Leadership Style and Assessments

Leadership Style and Assessments

Leadership style and assessments. How useful are they to companies?

Many leadership development and training programs emphasise the importance of knowing your leadership style and also on taking leadership assessment tests to evaluate your leadership qualities. Companies can use leadership assessments and style approaches to understand and leverage the leadership better, help to develop and groom the manpower, and generate an overall significant effect on organizational success.

Companies can better understand and leverage their leadership better by understanding the kind of leadership styles. According to Cherry (2014), Kurt Lewin and his team in 1939, identified three major leadership styles: Authoritarian, Laissez faire and democratic. Each of these styles have very distinctive properties. Authoritarian people control all decision-making in the office, and they are not good at sharing ownership with other people, power is entirely concentrated in their hands. Many traditional companies show this kind of style in operation but in excess, it can descend to dictatorial behaviour. A company may be successful but it will have a very undemocratic environment. Laissez faire attitude refers to a total lack of ownership by the leadership. They leave the entire decision making to the individuals. Problem here is that it can lead to low motivation. Democratic is the ideal kind of leadership where the leader is firm and decisive but also takes the opinions of his key members into consideration. Thus a company’s style of functioning can depend on the leadership styles in operation.

Assessments of leadership can be of great use for organizations and Individuals as they help to groom the manpower.

According to various sources on leadership, (how to assess your leadership style, 2014), (leadership, 2008), leadership assessment tests, provide a set of measures by which you can estimate whether you have the requisite qualities, needed to demonstrate leadership in your context or the role you want to apply for.  The assessments will ask you questions on various workplace-related issues, behaviours, attitudes etc and will make an assessment of you based on your strengths and weaknesses. It may provide assessment of the likely candidates for certain leadership roles and help to shortlist suitable candidates who demonstrate certain competencies and are hence more likely to succeed in that role. In a very competitive time and with large number of candidates competing for better jobs, promotions such assessments can  help in pinpointing out behavioral attributes, styles and help in in-house screening and evaluation of candidates especially for high pressure posts. Candidates can use such assessments to evaluate and determine as to what kind of role would suit them best and in which they would perform well.

There is significant impact of use of leadership style approach on organizations and individuals. Different leadership styles used can impact how organizations and individuals function. According to Priolo (2012),   assessments and determination of leadership styles can help the organisation determine whether the candidate would fit into the organisational fit and culture and help the candidates gauge as to whether this is the right place for them. Wrong fit of styles and contexts can result in higher levels of conflicts which would impede functioning.  Ideally, the best environments would allow a mix of different working and leadership styles as that would help increase creativity but often it does not happen that way.  It would also help to generate the criteria of success for that post, which can be used for subsequent assessments. Such approaches can be used to determine the success of organisations. It will help the company generate and develop a high quality workforce, sustain and build on existing talent as well as draw in new talent. Such methods will also help in developing the skills and competencies of candidates. Companies, though, have to be aware of the potential pitfalls which can arise through careless usage of assessments including  inaccurate predictions, subjective judgements, inconsistent ratings and use of just a single assessment method and they have to be aware of these. (Reynolds, n.d.) Companies can also evaluate and change the current leadership style in line with requirements of contextual demands.

On the whole, use of leadership assessment and leadership style models does help companies, organisations and individuals in leveraging on their strengths and weaknesses in such a way that they best fulfil organisational goals, help build quality manpower and leverage effective leadership.

List of References:

Cherry, K. (2014). Learn the Three Major Styles of Leadership. About.com Psychology. Retrieved 13 May 2014, from http://psychology.about.com/od/leadership/a/leadstyles.htm

Dummies.com,. (2014). How to Assess Your Leadership Style – For Dummies. Retrieved 13 May 2014, from http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/how-to-assess-your-leadership-style.html

Gpslifeplan.org,. (2014). LeadershipPlan. Retrieved 13 May 2014, from http://www.gpslifeplan.org/century/leadership/index.php?link=who-know-yourself

Priolo, D. (2012). employee assessment. info.profilesinternational.com. Retrieved 13 May 2014, from http://info.profilesinternational.com/profiles-employee-assessment-blog/bid/72103/4-Key-Benefits-of-Using-Pre-Hire-Assessments-in-Your-Organization

Reynolds, D. (n.d.). Strategic Value of Assessment: Building business advantage. http://www.ddiworld.com/DDIWorld/media/white-papers/strategicvalueofacbuildingbusinessadvantage_wp_ddi.pdf?ext=.pdf. Retrieved 13 May 2014, from www.ddiworld.com

www.gpslifespan.org,. (2008). leadership. Retrieved 13 May 2014, from yle, 2014)  http://www.gpslifeplan.org/century/leadership/index.php?link=who-know-yourself