Describing your leadership style is very important in order to become an outstanding leader. Your leadership style reflects the progress of the organization or the company. In order to be a successful leader, you would have to lead your team efficiently and effectively so they can follow your directions conveniently. If you can describe your leadership style based on clarity and precision, that can lead to success. Describing your leadership style should begin with clarity as clarity is an essential component of a leadership style. Being ambiguous can create a lot of misunderstandings and communication gaps in between a leader and his team.
How to be a leader is a common question in the business world these days. The progress and success of a company relies a great deal on their leaders. Being a good leader requires possession of some essential leadership traits. For example, the very basic requirement is that a leader should acknowledge and understand his leadership style first. He/she must understand his/her strengths, weaknesses and areas which need some improvement. There are several assessments and quizzes which help to determine leadership style. These assessments also help to figure out which areas need to be improved in order to become a successful leader.
To be a leader, one must have to support creative thinking and creativity within the team. If your team members are capable of thinking out of the box, it can help your organization prosper in innovative ways. This sort of leadership is also known as transformational leadership which stimulates intellect among individuals within the company.
Having a positive and appreciating attitude is another key component of leadership. An optimistic behavior and positivity spurs the individuals on. It allows them to work efficiently in your leadership. Your team gets inspiration from you if you are an optimistic person. If you merely discourage people within your leadership, it will make them feel disheartened and ignorant at the same time.
Being a role model is an essential trait of a leader. A leader should serve as a role model not only for his subordinates but for other leaders in the organization as well. He should be open to criticism, easy to work with, and passionate about the work. If your team looks forward to you as a role model, it means you are a successful leader in your company.
Amit Ray, Mindfulness Meditation for Corporate Leadership and Management
“Leadership is not just some empty formulas but establishing deep connection at soul levels through service, integrity, passion, perseverance and equanimity.”
Sometimes there are specific traits which become evident in describing your leadership style. Encouragement and motivation is also an essential trait of a leader. One must encourage individuals so they can bring innovative ideas, competent concepts, and efficient solutions to the problems. It requires a lot of motivation for an employee to work efficiently while thinking out of the box and that is what a leader is for.
Most of the questions interviewers ask while conducting interviews is about describing your leadership style. “what is your leadership style?”, is one of the most frequently asked questions. While answering this question, you must have to be familiar with the leadership styles and the leadership skills that you possess. For example, one has a transformational leadership style if he/she leads his/her team to set and target goals which directly align with the goals of the company or the organization. Sometimes, the questions interviewers ask are very straightforward. For example; How to be a leader?
Talking about leadership styles, there are some common leadership styles as well. Some of them include lead by example, lead by facilitating communication, and lead by delegating and making others better. One of the reasonable ways to judge your leadership style is to interact with people around yourself. You can communicate with your family, friends and other folks in your workplace. They can inform you about your strong leadership traits as per their interactions with you. Once you get their responses, you can jot down the most common points among them in order to finalize your leadership style.
There are a lot of other questions that interviewers ask for leadership roles. It includes the explanation of leadership projects and to ensure how one can stay on schedule. Sometimes it is questioned that how can a person become a better leader with the help of these goals? You may also be asked to elaborate some case studies or work examples where you had experienced some leadership challenge in the past.
There are a lot of books on leadership that have been written and published over the past few decades. Some of the important books on leadership are listed as follows:
- On Becoming Leader by Warren Bennis
- The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey
- Good to Great by James C. Collins
- Leading Challenge by John P. Kotter
- The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership by John C. Maxwell
- Good to Great by Jim Collins
- Dare to Lead by Brene’ Brown
- How to Win & influence People by Dale Carnegie