No More Heroes

Primer: Losing a leader is like losing a close friend, you lose that mentor and ally. You can feel alone at times and even upset, but you must remember what they taught you. You have to find the courage and remember the lessons they taught you. You have to stand up and lead the group of people who need a leader now more than ever. You can't live as a follower forever, one day you'll find a group of strangers asking you for directions.

Overcoming your Fear: A lot of leaders when they first step up to the plate deal with self doubt. They feel as though they aren't good enough. They tear themselves down before they even start. You have to trust and believe in yourself because people believed in you enough to put you in the leadership role.

You're Not Alone: You have a team of people who are around to give you support. A leader doesn't have to do everything on there own, that's the purpose of the team. Have faith in your followers and raise them up to be leaders as well. Remember to speak words of encouragement into your group to cement bonds. Find their strengths to build their character to form an outstanding unit.

Be Honest: Don't be afraid to tell the truth about how you feel. If you're not feeling well let them know, and if something needs to be changed work with them. They deserve to have a strong leader, be prepared and organized to act like it. There are many great ways to being a leader these are just a few.

Share any experiences you've had being a leader, leave interesting or creative responses below.

Questions, comments, or concerns?!

Hey Just_Dave!

One thing I've noticed more and more about leaders is that there tend to be 2 major types. Those that want to lead and those who just had the courage to step up and take the risk/responsibility. Even a quiet reserved person can be a leader under the right circumstances, and they need to be decisive. Following an indecisive leader spells disaster.

PS: love this thread idea

Anyone can be a leader, but everyone has a base type personality that will tell how they will, by default, lead the group. These types all come with pros and cons.

From what I've learned, I take it there are 4 base types of leaders:


1) The dominant leader

pros: The natural kind of leader if you go by stereo typing. They're super fast, decisive, assertive and aggressive when called for. They stand strong in front of the group. Organize the group to get to the goals he deems in the best interest for the group.

cons: These guys can become a bit like a dictator and rush into stuffs without thinking it over. This can eventually set off the group, who then rebel against the leader.


2) The intelligent leader

pros: These guys will observe, get to the bottom of stuffs and make a clear case of what is the best next action to take. Basically wanting to do things perfect with research to back it up.

cons: They can be very slow to act in dealing with stuffs, especially if they have to make decisions outside of their experience. They can also be very cold towards the group, ignoring the group's needs in pursuit of what is logically best


3) The supportive leader

pros: They listen to the group, try to be there for the group and help their group members. Basically acts in support of- and please the group.

cons: When they might want to please everyone and default to their behavior of not being able to say 'no', group individuals come and have opposite needs and this leader type will become indecisive and simply lock up: He can't please everyone!


4) The creative leader

pros: They will emotionally dig in with passion and steer and solve everything and anything creatively and as fast as possible, inspiring the group on their quest.

cons: Like supportive leaders, they might not say 'no' when it's important, cause they lack overview and want to find a solution to everything. Total chaos can occur, if these leaders loose sight of what is really important.


Branching out

The best leaders are leaders who can branch out to other types when needed. This is so they can avoid their pitfalls, adopting skills from the other types to cover for their flaws.

To illustrate:

1) A dominant leader can switch gears in being intelligent or creative to inspire instead of acting like a dictator
2) An intelligent leader can be dominant when there are time constraints and supportive if empathy is called for
3) A supportive leader can be intelligent or creative to get past his indecisiveness
4) A creative leader can be dominant or supportive in order to stay focussed on what is important

Wonder why 1 leader group is left out with each type branching out? They are opposites!
It is hard if you are dominant to the core, to become supportive (and vice versa). It is also hard if you act from logic (intelligent), to get emotionally into something (and vice versa). However, you can easily balance 2 opposites, if you branch out from a 3th (your personal) type, without messing with your core personality from your base type.
Not saying it is impossible to act opposite to your type, but you'll really have to restructure how you think and act against your believes and default behaviors, if you want to.


