Understanding Theory
Understanding yourself is important. To reach your full potential as a leader you need to have a firm insight on yourself, both currently and where you want to be in the future. One of the first steps in becoming the leader you want to be is to know your strengths and weaknesses. This allows you to focus on areas of improvements and have a clearer path to achieve your goal. A great place to start is to understand leadership theories.
Your behaviors strongly dictate your leadership style. Leaders with task-oriented behaviors tend to have strong initiating, organizing, planning, and monitoring skills. On the other hand, leaders who are people-oriented are encouraging, supportive, and are great listeners. There is no right or wrong answer as to which style is superior, but merely a distinction developed from studying the behaviors of leaders. Most great leaders have a combination of both.
Another theory to consider is the Theory X and Theory Y leadership. Theory X supposes that the average employee lacks ambition, tend to avoid responsibilities, and must be directed to perform. Theory X is essentially based on a pessimistic view of the employees. On the contrary, Theory Y assumes that employees like work, seek responsibility, and have a good sense of direction when committed to a goal. At first glance, Theory Y seems to be the clear winner. However, certain circumstances may require a Theory X leader to get the job done.
To better illustrate these theories, lets consider Tyrion Lannister from Game of Thrones. The character perfectly depicts a coaching leader. He is an excellent listener and a superb counselor. He is very good at identify strengths and weaknesses in people, which makes him a great coach. Tyrion is clearly a people-oriented leader. You may assume that people-oriented leaders are always Theory Y leaders since they seem so closely related. However, Tyrion is most definitely a Theory X leader. He cannot afford to trust everyone nor can he assume that the people under him have self-control and are self-directed. To assert his authority, he must constantly direct his men to perform.