Our Blog

BY petevanepps

What is Your Leadership Style?

Pretty basic question, right? When I ask a Junior Military Officer (JMO) this question, he or she usually begins to describe how they lead an individual or a group of people over whom they have positional authority. In most cases, we would classify that as team leadership. I published a more detailed blog post on team leadership, which you can read here. When you think about it, JMOs are asked to lead in many different ways depending on their current position, the situation, the environment, the constraints and requirements, etc. As you define your leadership style, acknowledge that leadership comes in many forms. Consider the following and try to answer the leadership style question in context:

• Up Leadership: The ability to persuade and convince a superior or those who outrank you to buy into a vision or new approach in order to accomplish results.
• Cross-functional Leadership: The ability to lead a cross-functional team to reach a goal. This could be leading a group of peers through a process improvement, project, or problem solving. You may have led cross-functional teams to overhaul electrical systems, deploy units, reconstruct buildings or roads, develop and implement training programs, etc.
• Change Leadership: The ability to lead an organization through major change while keeping morale high and retaining people. This is a key leadership trait because companies look for leaders who can initiate and catalyze change to improve results.
• Idea Leadership: The ability to originate and develop a creative idea.
• Team Leadership: The ability to lead, train, coach, mentor, develop, and motivate a team to achieve tough challenging goals. Team leaders have positional authority over the team members, as well as the responsibility for leading them.

As you continue to define your leadership and your experiences, consider some of the different types of leadership styles. As you inventory your skill set, identify areas where you are strong and others where you can improve.

At Cameron-Brooks, we spend time helping JMOs conduct self analysis and skill development in order to maximize their options in the transition process. If you are interested in learning more, call us at (210) 874-1500 or email us at candidates@cameron-brooks.com.