According to ANACT, 92% of top managers and 97% of future managers believe that management, as it is performed today, needs to adapt to societal changes. The world of work is changing and with it management. To allow managers to focus on the essentials: their team and performance… It is becoming crucial for managers to reinvent the ways in which they support their employees, by taking a real interest in who they are and what they really need to thrive. Now you can discover your management styles, as well as those which correspond to your employees: for more efficient management and better performance!

 

Part 1: What are management styles

Before finding out what management styles apply to you, it is important to go over all of the styles. It is crucial to be aware of them all and take certain elements into account in order to become the best version of yourself, as well as to truly understand your team. We will go over why that is.

Strictly speaking, management styles are the ways in which a manager supports their team to develop achieve their goals.

We used Daniel Goleman’s theory and vision of a “good manager” to devise the 6 management styles. Namely, the best managers are those who are able to present different styles for different people and situations, while the worst managers are limited to just 1 or 2.

 

A good manager’s goal should be to adapt to the individuals constituting their team, not the other way around.

 

To predict your management styles, we need to delve into the science of soft skills and your primary motivations.

Thanks to our two questionnaires SHAPE (personality) and DRIVE (motivations), we are able to determine the importance of results and/or people in your professional life.

The results are based on 5 dimensions:

👉Leadership and influence.
👉Taking others into account.
👉Creativity and adaptability.
👉Rigour in work.
👉Personal balance.

By correlating these results with your primary motivations, we are able to determine your management styles.

This allows you to put words to the ways of supporting your team: understanding your natural way of managing.

Now let’s take a moment to explore the different management styles themselves. 👇

 

Part 2: Different management styles

After seeing what each management style is, it’s crucial to truly interest yourself in it. We will look over the 6 styles as they apply across two axes: results-oriented and person-oriented.

 

a) Results-oriented management styles: winner, directive, visionary

Results-oriented styles will tend to focus on goals, whether collective or individual. Here are the three styles that fall into this category:

 

#1 WINNER

Manager: Watch and do like me.

Employees that seek this style:
People compatible with a “winner” leader like to be challenged with ambitious goals. They are looking for a model to follow, and one that is demanding. Their manager must be exemplary and embody success in their field to be credible.

 

#2 DIRECTIVE

Manager: Do what I tell you.

Employees that seek this style:
People who seek this style need a manager who charts them a clear course and follows them closely. They need a strong hierarchy and top-down authority. The directive leader must endeavor to provide a structured and effective framework.

 

#3 VISIONARY 

Manager: Come with me.

Employees that seek this style:
People looking for a visionary leader need a manager who gives them direction. They need someone to give meaning to their work and to feel that everyone is driven by the same goal. They are people who need to be empowered.

 

b) Person-oriented management styles: empathetic, coach, participatory)

Person-oriented styles tend to focus on employees’ development, whether collective or individual.Here are the three styles that fall into this category:

 

#1 EMPATHETIC

Manager: Employees first.

Employees that seek this style:

People who are compatible with this style need a caring manager who takes the time to listen to them and who gives them confidence. They don’t handle pressure well.

 

#2 COACH

Manager: Try this.

Employees that seek this style:
People who seek this style need to grow personally at work and be encouraged by their manager. They need their manager to support, not push them.

 

#3 PARTICIPATORY

Manager: What do you think?

Employees that seek this style:
People compatible with this style need a manager who stimulates participation and collective intelligence. Their manager also needs be interested in their people over results.

 

Part 3: The Fit

Now that we have seen what the management styles really are and what they correspond to, we can look at the fit between a manager’s management styles and those that suit the employee.

The Fit is the correspondance between a person’s profile and a predictive model. For example, in a recruitment campaign, the Manager Fit indicator refers to how well the candidate’s profile matches with the manager’s leadership style.

The higher this indicator, the easier it will be for the manager to collaborate effectively with the candidate.

The Manager Fit indicator is calculated out of 5.

It is also a very good indicator regarding team management and the individual development of your employees.

It’s extremely important to take into account who the individuals of your team really are and their primary motivations, in order to better support them.

 

Why? 👇

 

One in two people confessed to quitting their job to escape a bad manager, according to a Gallup study.

 

Far too many companies find themselves in this situation, and end up looking for solutions on the Internet, reading articles selling the “leading traits of a good leader”, in an attempt to push their managers in that direction…

 

And, in the end, to no avail.

 

Why?

 

Because to properly support employees and help them develop individually or as a team, it is better to understand each person’s personality and motivations.

When managers have access to this wealth of information, it allows them to better understand the needs of their employees. This way, they can adapt to support them: with better communication, increasing employees’ performance and commitment!

And that…
Is a key factor for retaining employees.

 

Conclusion

Now that you know all the management styles, all you have to do is discover yours and the ones that match your employees! To be a more effective manager, knowing yourself and the personalities and motivations which make up your team are the keys to collective and individual success. We would like to invite you to take our SHAPE (personality) and DRIVE (motivation) questionnaires, so that you can discover the complete analysis and boost your performance!