Merit: 3571 Location: Alabama Gamertag: ODST Equinox Date Enlisted: 29.12.09
While on my Youth Leadership Retreat, one of our activities was to listen to a seminar presented by one adult in the Adult Leadership Organization. She brought out a chart that broke down the different thinking styles that people have and how they affect a person's leadership skills and capability. The chart looks roughly like this:
Each part of the chart contains an important style of thinking. The left side represents more strict, defined leadership, while the right side respresents more open-minded and spontaneous leadership.
The game we played along with this goes as follows:
We were all dealt 3 cards. On the cards would be adjectives that could possibly be used to describe our personality and style of thinking. After everyone received a card, we were allowed to trade our cards if we felt that "life didn't deal us the best set of cards." The moral of that is that even though we may not be given the best opportunity in life, it's our responsibility to make the best of what we have in the hopes of making a better future. After that was all done, we ordered our cards from top to bottom in order of closeness to our own personality and thinking styles. Each card was color-coded along with the chart.
Some card examples were:
Artistic
Compassionate
Analytical
Logical
Administrative
Defined
Spontaneous
Unique
Then we all put our cards on the board, one by one. My three cards were, in order of greatest to least, Analytical, Organized, and Interpersonal. So I had one blue, one green, and one red card. Some people had all yellow, all red, etc.
Another thing to note about the chart is that the green and yellow and blue and red tend to conflict in thinking styles. That brings me to my next point.
At the end of the seminar, we were told that the most successful leadership style is the combination of these 4 thinking styles. A leader should be compassionate but logical, administrative but unique. The adoption of these 4 styles may not come at birth. Some people are forced into the green and blue areas of the chart by working in a managerial job, others to red and yellow by being forced into pressured situations requiring a more "out-of-the-box" approach to an issue.
Another point is that not everyone in a group will have all or even 2 thinking styles. Some people, for example, may be all yellow and have no organization. The people who are green complement those people in a group to work together. The yellow people bring forward the creative aspect while the green people structure everything out. The red people are the ones who are more capable of relating to other people and can supply opinions that the blue people can "calculate."
This Brigade, which is one big group, is composed of members from several different thinking styles. The more we complement each other's thinking styles and adapt to other thinking styles then the more cooperative and efficient this Brigade can become. Anyone who is interested in pursuing leadership roles should understand these 4 different thinking styles and adapt to them. As my Biology teacher would always say "Adapt or Die."
So I leave this thread open for you to discuss your thinking styles and to leave any comments you may have as long as they are on-topic.
Merit: 4533 Location: Oregon Gamertag: ODST Ventura Date Enlisted: 19.10.09
While on my leadership program, we were taught not styles of leadership, but the various traits that make up a leader. Although similar, they are not the same. For example, to be a leader you can't be influenced by others thinking. Your decisions must be yours, and yours only. Be yourself, you can say.
That's just one of the many things I was taught, but I see yours went a little bit deeper. Although everyone leadership trait compliments the other, like you said, some counteract. You can't be administrative while being compassionate. You must fail at one, or the other. As well, you can't have two different people be like that either, though, because the Administrative will be harsh, and, say, take away 50 merit. But then the compassionate will give it back, saying it wasn't his fault, then you have a problem on your hands.
Merit: 2561 Location: Indiana, USA Gamertag: Grakus Arkadius Date Enlisted: 02.11.09
Ventura wrote:
While on my leadership program, we were taught not styles of leadership, but the various traits that make up a leader. Although similar, they are not the same. For example, to be a leader you can't be influenced by others thinking. Your decisions must be yours, and yours only. Be yourself, you can say.
That's just one of the many things I was taught, but I see yours went a little bit deeper. Although everyone leadership trait compliments the other, like you said, some counteract. You can't be administrative while being compassionate. You must fail at one, or the other. As well, you can't have two different people be like that either, though, because the Administrative will be harsh, and, say, take away 50 merit. But then the compassionate will give it back, saying it wasn't his fault, then you have a problem on your hands.
Yes and no, Ventura. Compassionate doesn't mean that the leader won't dish out punishment. It simply means that the leader will look carefully into the matter to see if it's actually deserved. A strict leader will punish any rule violation, no matter the circumstances. A compassionate leader will check the reasoning behind the person's actions before deciding if punishment is necessary.
For example, an extremely strict leader would punish a member for not showing up to practice without warning. They broke a violation and it needs to be dealt with.
A compassionate leader would look into the situation and find out that the person didn't show up to practice because the person was in the hospital that evening for an emergency. The leader probably wouldn't give out punishment at that time.
As for myself, I am most definitely the bottom right, or the red section in terms of thinking style.
But I really think the point of this lesson they were doing was to show that while some of those actions, thoughts, and ways of behaving were conflicting, every leader needs to know how to balance all of those traits to be effective.
