Career development can be a remarkable journey for those who decide to embark on it. It can include understanding your strengths, locating your passion, and becoming a leader in field of choice.

To truly succeed as a leader, you need to realize what type of leader you aspire to become as well as what type of leader your current skills are apt for. Why? Asking that question is equivalent to asking “Why do I need to know if I am left handed?” As with everything, knowing where you are and where you want to be are Essential!

So where do you start?

Having been on a quest exploring leadership development myself, I have come across what I feel is a great model in the book “From Sage to Artisan”. The author prefaces his model by distinguishing a manager from a leader. A leader goes beyond management – he or she can create order, inspire action and improve performance of their team or organization.

Now getting to the different styles of leadership, “From Sage to Artisan” provides an easy to follow model that distinguishes different type of leaders by the operating principal for their leadership process and their focus of management resulting in 9 distinctive types of leaders.

An operating principal can be:

• Creating order in complex and chaotic circumstances
• Inspiring Action towards an overall worthwhile objective
• Improving performance by always looking for a better way and higher level of operation

The focus of management can be:

• Systems: Focus on the “Big Picture” and why specific things are important for the organization
• People: Focus on who is affected by an organization and its operations
• Work: Focus on the details of actions required to achieve effectiveness and efficiency

A balance of all 9 types of leadership is essential for any organization.

You tend to have a preference in terms of leadership style based on your strengths. That leadership style is usually more evident in times of crises.  Not knowing your leadership style means that you can be using the wrong set of skills which can create significant problems. You can not use the same set of leadership skills regardless of the situation or otherwise, this can be a case where your strengths can hinder your success.

Hence, developing skills for areas of low preference is important for being a well rounded leader. You can increase your agility and mobility between leadership roles increasing your effectiveness in a variety of situations.

Before we get into the details of the different types of leaders and the unique set of skills for each style, there are key points to remember:

1. Expecting to master EVERY style of leadership is unrealistic.
2. You are not confined to a specific leadership style.
3. We have to overcome our tendency to avoid our weaknesses.
4. There is no one type of leader that is better than any of the others. All leadership styles are important and needed for the success of any organization depending on the situation.

My next entries will be going into the details of the distinctive behaviors and skills required for each of the 9 different styles of leadership

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Did you know that your body language determines your job future, credibility and success?

Employers know within seconds of meeting you if you are a good candidate for the position. And they make a subconscious decision whether to consider you for hire within minutes of interacting with you. Those subconscious decisions are made mostly on the basses of body language and tone of voice.

Studies in the CollegeJournal reports that "Body language comprises 55% of the (impact) of any response, whereas the verbal content only provides 7%” the rest is determined by the tone of voice.

Basically what you DON’T say is more important than what you do say.

Proof:

Think of sometime you gave a present to and the person said “they loved it” yet you didn’t believe them… why? Probably you picked up on their body language and tone of voice.

Just like you can pick up on the body language of others, so can employers pick up on yours.

Here’s another interesting one for you. 

Did you know that employers pupils Automatically and Subconsciously react when they meet the right candidate… and if you know their pupils react and know  what to look for… then you can know instantly whether you got the job or not.

The good news:

Body language is learnable just like any regular language; In fact it is easier to learn body language than any other language.

Here are some of the things you can start doing instantly to start getting the job offers you want and deserve:

To come across as open and warmly –

• Open-lipped smiling

• Open hands with palms visible

• Unbuttoning coat upon being seated

To come across as confident –

• Maintain eye contact

• Have your head up

• Use hand gestures while talking

• Walk with a purpose and have an upright posture

• Have a “firm” handshake

To avoid coming across as nervous move away from –

• Fidgeting

• Waffling with your answers

• Using the same phrases

• Coughing

• Yawning (believe it or not)

• Touching your face/hair

• Moving feet or twiddling thumbs

To avoid coming across as defensive move away from –

• Folding your arms

• Head looking down

• Closed body language

• Rolling of the eyes

• Touching your face while talking

• Frowning

• Tight-lipped grins

These hints should get you started and put you ahead of most if the competing applicants.

There are more tools available at the blog to help you with this and other things in your life, career, and business. There will be more tools coming up soon like the art of rapport building to convey trust, credibility and likeability (make sure you signup for the newsletter to stay up to date).

Now… you know that body language determines your job future, credibility and success… and I suggest you read the article on selfawareness to help you notice what you are conveying with your body language and tone of voice to others.

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