Whether you’re a leader who favours deep analysis and planning, or you instead focus on the ultimate vision and how to deliver your end goal, it’s crucial to better understand the type of leader you are, to ensure you use the most appropriate methods to successfully lead a team.

To help equip professionals with methods and techniques, RADA Business, the commercial arm of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, has launched a new Leadership Quiz. The quiz is designed to help business leaders identify their habitual leadership style, and how to flex their performance, so they can put this into practice in the workplace, communicate more effectively, and make better connections with their team.

The quiz asks professionals to put themselves into six key scenarios and choose the response best suited to them, with their answers revealing what type of leadership style they default to.

Jonathan Lewis, Tutor at RADA Business, provides his insights into the two different types of styles and the importance of adapting your approach to meet the varied needs of your audience.

There are two specific leadership styles to understand, the first of which primarily focuses on tasks. It is a mode of leadership that favours deep analysis, thorough planning, and is interested in detail.

If this is your default leadership state, then by habit you are likely to be a do-er – someone who is highly motivated to get things done and tries to drive others to do the same. Task-oriented leaders are often great at seeing a particular challenge, and then identifying what needs to be done to achieve the desired outcome. These are invaluable skills in business, whether it is seeing a project through to completion or analysing information.

Another leadership style is more focused on the ultimate vision, and less interested in specific tasks that need to be completed to achieve the desired outcome. This is a type of leader who, by habit, is likely to focus first and foremost on the relationships within their team, and how to best harness those relationships in pursuit of the end goal.

If this is your habitual leadership state, then you are probably expressive and energetic in your attempts to communicate your vision with colleagues. Expressive, relationship-focused leadership can be great for motivating staff. Employees are more likely to feel supported by relationship-focused leadership, and if they feel supported, they are more likely to be engaged and happy at work.

However, if you’re in a room full of detail-focused colleagues, you can run the risk of alienating them as your energy and drive may come across aggressive. In situations like this, it can be helpful to take a step back and challenge that desire to focus exclusively on the vision – instead, consider what the audience needs.

Whilst both leadership styles clearly have positives, different audiences have varying needs from their leaders, and therefore it’s always important to read the room and flex your leadership style to suit the type of professionals around you – the approach should always be driven by what your colleagues need. So, it is not about which type of leadership is right or wrong, rather it’s about recognising what works best in any given situation.

Whatever your habitual leadership style is, challenging it might mean tapping into skills that do not feel natural – but with practice it becomes easier and easier to flex, depending on what kind of performance is required.