Merit: 1023 Location: Pittsburgh, PA Gamertag: TheGuardianWolf Date Enlisted: 04.11.09
I'm not too sure about me. I have severe undiagnosed multiple-personality disorder. Really, I've explored all forms of thinking in my life and have kinda learned to apply all of them in the right situations, so really, I think I'd probably be right smack in the middle of the circle. My born way of thinking, however, seems to lie in the yellow region of the circle, in any unfamiliar situation, I depent on pure inginuity to get me through, and I always try to think of new ways to improvise, adapt, and overcome. Sure, you need the logical thinking to analyse the situation to plan your next move, the empathic understanding to comprehend it, and the strucual thinking to stick to it, but without ingenuity, I think, your stuck.
Merit: 3571 Location: Alabama Gamertag: ODST Equinox Date Enlisted: 29.12.09
Ventura wrote:
Although everyone leadership trait compliments the other, like you said, some counteract. You can't be administrative while being compassionate. You must fail at one, or the other.
I respectfully disagree. I approach leadership as being compassionate about everyone of my soldiers and their ability to mature and develop into a leader. At the same time I must be administrative to make sure things get done and that they are done properly.
I don't fail at being compassionate because I'm administrative. I don't fail at being administrative because I'm compassionate. I learn to relate to my soldiers but to have them carry out orders.
Remember the red side is the emotional side and the side where you can relate with eachother. You must learn as a leader to be administrative, but also to take on the red part of the circle and relate with those you are ordering. You simply can't give someone who is unable to participate on Sundays because of church, for example, a practice that is going on at the same time as their church is.
Red = Emotional/Understanding Blue = Analytical/Logical Yellow = Unique/Creative Green = Structured/Administrative
If a leader cannot be Green, they will not be able to hold order to the best of their ability.
If a leader cannot be Yellow, they will become dull in their soldiers' eyes and fail to interest their soldiers in work.
If a leader cannot be Red, they cannot relate with those they are working with and cannot be expected to be understanding.
If a leader cannot be Blue, they cannot analyze a situation to every extent before they approach it or put it into action which hampers their efficiency.
Merit: 1600 Location: Belgium Gamertag: ODST Exile Date Enlisted: 19.04.10
I disagree aswell.
In my opinion, a leader MUST be able to have counteracting abilities and ofcourse be able to use them at the appropriate time.
No situation will ever be the same, every situation will have a different reason why it was triggered and will involve different people.
A good leader must understand who these people are and how they react and sometimes you have to learn that fast, sometimes in say less then a minute by listening to how they talk, look and react to the other person, situation at hand or whatever.
some people are emotional, some panic, some people have a short fuse or a high temper, some people dont care enough about certain things and some people are just plain assholes or 2faced.
There are loads of categories and every person will fit in multiple ones
So, as a good leader, you must be able to deal with all kinds of people without pissing them off, unless you want/need to get rid of them, then you need to piss them off.
But usually, you want to keep your group/team together and keep everyone on your good side.
Thus you need to react differently on every person and every situation.
Ofcourse, you need to keep discipline to some degree, cant allow a person to miss work 5x a month cuz he was hungover and he'll cry if you slap him on the wrist for it.
But its impossible to have every characteristic that you would need to be able to get along with everyone, that would make you a perfect person and they don't exist.
Also, sometimes you cant show understanding for one person because it will make the rest of the group/team frown upon you and you will lose respect.
As for the trigger, you have be able to dig deep to find out what triggered the it sometimes, what happened here before and how did it happen, who is to blame or who is responsible.
And more importantly you have to be able to look forward which will involve both your judgment on the peoples character & skills and on your knowledge of the current situation, the trigger that led to it and possible variable factors to predict what can happen in the future.
How will these people react, what can happen, how many possible scenarios do we have here that could occur, which is the more likely and logical one to happen.
And the most important part, what will be the consequences of each scenario and are they acceptable?
Sometimes you have to be the ballbuster and sometimes you have to be the nice guy/girl.
Sometimes you have stand on your feet and demand a full 100% from your people and get the job done or sometimes you need to cut them some slack and let things slide to maintain a friendship status with them and make sure they don't stress out.
Posted on July 31 2010 04:41PM | Edited by Callisto
Enlisted Personnel Active Duty
Merit: 3240 Location: Sydney, Australia Gamertag: ODST Callisto Date Enlisted: 01.05.10
This is an interesting topic to me. I've completed many of these sorts of tests before, and I find that most of them aim to find what sort of personality that you hold.
That being said, I find myself covering all of these traits across al four colours. And like what Exile said, your 'colour' can change in the eyes of others depending upon what situation you are trying to adapt to.
Sometimes I have more a specific, singular 'colour' when I'm with my friends or if I'm at work or even when on the clan site or Xbox Live. I'd say that quite a number of people that I know (Clan personnel included) could vouch for me fitting across all of these colours.
Corporal "Custom" Callisto Data Analyst Bravo Company
