Leadership Styles, Which One Are You?

Understanding leadership styles requires more than knowing leadership personality traits, achievements, or whether they are ‘transformational’. Modesto Maidique, a visiting professor at Harvard Business School defines a six-level typology of leadership. A review of her work provides an explanation of what organizations and employees can expect from each type of leader.

Here are her six main leadership styles:
Level One: Sociopath

The first level of leader is the one who literally serves no one: the sociopath. This is the person who eventually destroys pretty much everything: value, those who surround him, and himself. Luckily, these are few and far between. Adolf Hitler is the classic example.

Level Two: Opportunist

This is the person who serves only him or herself, often at the expense of others. They’re generally after wealth and power, and don’t care about much else. Bernie Madoff provides a good example.

Level Three: Chameleon

These are the so-called leaders who try to please everyone, all the time. Needless to say, it doesn’t work out too well. It’s hard to find well-known corporate examples of this type, because they don’t tend to rise too far in organizations.

Level Four: Achiever

At level four, we start to find people whom we can at least refer to as ‘leaders’ with a straight face. Executive ranks are filled with Achievers: These folks are goal-oriented, motivated, good at beating sales quotas and earning their accolades at merit-award dinners. Their focus on corporate goals, however, can mean that they fail to see the larger picture. Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Mark Hurd may be in this category: Sure, HP’s stock price more than doubled during his tenure, but he did it by slashing research and development.

Level Five: Builder

The Builder serves not a goal but an institution. These are the leaders with a grand vision that doesn’t get derailed by fluctuations in short-term profit or stock market valuations. These are leaders that infect others with their enthusiasm, energy and integrity.

Level Six: Transcendent

There aren’t many of these. These are the leaders who look to benefit all of society: thank Nelson Mandela or Martin Luther King, Jr.

What type of leader are you, and what type of leader do you strive to be? How about your boss?