I recently read an excerpt from the book, “The Nine Types of Leadership: Mastering the Art of People in the 21^st Century Workplace” by Beatrice Chestnut, Ph.D.  In it she defines nine distinct leadership styles.

In the book she explains that one style isn’t necessarily better than any other.  The styles describe what you pay most attention to as a leader and are meant to help leaders identify how they lead in order to help them make better decisions and work with the people around them.

The nine styles are defined by Chestnut as:

1.      Quality. This type of leader focuses on improvement, getting things right, making things as perfect as they can be, being ethical, following the rules and applying high standards.

2.      Pleasing people. This leader focuses on being liked, creating relationships, strategically supporting others to make themselves indispensable and empowering people.

3.      Work tasks and goals. This type of leader wants to be efficient and productive and have the image of someone who is a successful achiever.

4.      Emotions. This leader is focused on their internal experience and on expressing themselves so that people will understand and see them as being unique and special. 

5.      Data and work-related information. This leader is more comfortable operating on the intellectual level (as opposed to the emotional level), and is objective, analytical, private and likes to work independently.

6.      Potential problems. This leader focuses on noticing what might go wrong, forecasting problems before they happen so they can prepare for them ahead of time. This type of leader is an insightful problem solver who watches out for threats, is a good troubleshooter and specializes in assessing risks.

7.      Innovation. This leader focuses on coming up with new ideas and planning for the future. This leadership style is optimistic, enthusiastic and automatically reframes negatives into positives.

8.      Power and control. This leader prefers big-picture thinking to figuring out the details, likes to make big things happen, and has an easier time dealing with conflict and confrontation than some of the other types.

9.      Creating harmony. This type of leader leads by consensus. They are a natural mediator and want to make sure everyone is heard and that different points of view are considered when making plans and coming to decisions.

I’m surprised that pleasing people made the list as a leadership style.  In all I’ve learned about successful leadership, pleasing people is not successful tactic.  I think we all know it’s impossible to please everyone, especially as a leader.

I had a difficult time deciding which of these I identify with the most, and I honestly think I’m a blend of several of them.  I’d be curious to see if my team could narrow it down to one style for me.  It might an interesting experiment.  With both myself and my team knowing my leadership style, I think we could work together more effectively.