What's your leadership style?

As Chapter President, one of the greatest difficulties you will run into is getting your team to work together efficiently. This is perfectly normal- it is difficult for any group of people to come together to work towards a united goal. However, you must ensure that your Chapter Officer Team overcomes this difficulty. One effective way of doing so is by recognizing your leadership styles. If you click on this link , you will find a brief survey that will help you and your team to analyze your strengths and weaknesses as leaders.

Once you have determined your leadership style and your team members’ styles, you can use all of the unique leadership styles in your group to make your team as cohesive as possible. Make sure to take advantage of each person’s leadership strengths. Since each person will have different leadership styles and strengths, each person will fulfill a different niche within the team, helping the team to accomplish its goals more efficiently.

Different tasks are better suited for some leadership types than others. For example, if your team wants to hold a membership drive, the directors and the writers are the people to consult for the logistical planning. The actors and managers are typically the ones who are the most charismatic, and so are great at being the “face” of your school’s TSA chapter.

However, this survey should not force you or your teammates into fulfilling the exact same role every single time your team wants to do something. Individuals may be strong in more than one area, and so cannot be fully represented by a single survey result. The purpose of the survey is to illustrate where your biggest leadership strengths lie, and to show you where may need to work to improve yourself. Confronting your weaknesses will make you a better leader, so don’t be afraid to do things outside of your comfort zone!

Sometimes, there may be more than one strong leadership style within the group. Having more than one strong leader can lead to conflict, but the important thing is learning to cooperate and work with all leadership styles. In order to accomplish this, there must be clear communication and focused feedback within your team.

In order to work well, team members must communicate their ideas at all times. For example, leaders sometimes tend to fall into the habit of working alone. This puts an extra burden on that teammate, while under utilizing the rest of the team. Instead, members should learn to communicate and delegate tasks to one another based on their leadership strengths and weaknesses. Feedback is also crucial to success. In order to improve upon their weaknesses, leaders should open themselves to constructive criticism and feedback from others, and offer the same to others.

We’d love your feedback as well! In the comments section of this blog, post ways that your Chapter Officer Team deals with different leadership styles. What were your PLI results? Do you think they were accurate?

Click here for the PLI survey.