Recognizing Leadership Style:
Center for Work Life was honored to ask Sandi Vidal, the Executive Director of Christian HELP and the Central Florida Employment Council, some questions about her leadership qualities. She answered an array of questions in different categories, but diplomatic, decisive and a neutralizer (peace keeper) were terms with which she seemed to most identify. She leans toward a modest communication style rather than forceful. These are strengths of the Moderator Leadership Style and they have helped Sandi to accomplish great things in her career. Sandi has over 15 years of Human Resources, recruiting and staffing experience including recruiting for a Fortune 500 company. She currently writes a bi-weekly employment column for the Seminole Voice and contributes articles to other publications. Sandi has served as a subject matter expert for Hiring, Recruiting, and Employee Retention. Sandi serves on the Board of Advisors for Families in Transition Seminole, Provider Councils for Impact Homelessness and Second Harvest Food Bank. She is an active volunteer with Junior Achievement teaching success skills classes. She is also a local Jefferson Award winner for volunteerism.
Sandi Vidal
Executive Director
Christian HELP
CFEC
Moderators like Sandi are often viewed as diplomatic, sensitive, modest, family-oriented and they express themselves in a supportive and warm way. Popular business figure and Spanish Businesswoman, Ana Patricia Botín, also largely embodies the Moderator Leadership Style.
After we helped Sandi identify her style, we explained the strengths of this style and also helped her identify qualities of the opposite leadership style. Opposite styles best help each other improve their weaknesses. Looking for leaders of the opposite style as mentors and mentees facilitates growth for both parties. Persuaders are the opposite of moderators. Persuaders have a strong personal drive to lead and guide others. They often have a solid ability to convince others through a variety of communication skills, which can include communicating with a large audience, assertiveness and understanding the motivational drives of others (an aspect of emotional intelligence). Typically they are vocally forceful without raising their voice. Additional qualities include excellent at expressing ideas, assertive, self confident, decisive, competitive and autonomous.
Sandi is a great example of a strong leader and her thirst for leadership growth enables continued impact. Harvey Firestone (Founder of Firestone Tire), said it well “The growth and development of people is the highest calling of leadership” (Forbes).
Want to know more about leadership styles? Check out the information below and continue checking-in on upcoming Emerging Leaders blog posts.
This is part of the Emerging Leaders Blog series. Center for Work Life put on thinking caps to determine a method for reaching out and assisting leaders in the local Orlando community. The Emerging Leaders blog series is the result. Based on the SPM (Spony Profiling Model), created by Dr. Gilles Spony at Cranfield School of Management, Presentation Trainer Marion Chapsal, developed a model of 12 leadership styles. The purpose of determining one’s fit in the model is to understand their strengths and learn from a mentor with the opposite leadership style. Not only has this series assisted notable female professionals who have participated, but these posts are also designed to help readers assess their own style. Each blog post reveals a leadership style, discusses that style’s characteristics and features a local leader who embodies the style.
The 12 leadership styles include the achiever, analyzer, driver, facilitator, humanist, innovator, maintainer, moderator, monitor, networker, persuader and pioneer.
Related Reads:
Emerging Leaders Introduction
Mark Zuckerberg’s Leadership Qualities
Emerging Leaders: The Facilitator, Cori Powers
This Blog has been featured by the West Orange Chamber of Commerce. Sources such as HLN have also been home to publications by Dr. Farnaz Namin-Hedayati and she has been cited by the Orlando Business Journal.
Center for Work Life of Orlando, Florida is an award-winning executive development firm providing leadership and management training to executives and organizations. Our main services include executive coaching, leadership development, executive succession planning, emotional intelligence training, career planning, staff development, and communication in the workplace.