Learning new skill sets of another leader type

Each type of leading can be learned. Especially those that are not opposite to your base type. To do so, you can focus on adopting specific treats that come with these leader types:

1) Dominant: Develop assertiveness; Learn how to simply say 'no'. Learn how to say what you want and say it. Do it. Learn to take action right now.
2) Intelligent: Develop insight; Dive into mechanics of matters that come your way. Study about stuff / learn about every angle. Then take action on what you've learned.
3) Supportive: Develop empathy; Deep dive people. See what they want. Walk a mile in their shoes. Try to feel what they are feeling.
4) Creative: Let go; Don't look at obstacles, let go of wanting to do things perfectly, throw yourself in and know anything is possible as long as you put your heart into it.


What to do with all this?

Anyone can be a leader, you just have to try. You will not lead the same as another leader, but that's okay; Everyone will lead differently.
What type are you? Try and find out.
What are your pitfalls? Step back and take a look at yourself.
Avoid your pitfalls by branching out. Become a multi-layered leader that inspires people, structures your groups and at all times is able to take action for the better, no matter how you do it.

I'd like to add that pure supportive leaders are a bit of a weird breed. They are supporting and leading, which are two words you don't associate with each other fast
That also got me thinking they can be considered the weakest type in terms of leadership (and dominant leaders the strongest, with intelligent and creative leaders falling somewhat in the middle...). Supportive leading is a style that brings too much conflict (and indecisiveness) to the table.

Supportive leaders are really good at taking care of people their emotions though. That's what got them in that position in the first place. They are great 'people' people. And if they are able to branch out though, using their people skills as a base and then extend that with intelligent and/or creative leadership, they can be very effective and great leaders to follow.

Dave,

Knowledge of Being "The One" D)

1)Don't get involve in others personal matters

2)LEad by Example

3)Refrain from putting others down

4)USe Objective reasoning when you need to put others down

5)Treat everyone equally and calibrate emotions if the party's personal matters with other people affects him/her and being neutral.

z@c+

Want to drop some more analytic blabla on leadership, but now in relation to personality types as a lot of what I dropped above was linked to that and finding new research and going over articles on GC I just want to drop what makes sense:

Social Types

From https://www.girlschase.com/content/socia ... -seduction

Driver: the drill sergeants of Social Styles; a Driver wants to know just the facts - what is needed, right now, and that's it. Is information-based, and has little patience for feelings, emotions, wasting time, or too many questions. Drivers are high in dominance/assertiveness, and low in caring/responsiveness. [/color]

Analytical: Social Style's accountants, programmers, and number crunchers. Like Drivers, Analyticals are fact-based - but they want to know ALL the facts... every little detail. What is it, how does it work, how should you do it, which step comes after which step, etc. Analyticals are annoyed at overly simplistic instructions or explanations, and at overly emotional individuals. They're low in dominance/assertiveness, and low in caring/responsiveness.

Expressive: is a talker... Expressives are the Chatty Cathys of the Social Styles world. They're much more interested in YOU than they are in whatever it is you're trying to sell them, tell them, or get them to do. Likes: talking, bonding, getting to know people, being the life of the party. Dislikes: overly fact-based too-mechanical people (robots), who don't know how to have a good time. Expressives are high in dominance/assertiveness, and high in caring/responsiveness.

Amiable: the big, cuddly Teddy bears of Social Styles, Amiables like for everybody to just get along. They like low pressure, low stress environments, where everything is calm, tranquil, and moves slowly. Amiables detest being rushed or hurried, and will often say "yes" when they want to say "no" simply because they are so conflict-avoidant that they don't want to risk hurting your feelings or getting into a debate. Amiables are low in dominance/assertiveness, high in caring/responsiveness


Next from type of girls (which also applies to guys)

From https://www.girlschase.com/content/4-kin ... -should-go

FT: Soft
TR: Strong
IN: Inexperienced
EX: Experienced


Connecting the dots

Driver : TR/EX : The dominant leader : Lumina color red : Leading with Drive
Analytical : TR/IN : The intelligent leader : Lumina color blue : Leading to deliver
Expressive : FT/EX : The creative leader : Lumina color yellow : Leading with vision
Amiable : FT/IN : The supportive leader : Lumina color green : Leading trough people

See lumina color chart on leading (not mine), found in line with 4 girls picture and social type charts from Chase's articles :
http://aimabove.com/resources/wp-conten ... e-Logo.jpg


Branching out and experience

Chase argues in his articles you can only easily move from IN to EX. Moving any other way is hard.

