Leadership Orientation – Dreamer?

I’ve been doing some Leadership Development training recently, with more to come throughout the year. I’m actually enjoying it, the main reason is because I’m learning and I enjoy learning.

Yesterday I sat through a session on leadership styles. I know there are loads of different ways the people classify this. The particular one we were looking at was one which used four classifications:

• Director
• Relator
• Motivator
• Dreamer

Having gone through some of the assessment that was included in the session it would appear that my primary focus is that of “Dreamer”.

My initial reaction to this was not great. Within the British context (not sure about other cultural context) a “Dreamer” is someone who gets nothing done. A “Dreamer” is not a great thing to be when you are talking about leadership. Continuing through the sessions though, I become more comfortable with being a “Dreamer” because the meaning was different to the meaning I first gave it.

A “Dreamer” is someone who is forward looking and sees the broad picture, they also have the ability to imagine the ideal. A “Dreamer” sees what others do not see.

The other thing I learnt was that I’m supposed to balance my “Relator” style by being more of a “Relator”. The thing about the “Relator” is that they are “easily approachable”, now there’s a challenge!