What’s Your Management Style? Try These Tools That Build Strong Leaders

MaRS Discovery District, www.marsdd.com/, Toronto, ON

As a leader in your start-up, you need to take the time to identify your management style. Are you laid back or structured? Are you reactive or proactive? Do you encourage others to ask questions and challenge you?

While it’s easy to leave these questions off your To-Do List as your startup grows, knowing your management style will help you better recruit other employees who will work well in the environment you create. Working with people who understand and appreciate your management style will also increase your likelihood of business success.

Most importantly, understanding your leadership style is an important part of defining your company culture. A company’s culture and expectations are driven by the philosophy and style of the management team. Many candidates flock to Google specifically for its corporate culture and values.

The MaRS Entrepreneur’s Toolkit offers a number of useful resources for startup leaders, including tools to help management understand their strengths, preferences and style.

1. Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI): MBTI helps people and teams to understand themselves and each other better to support continued learning and growth. The MBTI measures four areas on a scale and yields insights to help people work together more effectively.
2. DiSC Assessment Tool: DiSC is a personal assessment tool that focuses on increasing productivity, teamwork and communication. It zeroes in on behavioural differences between team members, which can help you leverage their different strengths.
3. True Colors personality assessment: True Colors provides general insight into personality styles corresponding to typical sets of attributes. This analysis can strengthen teamwork by shedding light, for example, on one’s motivations and preferred means of communications.

These tools can be helpful in laying the groundwork for building a company culture. Take the test—what kind of manager are you? To read the full article and browse through more entrepreneurship resources, see the MaRS Entrepreneur’s Toolkit.