveness.

To discover your strengths as a leader, it’s important for leaders to learn to listen to and understand themselves. While using personality and strengths tests are great tools to utilize, it’s important to start first with your own introspection and discovery. 

Start Exploring Your Strengths

The best way to begin your strength exploration and study is to practice: 

  1. Self reflection and study that begets self-awareness. Start to examine the way you show up naturally. When situations arise or you interact with others, what behaviors come as a natural reflex? And, when you get lost ‘in the flow,’ what strengths are you utilizing, what zones of genius are you working in, and what powers are you wielding?
  2. Interview close friends and family. These humans are the closest to you and they have a unique opportunity to give you some tough love if needed. Ask them what they see in you, what strengths they appreciate about you, and ask them what problems they typically see you as a resource for solving.
  3. Use tests like the DiSC assessment and StrengthsFinder. However, only employ assessments after you’ve done your own personal assessment and analysis.
  4. Start over, again and again. Keep an open document as you journey through this self-discovery process and start to review and reflect on what you’ve found. 

Leadership Strengths Journaling Prompts

Here are a few questions to ask yourself as you begin to practice self-observation and self-awareness:

  • What roles do you naturally play in a team setting? What does this say about your own strengths?
  • If what we focus on grows, how can you begin to focus more on your own strengths and build them up?
  • What can be the “shadow” of your strengths, and how can you utilize your strengths in more positive ways?
  • How can you better manage and GROW your strengths?
  • How can you release expectations or needs around your weaknesses?

Seek Feedback

Collecting feedback from colleagues, supervisors, and team members can provide invaluable insights into your leadership style. Ask them about your strengths, areas for improvement, and how they perceive your leadership style. This feedback can help you understand how your leadership is received by others and where you can improve.

Develop Your Skills

Leadership development is a lifelong journey. Once you’ve identified your leadership style and strengths, focus on enhancing your skills. If your style leans towards democratic leadership, for example, you might work on your decision-making and communication skills. Remember, no leader is perfect, and there’s always room for growth.

17 Ways to Practice Your Leadership Skills

Leadership skills can be acquired, honed, and developed even from the ground up through regular practice and intentionality. Here are several ways you can intentionally put yourself in situations to practice leadership skills regularly. 

  1. Read everything you can get your hands on
  2. Practice following 
  3. Practice listening and following your intuition
  4. Tackle conflicts head-on with an attitude of optimism
  5. Seek input and constructive feedback regularly
  6. Put that feedback into practice and action
  7. Create a leadership development plan
  8. Conduct regular self-study and observation while you lead
  9. Study the styles and actions of leaders you admire
  10. Find a mentor
  11. Find a mentee
  12. Practice collaborating on a project with others – and try letting them take the lead
  13.  Delegate everything you can
  14. Grow your network and practice meeting new people – and staying connected
  15.  Practice problem-solving 
  16.  Speak into others and encourage them regularly
  17. Stay researched and knowledgeable of industry and world developments

Adapt and Evolve

A great leader knows that their leadership style should not be rigid. Different situations and teams may require different leadership approaches. Be flexible, and willing to adapt your style as needed. This adaptability can be the key to your leadership success.

Is Your Leadership Style Fixed, or Can It Evolve?

Leadership style, strengths and skills – if you think these things are fixed, you’d be entirely wrong. Otherwise, why learn about leadership? Why try to learn and grow? Your current leadership style, unless you have spent a while intentionally honing it, is a reflex generated from what you’ve experienced or learned about leadership in the past. 

The sign of a great leader? The ability to “read the room,” to see your people, empathize with them, and tailor how you use your combination of strengths and skills to their unique benefit. 

See, each team is entirely unique and each team has unique goals. Your leadership is the conduit to get them there. Knowing how to use, shape and stretch your unique leadership style to support that team from point A to Z requires a foundational understanding of your own ‘Point A.’ 

Questions to help you map out your leadership style

Your leadership style is the manifestation of your beliefs and values, the outward expression of what you believe to be true about human nature and what you believe to be true about the purpose of work. 

Looking over what you’ve observed about yourself, ask yourself the following questions:

  • How would you summarize your leadership style?
  • What do you love about how you lead currently?
  • In what areas do you want to evolve? How will you intentionally do so?
  • How do your beliefs affect the way you show up as a leader?
  • What is your vision for the future, for the good of this world?
  • What strengths bring you joy and an overflow of passion?
  • How and WHY do you naturally inspire others?
  • Given my strengths and approach to work, how do my team members experience me? What might they assume to be true about me that isn’t? How might that impact performance and team relations?
  • What are some blind spots I may not see that could affect the effectiveness of my leadership?
  • What strengths can I deepen and hone? How can I use what I now know about myself to serve my team members in more impactful ways?

23 books to help you master your leadership style

Leveraging AI in Understanding and Honing Your Leadership Style

Here’s how you can make the most of AI, specifically ChatGPT, to help you identify and refine your leadership style:

  • Self-Assessment and Reflection: ChatGPT can help you in the self-assessment process by posing insightful questions that prompt deep self-reflection. These questions can be about your strengths, weaknesses, values, and the kind of leader you aspire to be. Reflecting on these questions can help you understand your current leadership style better.
  • Feedback and Suggestions: ChatGPT can provide constructive feedback and suggestions on your leadership style based on the information you provide. This includes highlighting potential areas of improvement and suggesting ways to build on your strengths.
  • Continuous Learning: ChatGPT can provide a wealth of information on different leadership styles, principles, and best practices. This can support continuous learning and development, helping you to evolve your leadership style over time.
  • Scenario-based Training: You can use ChatGPT to simulate different leadership scenarios. By providing different responses and guiding you through possible outcomes, it can help you develop your decision-making skills and adaptability, which are key to effective leadership.
  • Emotional Intelligence Development: By interacting with ChatGPT, you can develop better communication and empathy skills. These are integral parts of emotional intelligence, which is crucial for any leadership role.

Remember, while ChatGPT can be an excellent tool for enhancing your leadership style, it is ultimately up to you to apply these learnings in your leadership journey. Being open to change, constantly learning, and adapting are key to becoming a more effective leader.

You Got This!

Remember, there’s no “one-size-fits-all” approach to leadership. It’s a multifaceted process influenced by your unique set of strengths, experiences, values, and personality traits.

Take time to reflect on your leadership strengths, recognize areas for improvement, and continually strive to develop yourself in all aspects of leadership. Leveraging tools like ChatGPT can significantly aid this process by providing self-reflection questions, feedback, and a plethora of information on leadership principles.

As you continue on this journey, remember that your leadership style will evolve. Be open to learning, adapting, and growing. After all, being a great leader is not about being perfect but about being self-aware, empathetic, and willing to make the necessary changes for the betterment of your team and your organization.

So, take the first step. Embrace the journey of understanding and improving your leadership style today. You have the potential to become the inspiring and effective leader you aspire to be. Good luck on your leadership journey!

I'm Kaylan, leadership educator, podcaster & speaker

What are you searching for?

Reading suggestions

Crafting a 90-Day Onboarding Plan

Job Postings that Attract Top Talent

Mapping Your Leadership Style