Purpose
Turn a manager's own described behaviors and real situations into a clear read on their dominant leadership style — with specific strengths, blind spots, situational mismatches, and a prioritized development plan they can act on in 90 days. Replaces vague personality-test labels with a diagnosis grounded in what the person actually does.
When to Use
Invoke this skill when the user asks to:
- Understand their leadership style or how they show up as a manager
- Figure out why certain situations, teams, or people are hard to lead
- Build a leadership development plan or set growth goals
- Prepare for a promotion, new team, or expanded scope of responsibility
- Make sense of 360 feedback or peer/report comments about their leadership
- Identify blind spots before they become performance problems
Inputs Required
Before starting, collect:
- Role and scope: Title, team size, whether they manage individual contributors, managers, or both
- Behavior examples: 2–4 concrete situations describing how they handled a decision, conflict, underperformer, or high-pressure moment
- Team context: Team maturity, tenure, and current performance level
- What feels hard: The leadership situations that drain them or don't go well
- Recent feedback: Any 360, peer, or direct-report comments (optional)
- Development goal: What "better" looks like to them, or the outcome they're chasing (optional)
If behavior examples are thin, ask one clarifying question: "Describe the last time a team member's work fell short of what you expected — what did you actually do and say?"
Instructions
Step 1: Map Behaviors to the Six-Style Framework
Score the described behaviors against six leadership styles (adapted from Goleman's leadership styles model). For each style, note evidence from the user's examples and rate presence as Dominant / Secondary / Underused / Absent.
- Directive (Commanding): Sets clear expectations, makes decisions fast, expects compliance. Evidence: "do it this way," escalating quickly, low tolerance for ambiguity.
- Visionary (Authoritative): Rallies people around a shared goal, explains the "why," gives autonomy on the "how." Evidence: painting future states, connecting work to mission.
- Affiliative: Prioritizes relationships, harmony, and morale. Evidence: protecting the team, avoiding conflict, checking on people first.
- Democratic (Participative): Builds consensus, solicits input, decides with the group. Evidence: gathering votes, group decisions, deferring to team preference.
- Pacesetting: Leads by example, sets a high bar, expects others to keep pace. Evidence: doing the work themselves, frustration with slower pace, high personal standards.
- Coaching: Develops people for the long term, delegates stretch work, asks over tells. Evidence: asking questions, letting people struggle productively, career conversations.
Step 2: Identify Dominant and Secondary Styles
Name the single dominant style and 1–2 secondary styles, each backed by a direct reference to the user's own example. State the default reflex — the style they fall back on under stress — since it often differs from their calm-state style.
Step 3: Build the Strengths Map
For the dominant and secondary styles, list 3–4 specific strengths and where each shows up in the described situations. Tie strengths to team and business outcomes, not just personality traits.
Step 4: Diagnose Blind Spots and Overuse Risks
Every dominant style has a shadow when overused. Diagnose 3–4 blind spots specific to this person's mix:
- What the style causes them to miss or avoid
- The observable symptom on their team (attrition risk, quiet disengagement, decision bottleneck, dependency, etc.)
- The trigger situation where the blind spot fires
Step 5: Assess Situational Fit
Match their style profile against their actual team context from Step's inputs. Flag mismatches — e.g., a Pacesetting leader with a junior team, a Democratic leader in a crisis, an Affiliative leader facing an underperformer. Name the 2–3 situations where their default style is working against them and which underused style the situation calls for.
Step 6: Build the 90-Day Development Plan
Produce a prioritized plan targeting the highest-leverage gap first:
- Focus area: The one style to build, tied to a specific situational need
- Behavioral shifts: 3–4 concrete, observable actions to practice (what to say/do differently)
- Practice situations: Real, recurring moments where they can rehearse
- Success signals: How they'll know it's working (team behavior changes, not self-perception)
- Milestones: What to hit by day 30, 60, and 90
Output Format
- Structure: Six-part analysis followed by a development plan
- Length: 900–1,300 words
- Format: Structured document — style scoring as a labeled list or table; strengths, blind spots, and plan as bulleted sections
- Sections: Style Profile (six-style scoring) → Dominant & Secondary Styles → Strengths Map → Blind Spots & Overuse Risks → Situational Fit → 90-Day Development Plan
- Tone: Direct executive coach — honest about blind spots, grounded in the user's own examples, never flattering for its own sake
Quality Checklist
Before delivering output, verify:
- [ ] All six styles are scored with a presence rating (Dominant / Secondary / Underused / Absent)
- [ ] Dominant and secondary styles each cite a specific example from the user's input — not generic descriptions
- [ ] Blind spots include an observable team symptom, not just a trait to fix
- [ ] Situational fit names concrete mismatches between their style and their actual team context
- [ ] The 90-day plan targets one primary focus area with day 30/60/90 milestones
- [ ] Success signals are observable team behaviors, not self-reported feelings
Notes
- The style a manager uses under stress is usually the most revealing — probe for a high-pressure example if the inputs only describe calm-state behavior.
- The best leaders flex styles to fit the situation; the goal is range, not replacing one dominant style with another.
- Pacesetting and Directive over-index in high performers promoted for individual output — watch for these creating dependency or burnout on the team.
- If the user provides 360 feedback, weight it heavily against their self-description; the gap between the two is often the most valuable finding.
How to use this skill
This file is a Claude Code skill in Anthropic's standard format — markdown with YAML frontmatter at the top.
Installing in Claude Code:
~/.claude/skills/<folder-name>/SKILL.md— auto-loads in every session anywhere on your machine (recommended for skills you'll use across multiple projects)<your-project>/.claude/skills/<folder-name>/SKILL.md— auto-loads only when working in that project (recommended for project-specific skills)
Restart Claude Code or open a new session to register.
Using in Claude.ai, ChatGPT, Gemini, or other AI tools:
- Drag this file into a new chat, or copy and paste its contents
- Send your task or request as your next message — the AI will apply the skill where it fits
For Claude Code skill details: https://docs.anthropic.com/en/docs/claude-code/skills