In a job situation, how would you perform as a leader?

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I have experience at a few levels in the hierarchy. I was not quite a tyrant but there were interpersonal issues.

I found that I function very well as a number 2. I have the standards and rules of my boss to follow and expect from others. I can also function as the top technical guy on a project if it is ultimately headed by someone else.

I changed jobs last summer in part because I was being pushed into a promotion. The stress was very difficult.

I've been on and off as team-lead of 4 to 15 people since my early twenties. In my early twenties i got the job due to seniority (working since 15) and not being too "involved" with the team. When the sailing is smooth i talk to people (not the what did you have for dinner talks, can't stand those, but the anecdotal stuff of their pasts), when the sailing got rough I tend to forget myself and become overfocused at getting the job done and forget all about what people need.

My previous bosses tended to like that. THe team usually likes it a few days later because they realize they accomplished something, but hate my guts when i'm pushing them beyond the norm.

It balances out for me. WHen the crunch is on, i get stressed and i don't deal with stress too well At All. Since i hate it, i've told my manager several times that he needs to listen when I see schedules will be too tight 2 weeks down the line. It reduces my level of stress and doesn't force me to demand too much of my team too often for too long.

Unfortunately, sometimes my personal drive for perfectionism drives people up the wall; especially when my idea of perfect is different from what they've come used to see when thinking of the job perfectly done.

I'm one of those teamleads for whom upper-management give my new team-members a small manual; he's blunt, he's direct and you don't want to get on his bad side. If you can stomach that, you're in a hell of a ride.

P.S. I can't do team-lead years on end. After a few years I always switch jobs to be a grunt for a while again.

[edit]changed "late teens" to "early twenties". Got mixed up in my head with something else[/edit]

Looking back at my career as an English teacher for 19 years in the leadership role as head of the classroom---I was bad. At the time I thought I was good. I thought I had good ideas. I now realize those ideas were often based on my own intense narrow interests. I expected my class to be interested in my areas of obsession. For the most part, they didn't like them. I often had poor discipline. The students didn't respect me because I did not take the authority position of leader in their eyes. As a result, I wrote a lot of detentions for "lack of respect." I was laughed at too. That is not a leader. So, after 19 miserable years, the administration at the school recommended me take the gifted program and resign from the English position. I accepted after struggling with the idea of the change. I was a horrible wreck after accepting the position because I was afraid of this change. Then, after that school year began, I loved it---and I still do. I do not conduct my gifted classes (with no more than 3 students per period) as a teacher, but rather as a peer of my students---as an equal. We all learn together. I do not take the form of a leader in this role---and now I have finally found my place in the education profession.

The irony of me is this: For most of my life, I perceived myself as gifted. I used to envy the lady who had the gifted program at my school because I wanted to work with those gifted teenagers. Now, as I have been in the gifted job for two years, I have learned I may not be gifted afterall---it is Asperger's. Asperger's can mask itself as giftedness. And giftedness can seem like Asperger's. And Asperger's and giftedness can occur together. But there are differences that clearly seperate these conditions. I went through a lot of comparison/contrast charts of these conditions and discovered I was an Aspie. The Aspie expert who diagnosed me has also looked at the gifted/Aspie stuff. He was positive in his diagnosis of Asperger's for me. I am still gifted though---my gift is Asperger's---and I am proud of it.

Not so good.

I do not believe that it is necessary for a degreed professional to spend more time explaining why things need to be done a certain way to a group of high-school dropouts and lager louts than it would take for them to actually do the work! Unfortunately, so that they don't become disgruntled, I often have to explain not only why a certain way is better, but why they have been chosen to do it, and why I am explaining to them in the first place.

I'm of the "Do it ... this way ... because I told you to" school of leadership.

Unfortunately, most of the people that get hired these days seem to enjoy "Why-ning" more than working.

I can lead amongst equals. When it is not equal, I am at more of a loss.

I don't think I would do very well in a leadership capacity. I prefer work I can do mostly on my own.

I don't think I would do very well in a leadership capacity. I prefer work I can do mostly on my own.

I fell into a leadership position when my boss left, followed by his boss.

I am not good at staying on top of people's performance and horrible at giving direction. I need people who can work independently and keep me informed; people who take their job seriously and see the big picture.

I am horrible at navigating personalities and my comments are often miscounstrued.

I am slowly getting better, but will probably never achieve a level higher than "not incompetent" as a leader.