MHA520 Harvard Business Cultivating Alliances & Leadership Styles Paper Navigate to the “Assessment: What’s Your Leadership Style?” page on the Harvard Bus

MHA520 Harvard Business Cultivating Alliances & Leadership Styles Paper Navigate to the “Assessment: What’s Your Leadership Style?” page on the Harvard Business Review website.

Utilize the tool on the page to acquire feedback about your top three leadership styles.

Write a 700- to 1,050-word paper about your go-to and supplemental leadership styles. Include the following:

Evaluation of the information provided regarding potential blind spots, and environments in which you are likely to thrive and struggle
A list of SMART goals that focus on self-improvement

Cite 3 reputable references to support your assignment (e.g., trade or industry publications, government or agency websites, scholarly works, or other sources of similar quality). Your go-to leadership style: COLLABORATOR
You are humble and perceptive about others’ needs, and you take a team-first approach to
leadership. In building teams, you support and develop colleagues by placing them in
positions where they can excel, and you share credit for team success with all members. As a
result, you’re good at attracting talent and encouraging collaboration. Also, you are
perceived as supportive, caring, and empathetic. However, your strong team-first
orientation may prevent you from developing your own convincing identity as a leader.
Consequently, you might be an “unsung hero” who misses out on opportunities or
promotions that go instead to people in your organization who are better at showcasing
their successes.
Potential blind spots:
• Creating a distinct leadership brand. Because your reflex is to deflect attention and
instead focus on the accomplishments of your team and its individual members, people may
have trouble discerning what you stand for. Seek opportunities to display your
distinguishing characteristics to important stakeholders. You might, for example, volunteer
to lead initiatives that you’re passionate about and that also resonate with your need to be
in service of others.
• Setting a clear vision or direction for others. Your focus on people and relationships may
at times come at the expense of strategic vision and planning. Be sure to articulate — first
for yourself and then for others — where you would like your team to go, and the near- and
far-term milestones for getting there. This direction-setting will help provide guideposts for
your team so they can focus their energy.
• Vocalizing opinions and perspectives. In group and team settings you create so much
space for others to share their ideas that you may not participate enough. As a result, you
may allow others to dominate or even derail the conversation. Be sure to articulate your
own point of view even as you create a safe space for others to do the same, and monitor
the extent to which soliciting input from others is productive. Make a point to push back
when you feel things are off track.
• Holding others accountable. Your relational orientation and desire to support others can
make it hard for you to hold a firm line with subordinates to ensure they meet deadlines and
expectations. Remember that not addressing problems ultimately harms the team. Difficult
as the conversation may be, explain the impact on the overall project, and use your
relational skills to explore root causes.
While you can improve in each of these areas, your natural or default style will resonate in
certain work environments and fit less well in others. So you may want to seek out settings
that play to your strengths, even as you work on areas for development to thrive in a
broader range of contexts.
You’re likely to thrive if:
• People need someone to support their development and invest in their success (this may
be true for a team of relatively inexperienced employees or in an organization that’s
recovering from a prior toxic or volatile leader).
• Individuals are expected to learn the “tricks of the trade” by working closely with
experienced mentors, as in many professional services firms.
• You’re serving as second in command, with a primary leader whose hard-charging or
demanding style is balanced by your collaborative, relational, and supportive approach.
You may struggle if:
• Your role requires unilateral decision making and direction setting.
• Your team’s individual contributors rarely interact with one another (for instance,
traveling salespeople).
• Bold direction and strong personal presence are needed to influence key stakeholders,
such as when a big shift in strategy runs against the company’s prevailing cultural mindset.
• Distinctive personal brands are critical to individual or group success, as in large
companies where advancement requires standing out from the crowd.
Supplemental style: ENERGIZER
You know how to create and articulate a strategic vision. Both amiable and determined, you
generate energy and draw on the energy of people around you. As a result, you are good at
building enthusiasm and inspiring strong efforts and performance in others. Colleagues are
likely to find you cooperative, positive, and team-focused, and your leadership style may
help them see the purpose and meaning in the task at hand. Nonetheless, your
determination may at times blur into relentlessness, and you are so forceful in presenting
your ideas that you may inadvertently steamroll through conversations with your team. So
you may be perceived as charismatic and courageous, yet dismissive of people who don’t
think like you.
Potential blind spots:
• Being patient. Your high-energy, future-focused approach compels people to get on board
with your plans. But the same internal driver that constantly pushes you forward is likely to
reject anything that might slow you down. Recognize that your impatience can be
detrimental, particularly if it prevents you from reflecting deeply on solutions and listening