So an intelligent leader can easier adopt dominant leader traits trough experience
An supportive leader can easier adopt creative leader traits trough experience.

And that's about it?

As for leadership styles by example above, I do argue though, it's perfectly possible to branch out in any direction (around that lumina color chart by example), as it's just learning more and more behaviors that come with the type / color that you target in any given direction. In that light (No, not you Light), moving any direction is not per say harder or easier, but it does require you to learn new skill sets.

I can see though, from Chase's point of view, how moving from IN to EX is more natural to happen without giving it much thought. It's about simply gaining experience in an area (in this forum thread's case: leadership). Once you become comfortable in this area, you move your focus from inward to outward, tightly tied in with the underlying models of INtroversion vs EXtroversion. Once one becomes more comfortable somewhere he'll sooner or later redirect his from energies from inward to outward.

I like how that came together. Especially the IN and EX bit


The 3 Different Kinds of Leaders
Trying to tie this to Colt's article: https://www.girlschase.com/content/3-dif ... ds-leaders

"I would say that naturally, those who have to do less work to become leaders are somewhere between Drivers and Expressives."
I think it depends on what you think makes a great leader, but yeah, these 2 traits make for a decisive leader with vision, which the article mostly embraces.

However, trying to decode the 3 styles here, it almost seems you could argue different styles take different personality types.

Style 1: Autocratic : This seems the style most suited for leaders with driver traits and contradicts with amiable traits.
Style 2: Laissez Faire : This seems the style most suited for leaders with amiable traits and contradicts with driver traits. Not a great leading style, as Colt already mentions in the article, and that falls directly in line with my earlier comment above on supportive leaders being a bit of a weird breed.

Now Style 3: Democratic, the best style according to the article, things become interesting:
- Leader encouraged group to create policies: Can come from Analytical or Expressive, depending if encouragement comes from wanting most insight (analytical), or came from bonding (expressive).
- Leader gave overview of task and steps before work: can be either Analytical or Expressive, depending if overview comes from vision (expressive) or research (analytical).
The rest of this style draws from the team and their traits (for example, giving back analytic feedback), but I can see how you then need a Driven leader to glue things together and keep people on the go, so...


Wrapping up

As already explained in earlier post, the strongest leaders are of base type Driven, but they are even better if they have Analytical or Expressive support behaviors. Or better yet, a leader who is Driven and can juggle Research (Analytics type) with Vision (Expressive type), as a base type with 2 support types personality is not as uncommon as you might think.

Myself, I'm Analytical base type to the core, but from that place I juggle assertiveness and decisiveness (Driven) with empathy and support (Amiable) in my dealings with others depending who I deal with. And yeah, I do lead. My style is Democratic and I draw on the 'vision' of some expressive type that follow my lead, to get creative input. With a democratic leading style you can really get the best off everyone's personalities

Fun side note: As you might expect I have trouble dealing with pure Expressive types or ppl showing that behavior directly towards me while I lead them. However, my best friend and my GF are both Amiable base type, but both showing much expressive traits as well. Somehow that has it's charms to me in a partner and with good reason. We tent to be attracted to opposites that can compliment us and I smile at my GF's expressive behaviors, while I connect with her on a Amiable level... The best bonds are where types overlap and complementary types from individuals compliment each other in partnership.

Anyways... That's enough blabla and connecting dots. Time to get some (other) work done