Question of the week - Task or People ? Who are the better leaders ?

[Administrator]

Given the current events in world economical climate, who is the better group to lead us into the future"D/C' or "I/S'

[Cathy Stewart]

Neither - D/I or I/D In my humble opinion, the strongest leader is one who has strengths in both. That being said, if you have a leader who is aware of their strengths and weaknesses and surrounds themselves with people who can support their "weaknesses" in a strong leadership position within the organization, then anyone can be a strong leader.

[Kim Harrison]

it's not just Ds or Is or D/Is or I/Ds who are leaders - the more reserved members of our society (65%) make really good leaders too, especially if they visit the the more outgoing or faster paced side on a regular basis. Calm, careful, critical thinking is very important in leadership - not just flying off the handle with big ideas, inspiring though they may be (or think they are). You have to have a balance, enough of each area to appeal to a wide range of temperaments. You can be a strong D/C type, but if you don't have any people skills you'll have no one to lead. Contrasting, you can be all about relationships as an I/S and have lots of people on your team but you go nowhere. In our current ecnomic situation, it will take people who are very well balanced to get us all back to a postive forward motion. We need positvite collective thinking to harness the power of the universal laws of attraction and value.

[Guy Harris]

I guess I have to "beg the question." In other words, I think the question rests on a faulty premise that one style or the other is by definition better. The real issue is not a person's natural style. The real issue in leadership is the person's ability to control their style to choose the right words and behaviors that fit a particular situation. Sometimes a focus on the task is important. Sometimes a focus on people issues is important. Knowing what to do and having the self-control to do it even when it doesn't come naturally is the hallmark of great leaders.

[Marc Nadeau]

That's a very good question...

I think that it depend first to know if this person is aware or not aware of DISC model. I can refer myself at the time when I was in the army when I had to accomplish a mission, as a task oriented person, I was doing the task faster and probably lost people on the road. As a people oriented person, often the task wasn’t accomplished as fast, and everybody attained the finish line even on a stretcher. They both accomplished the task and both are great leader using a different way. I know now that by knowing this model and applying it, this makes a real difference in the leading of any style.

So my answer is, they are both great leaders.

[Jim Carty]

Like Guy, I find the question flawed, more accurately incomplete. Quoting Henry Ford, "Asking 'who ought to be the boss' is like asking 'who ought to be the tenor in the quartet?' Obviously, the man who can sing tenor."

Asking who are better leaders solely based on task or people orientation doesn't take into account several key factors including: experiences; environments; skills; objectives; attitudes; etc. The "better" leader is the one who is better able to influence others at any given time.

I would suggest that you consider asking: What makes leaders better? Just my thoughts.

- JMC

[Meridith Elliott Powell]

Morning!
I like Jim's question and would be interested in replies/thoughts... What Makes Leaders Better?

[Norm Everett]

I would think that the first assumption to be made here is that whomever the leader is, they are honest and have the best interest of the country / people in mind. If not, it doesn't really matter whether they are people or task oriented. However, making the assumption they are honest, I would argue, that what is really needed is a group of people that have a good mix of personality types.

There must be a core of task oriented people that can see the job to be done and reason out the steps that it is going to take to get there, but you must also have a core of people oriented folks to be the face of the job at hand. Leadership by group consensus goes against everything I'm made up of. Being military, I'm used to a much more rigid approach to leadership, as in I'm the leader and you will follow, one of our favourite sayings in the military is "We're not here to practice democracy, just to protect it." While our leaders are often perceived as D/C blends, there is an ever growing number that are I/D and I/S, or near straight line.

That aside, in these tough economic times no one leadership style, task or people, will be "the better group" to lead us into the future. It will take a lot of working together, and putting the good of the group as a whole before ourselves.

My two cents worth.....

[Derek Arnold]

I was really interested in the Advanced Training during the discussion about roles and personalities. Guy very specifically told us that personality and role are not related. Any personality type can take on almost any job if they know enough about their own weaknesses (blind spots) to surround themselves with people whose personalities are complimentary. My actions as an "I" could be to simply have fun, complete the task so my superiors like me, or to spend time in seemingly "C" tasks so my evaluations reflect that I'm a valuable worker.

I think this question would be a lot easier if we used some of the competition's personality assessments. Then we could simply categorize and assign specific strengths to specific personalities. However, with an assessment tool like DISC, we know that we are a blend of strengths and blind spots. If we are able to maximize our strengths while recognizing our weaknesses, we can develop teams and co-workers to accomplish tasks seemingly contrary to our personalities.