Leadership Traits, Behaviors, and Styles
For the Session Long Project you will be applying the concepts in the background materials to your own personal experiences in the workplace. For this first SLP choose a supervisor that you personally worked for and got to know well, and apply the background materials to analyze their leadership qualities. Carefully reflect on your supervisor's traits, behaviors, and leadership styles. Then write a two- to three-page paper addressing the following issues:
- Overall, would you consider your supervisor to be a leader based on definitions of leadership you found in the background texts? Or was he or she simply a manager rather than a leader? Refer to the section on "Differences between Leadership and Management" in Chapter 10 of Hiriyappa (2010).
- How would you describe your supervisor's personality and leadership traits?
- Would you describe your supervisor's behavior as being task-oriented, or people-centered/relationship-oriented?
- How would you describe your supervisor's leadership style? Consider leadership styles discussed in the background text materials such as autocratic style, participative/democratic style, and laissez-faire/free-rein style.