leadership styles

what kind of leader are you?

i was asked this in an interview once and didn't have a good answer. :( but anyway, there are a ton of classification systems, so here are a couple that i like:

kurt lewin - authoritarian (autocratic), participative (democratic), delegative (laissez-faire)
     i'm mostly democratic with a bit of laissez-faire thrown in. people also refer to the laissez-faire as free-reign, which is more obviously descriptive, i think. i tend to believe that you should tell people what to do, but not how to do it. everyone works differently, which is fine, so making them do it the way you would could be counter-productive. tell them what results you're looking for and they should be able to get it done. but, of course, this type of leadership does not work well with people who are un-confident, un-knowledgeable, or dislike making their own decisions. a lot of people like structure (which i tend to think of as hand-holding [which gives you a pretty good idea of why i tend towards this style, ha!], which i need to remember. i'm getting better at it tho, tho my first inclination is for you to figure it out on your own.

not sure who came up with this categorization but i think it's pretty good (broad, but not too much so): charismatic (like oprah), innovative (like richard branson), command and control (like tom coughlin), laissez-faire (like donna karan), pace setter (like jeff bezos and steve jobs), servant (like herb kelleher), situational (like pat summit), and transformational (like ben and jerry).
     i'm definitely not charismatic, innovative, or a pace setter.
     i'm less of a servant than i'd like to be. but some situations, i think, don't allow you to be a servant. i'd also like to be situational but i think i'm not flexible enough for that. i think i'd like to be transformational, but i'm not sure i understand it enough to say.