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Self-Assessment: What Kind of Leader Are You?

By Donna Deprose

Leaders come in many varieties. This brief assessment can help you determine your own predominant leadership style, apply it most effectively, and know when it would be to your advantage to develop and apply leadership styles you are less comfortable with.

Complete each question below with the response that is closest to how you would think or behave. If more than one response seems true, choose the one you would give highest priority. There are no right or wrong answers.

1. Your most important responsibility is to:
Motivate your employees to fulfill their potential
Plan for the future
Build a team to work with you
Direct and control the work
2. If you took a new job in a company that had just downsized, your first goal would be to:
Get employees to focus on the future rather than on the past
Rebuild an effective team to tackle the upcoming challenges and opportunities
Establish your authority
Boost employee morale
3. When you recognize a new opportunity, your first instinct is to:
Go for it
Convince others that it is worthwhile
Assess how well it fits into your long-term goals
Consult with others on its potential
4. Followers expect their leaders to:
Seek their input
Tell them what needs to be done
Show them why their work is important
Create a vision and plan how to achieve it
5. Leaders need followers who:
Share the leader’s vision for the future
Take assignments and run with them
Care passionately about their work
Work together to achieve a common goal
6. When a crisis occurs, you think first about:
Its impact on the people who work for you
Its impact on your long-term goals
Whose input you need to address it
How to solve it as fast as possible
7. You spend most of your time:
Planning
Giving directions
Working with others
Listening
8. Do you think more about:
Tasks, deadlines, and costs
How to get people to cooperate more
Where your company will be 10 years from now
Your own and your employees’ aspirations for the future
9. Change is an opportunity for:
The company to grow in new ways
Joint problem solving and decision making
People to learn new skills and gain new experiences
A take-charge leader to make a difference
10. You would like to be remembered for:
Your accomplishments
Creating a magnificent vision and moving the organization toward it
Working with others to achieve results
Inspiring people to live up to their potential

This assessment measures four leadership styles:
Inspirational: Motivating and energizing others to fulfill their own potential while contributing to organizational goals
Visionary: Focusing on the future, seeing the organization for all it can be and working toward that goal
Collaborative: Encouraging teamwork, getting input from others, promoting group problem solving and decision-making
Take-charge: Directing or delegating decisively; taking bold steps to exploit opportunities and solve problems efficiently and effectively

Editor: Here’s how to score the assessment:

1: inspirational, visionary, collaborative, take-charge;
2: visionary, collaborative, take-charge, inspirational;
3: take-charge, inspirational, visionary, collaborative;
4: collaborative, take-charge, inspirational; visionary;
5: visionary, take-charge, inspirational, collaborative;
6: inspirational, visionary, collaborative, take-charge;
7: visionary, take-charge, collaborative, inspirational;
8: take-charge, collaborative, visionary, inspirational;
9: visionary, collaborative, inspirational, take-charge;
10: take-charge, visionary, collaborative, inspirational

Here’s how you scored:

____ Inspirational
____ Visionary
____ Collaborative
____ Take-charge

Your highest score represents your predominant style. Which style works “best” depends upon the situation and the people you lead.

Click on your highest-scoring style(s) to find out when your style is most effective and get some tips on situations when another style might work better.

Thanks for taking this assessment.

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