MY LEADERSHIP STYLE 1

My Leadership Style
St. Petersburg College
Angelina Thompson

MY LEADERSHIP STYLE 2
Leadership is an incredibly important aspect of daily and professional life for
pretty much everyone. Despite that, leadership skills are not typically taught to children
in schools. It is as if the children are just supposed to learn how to lead all on their own.
Luckily for me, I chose to go to a school where you are required to take a leadership
skills course. The Leadership Development Seminar has provided me with the tools
necessary for me to be the best leader I can be. One such tool is the questionnaire at the
end of every chapter of the text. I took three of these questionnaires, which showed me
what kind of leadership skills and/or traits I do or do not have.
The first questionnaire is called the Task and Relationship Questionnaire found
on page 116 of the Introduction to Leadership text. The goal of this questionnaire is to
identify whether you are more of a task oriented or relationship oriented leader. This
essentially means that you either are more focused on what needs to be done or on your
relationships with the people you are leading. The other purpose of this questionnaire is
to find the relation between your task oriented behavior and your relationship oriented
behavior. For instance, does one type of behavior prevent the other? The questions are
geared towards separating the two behaviors but trying to find out where they overlap.
My results for the Task and Relationship Questionnaire are that I am slightly
more of a task-oriented leader. This seems fairly accurate to me. When I am leading a
group, my priority is not to be best friends with everyone, but to get whatever needs to be
done, done. That being said, I am not an unfriendly leader or by any means harsh. In fact,
my relationship score was only seven points lower than my task score. I do care about the
people in my group and about how they are feeling, and I absolutely make sure everyone

MY LEADERSHIP STYLE 3
is comfortable in the group. But, in my opinion, there will be plenty of time for bonding
after the work is done.
The second questionnaire I took is called the Leadership Skills Questionnaire
found on page 142 of the text. This questionnaires goal is to identify what leadership
skills you have. The questions are equally distributed to show three different skill sets:
administrative skills, interpersonal skills, and conceptual skills. Administrative skills are
those that help a leader run an organization and to achieve the organizations goals.
Interpersonal skills involve being socially perceptive, properly handling personal
conflicts, and being emotionally available and understanding. Finally, conceptual skills
are the leaders ability to solve problems, strategize, and create vision. The questionnaire
takes your answers to the questions and shows you your strengths and weaknesses in all
three categories of leadership skills.
The questionnaire showed me that I am equally strong with my interpersonal and
conceptual skills, and that I am only slightly weaker with my administrative skills. These
results, again, make sense to me. While I am task oriented, I dont necessarily enjoy the
more administrative or, dare I say, bland aspects of leading. I am not a huge fan of
things like paperwork or finances or really anything solely to do with numbers. I prefer
the side of leading that is more involved with people. I want to be a psychologist. I find
people and their behaviors very interesting. I am also very, very much in tune to other
peoples emotions. This makes interpersonal and conceptual skills very easy for me. I
know I said before that the task at hand is more important to leading than being close
friends with your group members, but that doesnt mean that I dont care or dont try to
understand their emotions and help them enjoy the working environment.

MY LEADERSHIP STYLE 4
The third and final questionnaire I filled out is called the Conflict Style
Questionnaire found on page 254 of the text. The goal of this questionnaire is to identify
you handle conflict. It also analyzes how those conflict styles change in different aspects
of your life. There are five conflict styles: avoidance, competition, accommodation,
compromise, and collaboration. Avoidance is exactly what it sounds like. Those who
score high in this category typically avoid conflict at all costs no matter whom it may
affect. Those who score high for competition are very assertive about achieving their
goals and do not help others achieve their goals. Accommodation is equal parts
unassertive and uncooperative. People that score high here are very passive and like to
ignore conflict. Compromise falls directly in between competition and accommodation.
Finally, collaboration involves both assertiveness and cooperation.
Unsurprisingly, I scored the highest for accommodation. I will be the first to
admit that for all my talk I am incredibly spineless, especially in delicate relationships. I
am a people pleaser, so I dont like causing conflict, which usually leads to me not talking
about issues in a relationship or situation that bother me. And when conflict arises on its
own, I do avoid talking about it simply because I am afraid of the outcome affecting me
negatively. My second highest score, only off by one point, was avoidance, also not
surprising. Depending on the situation, I can completely turn off when conflict is brought
to my attention. This is a defense mechanism of mine that I am working very hard to
shake. At a tie for third and fourth are collaboration and compromise. I am also working
very hard to have at least one of these two conflict styles be my main one.
Overall, the questionnaires in Introduction to Leadership have accurately shown
me where my strengths and weaknesses are in my leadership style. It was a bit

MY LEADERSHIP STYLE 5
enlightening to see how my shortcomings affect my leadership abilities. I learned that
while focusing on the goals and tasks of the group is important, the people and
relationships in the group also need my close attention if I am going to be a good leader. I
also learned where I need improvement, such as my conflict styles. Ultimately, the entire
course, not just the questionnaires, have bettered me as a leader and as a person, and I
know that I will definitely use the skills I have learned for the rest of my life.

MY LEADERSHIP STYLE 6
Citation

Northouse, P. (2015). Introduction to leadership concepts and practice (Third ed., p. 116,
142, 254). Los Angeles: Sage.