Much of your success as a manager, especially one that your people want to be led by, is dependent on your self-awareness–how well you know yourself and lean into your greatness. Working toward continuous self-improvement develops your ability to manage well, more than any quick leadership advice or strategy. Self-awareness is something that is yours forever. When leadership trends fade, your self-awareness will not.
Highly successful managers look different across the board (some are more collaborative, others are great listeners), but the qualities that unite them in their success are rooted in their ability to know what makes them and their people tick.
To manage others well, you must first know yourself well. You can lead others to greatness by getting yourself there first.
Identify Your Management Style
Identifying your management style is the first step to better understanding how you lead in the workplace. It also tunes you in to areas of your personality and behavior to be mindful of that may cause conflict with your team. We all have areas of greatness as well as our shadow side.
There are six management styles–which resonates with you most?
- The Coach
- Strengths: You inspire and empower your team to perform their best. You set a great example.
- Opportunities: You might struggle enforcing consequences and giving constructive feedback to your team.
- The Listener
- Strengths: You make your team feel seen and cared for. You are patient and kind, and your team gravitates to you.
- Opportunities: You might avoid the risk of conflict that can ultimately benefit the team.
- The Problem-Solver
- Strengths: You have a vision for your projects and are logical in accomplishing tasks and goals.
- Opportunities: You may put relationships on the back-burner in order to get tasks done. This may make it challenging for your team to approach you.
- The Innovator
- Strengths: You’re creative and know a good idea when you see one. You’re inspirational.
- Opportunities: You might rush to accomplish tasks based on your ability to make quick decisions. Your team may not be this way and may feel hurried by your deadlines.
- The Planner
- Strengths: Your team has questions and you have answers. You don’t make promises you can’t keep and you make sure you’ve communicated all plans thoroughly to your team.
- Opportunities: You may struggle being flexible. This can be challenging for team members who are more free-spirited.
- The Free Spirit
- Strengths: You take risks and trust your team to use their strengths to accomplish great things for the business.
- Opportunities: Too great of an emphasis on freedom may remove structure and consistency that sets the foundation for expectations your team needs to thrive over time.
Dive Deep & Reflect
Now that you’ve identified your management style, or at least narrowed it down, download the free full e-book on the six management styles to learn more and discover how to maximize your style. If you’re still not sure what your management style is, share this blog with your team and poll them for their insight and feedback. Others often see us better than we can see ourselves.
Want to dive deeper? Take the Amber Hurdle Personal Brand Challenge to get feedback on how you show up in the world and how it impacts your management style.
What’s your management style? Tell us what makes you and your team thrive in the comments.
About Abby
Abby Siegel Hyman is the Marketing + PR Manager at Amber Hurdle Consulting, and holds a master’s in Theological Studies and Community Development and Action. She is the proud mom of the goldendoodle, Willie–one of the office dog cheerleaders that keeps AHC innovative and engaged. Connect with Abby on LinkedIn.
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Amber Hurdle Consulting is a multi-award-winning talent optimization firm that pioneers using both science and marketing principles to solve these problems by strengthening your brand from the inside out. As a Predictive Index (PI) Certified Partner, we teach you how to generate and use real data in the form of people analytics, and then we sit on your bench as analytics experts, bringing along almost 20 years of branding, marketing and public relations experience. With these tools, we partner with you to design a compelling internal relations strategy featuring three key areas:
#1 We work with your leaders on their personal brands, so they increase self awareness and see and harvest the greatness in others.
#2 We teach you to use a scientific, repeatable method to recruit, retain and inspire top talent, elevating your culture while crafting a world-class employer brand.
#3 We then help you leverage strong leaders and a “best places to work” environment so that happy employees are serving happy customers…ultimately elevating your business brand.