How do Employees Describe their Manager's Leadership Style?
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Over the last 10 years, BPA have collected 266,000 narrative text responses where employees have shared their perceptions on their manager’s leadership style.
We themed these comments to identify the most common traits that people use to describe their manager.
In total, we identified 38 key leadership traits that can be expressed by employees as either Healthy (positive) or Shadow (negative) versions of each trait.
So, from the employees’ perspective, here are the 5 most frequently mentioned traits of their manager:
1) Supportive (or not) – how supportive they are, including being loyal, hands-on, or an advocate for the employee.
2) Approachable (or not) – how approachable they are, including having an open-door, being easy to talk to, or being down-to-earth.
3) Fair (or not) – how fair they are, including being balanced, equitable, non-judgmental, or promoting equality.
4) Caring (or not) – how caring they are, including being compassionate, kind, considerate, thoughtful, empathetic, interested, or attentive.
5) Honest (or not) – how honest they are, including being open, trustworthy, straight-forward, forthright, genuine, sincere, upfront, truthful.
… Plus another 33 sets of leadership traits.
How would your employees describe your leadership style?
