Question # 1: Write a short paper identifying one or more of the leadership styles that most
represent you that are listed in Section 3.4.5.1, PMBOK 6e. Once you identify the leadership
style that describes you, conduct some research into that style and write a post that properly
paraphrases or summarizes one or two references.
Answer: The most important thing that drives the team success is neither working plan, nor team
member’s skills nor the budget, it is the leadership that creates perfect working environment, it is
the leadership that has the vision and utilizes the team’s skills in the best way to achieve this
vision. The leadership has multiple responsibilities or goals to achieve within the organization it
is not just project completion but it encompasses building harmony between the employees and
the top management, set goals and utilize the skills of the human resource in best possible way to
achieve the set goals.
Every leader or Project Manager has different style of dealing with the employees, top
management and the organization’s projects depending upon the project manager’s own
characteristics and nature, upon the nature and behavior of the team, depending upon the goals
and characteristic of the organization and upon organizational work ambience. Based on these
four major factors different leadership styles have been categorized as:
Laissez-Faire:
The French term Laissez-Faire means “Leave it”. Laissez-Faire leaders only monitor the team
and turn things over to the team where the team is responsible for creating their own goals and
decisions.
Transactional:
Transactional leaders are focused upon goals, the achievements and the performance of the
employees and sets rewards against the accomplishment of goals. This type of leadership style is
helpful in many cases and situations.
Servant Leader:
As the name suggests servant leaders focus on their well-being, growth, training & development
and learning. Servant leaders do not demonstrate their authority or have any strict behavior with
the team instead they demonstrate commitment to serve. These leaders put other people first
which means they work on team empowerment. Agile approach considers servant leadership a
way to empower teams.
Transformational:
Transformational approach of leadership is such that the leader has clear vision of the company
goals, focuses on creating clear communication and create motivation among the team members.
Transformational leaders encourage motivation and positive development of the followers.
Charismatic:
Charismatic leadership is a different type of style that focuses on his personality and keeps
himself motivated to keep his team motivated. He/she has got positive energy that drives his
team member towards positivity even in harsh situations. He is self-confident and creates a
different type of energy in the team.
Interactional:
This leadership style is one in which the leader focuses on interaction between the managers and
the team to create better understanding of the tasks and goals to be achieved. It is an effective
way in which there remains no confusion in the tasks as well as the ultimate goals of the
organization.
Leadership style that best suits me:
I think being son of a teacher I had servant leadership in my blood since birth but I have certain
reasons as well to support it. In my view our teachers have worked and are working only for the
growth and well-being of their students without getting any benefit out of their student’s bright
future and always work for the betterment of the school, college & university.
Since leadership styles depend upon the organizational characteristics, the leadership style that
best suits me is servant leader. The major characteristic of my firm (a software house) is to
provide opportunity to the team members to enhance their skills and abilities and come up as a
leader and an entrepreneur. After I completed my graduation I was unable to find a job (relevant
or irrelevant to my field) for over two years. Since then my focus was to hire fresh graduates,
train them, enhance their skills as fresh graduates are least prioritized by reputed organizations.
In the turn of events I built interest in Game Development, took some time to learn programming
and started working in an organization that used to work on developing games. My observation
in this organization was that the Project Manager’s education and experience was not relevant to
the field which in turn created trust issues and communication gap between the team and PM
which ultimately affected the organization. To overcome these factors when I started my career
as an entrepreneur I decided to hire fresh graduates only, train them and use their polished skills
for my software development firm. There was no contract or compulsion set to bound the
trainees to work for me. To fulfill this thought (of training fresh grads for their future) I had to be
Servant leader and secondly by looking at the differences between PM and team during my
previous job I choose Servant leadership. Servant leadership style has affected my business in
both positive and negative way. Since servant leadership style focuses on training and
development and growth, it might cost the organization as there might be a situation where the
leader has to work all alone along with conducting some training session for the team. In a
positive way I have earned 4 such team members who are among the first trainees I hired and are
with me for almost 4 years and have been sincere with their work. 3 of them are now successful
entrepreneur.