carefully to input from others.
• Bringing others along with your thinking. Your ideas may be clear and well argued, but
that doesn’t mean everyone agrees with them. And because of your magnetism and
optimism, those around you may be content to follow you emotionally without fully
understanding your logic. No one wants lemmings — so be sure everyone understands the
whats, whys, and hows of your ideas, not just the emotions behind them.
• Encouraging dissent. You may be missing the opportunity to encourage constructive
conflict that would lead to better ideas and protect against risks you haven’t anticipated.
Ask people to take turns playing devil’s advocate in your meetings, to put your logic to the
test.
• Tempering your unbridled optimism. Your natural enthusiasm may lead you to focus on
best-case scenarios at the expense of thoroughly understanding the risks. Remember to ask
yourself, “What’s the best — and worst — that could happen?”
• Wearing down your colleagues. You don’t just create energy in your dealings with
colleagues — you also solicit it. People might, at times, find their interactions with you
exhausting.
• Recognizing differences in others. You might think others would be more successful if
only they were more passionate and energetic — more like you. But remember that
diversity of thought and style can create a robust, well-balanced team or organization. In
particular, make sure your team includes someone who is more methodical than you — this
will help you put some process around your passion.
While you can improve in each of these areas, your natural or default style will resonate in
certain work environments and fit less well in others. So you may want to seek out settings
that play to your strengths, even as you work on areas for development to thrive in a
broader range of contexts.
You’re likely to thrive if:
• Your employees need visionary, strategic leadership, as they might in a period of rapid
growth or turmoil.
• People in your organization tend to exert influence through relationships.
• You work in a collaborative and purposeful environment, such as an NGO or a cause-driven
nonprofit enterprise.
• Colleagues with low morale — for example, in a strategic or financial turnaround — need
a dose of your positive perspective.
You may struggle if:
• You work in an environment where process skills matter more than people skills.
• Your organization values intellectual ideas and positional authority — and colleagues get
impatient with more relational or intuitive styles.
• Colleagues focus so much on metrics and results that they gloss over how the results were
generated, losing sight of the organization’s broader mission and purpose.
Supplemental style:HARMONIZER
You have high standards for quality and prefer that everyone use the same playbook to
ensure reliable, efficient operations. You also have a knack for finding the right people and
creating an environment that facilitates coordination and execution. You are effective at
spotting problems and using your network of relationships to call on outside experts to help
solve them. Still, your focus on internal operations can limit your perspective and your ability
to formulate unique ideas. Therefore, creating strategy may be difficult for you. Colleagues
may view you as consistent and supportive, yet somewhat cautious when it comes to
change, particularly large-scale transformations or significant shifts in the way business is
conducted.
Potential blind spots:
• Accepting ambiguity. Your strong focus on execution could leave you with less interest in
exploring alternative ways of operating, especially if it means straying from a methodology
you know to be successful. Remember that change is an integral part of sustainability and
that delaying decisions (and accepting the unpleasant uncertainty you feel) can sometimes
lead to better outcomes.
• Remembering to “look up.” Your focus tends to be internal and near-term (solving
today’s challenges and meeting immediate goals). Pay attention to the bigger picture, and in
particular the viability of your long-term decisions. Or be sure to have someone you trust on
your team who does this well. Rigid adherence to the status quo can render your current
method of operating — not to mention your strategy — obsolete should market changes
occur.
• Constructively addressing conflict. Your desire for a pleasant, agreeable work dynamic
can translate into a passive approach to conflict. Delivering tough, constructive feedback
may be a challenge for you. Remember that conflict can be healthy and that failing to
address problems can make them worse. When conflict arises, use your relational skills to
get to the root of the matter and seek collaborative solutions.
While you can improve in each of these areas, your natural or default style will resonate in
certain work environments and fit less well in others. So you may want to seek out settings
that play to your strengths, even as you work on areas for development to thrive in a
broader range of contexts.
You’re likely to thrive if:
• You work in a predictable, reliable setting that enables smooth execution and
performance.
• Your role requires careful adherence to process and structure, as does running a
manufacturing plant or a medical facility.
• Your depth of knowledge and experience can help stabilize the organization — for
instance, after a volatile leader’s departure.
• Attrition is high, and your relational skills and attention to operations can be used to keep
people from jumping ship.
You may struggle if:
• You’re in an organization (such as a creative agency) where successful people resist
conformity and constantly question the status quo.
• Significant performance issues need attention, and lots of tough messages must be
delivered.
• A turnaround or high-growth situation requires shrewd strategic thinking.

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