What Your Vacation Plans Say About Your Leadership Style

AA024841As a leader, everything you do says something about your leadership style, from how you keep your cool to how you decorate your office. But, what about what you do outside of the office? Your choice of vacation plans can say a lot about your leadership style as well.

The Stay-Cationer
Your idea of a vacation is a quiet week spent at home. Possibly considered an introvert, you refuel and feel renewed after spending time alone or with only one or two of your closest confidants. A great plus for your vacation is all the time you’ll have to think and plan for the future, for both your personal and professional life. Your plans suggest that, as a leader, you’re cautious with money and place the highest value on your working relationships, from vendors to employees to co-workers.

The Life-of-the-Party-Cationer
Being alone is boring, and your idea of excitement involves lots of people, such as mingling at the newest club, hitting the biggest amusement park, or taking a party cruise. You show how much you care about people by being social. As a leader, that means you want to ensure your team is having a good time so you work to match each person up with the kinds of projects they most enjoy.

The Historical-Cationer
Your vacation lineup includes all the historical sites, museums, and history tours within a 100-mile radius. Just like on vacation, in your work life you need to feel like you’ve accomplished something each day. As a professional, learning and building knowledge is fun to you, even if it’s just about rocks or the latest in time management tools. And, as a leader, you need to know the why behind the circumstances, which leads you to search out the whole story on projects before moving forward and making a decision.

The Extreme-Cationer
If cliff diving and rock climbing are your ideas of vacation fun, then you’re probably also the kind of leader that likes to push the envelope and keep up with the latest business trends. Whether in your personal or professional life, you need to feel like you’re at the front of the pack. And, as an active, high-energy leader you don’t like getting bogged down with the details. Instead, you want to be busy doing, and often don’t like to sit around and plan out your actions.

The Nay-Cationer
You know who you are. Yes, the fact that you don’t take a vacation is revealing about your leadership style – very revealing in fact! You’re one of the leaders that love their work so much you just can’t leave it, not even for a long weekend, let alone a whole week. You can sometime have the mentality that no one else can do the work right, and things might fall apart if you leave. Your employees probably think you expect the same kind of dedication from them as well, even if you don’t.

These are simply generalities, but your leadership style is a part of who you are, which means it pervades every part of your life, including your days off. So, as you make your vacation plans this summer, take a few minutes to think about how it reflects on your leadership style and how that style is affecting your team.

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