LSI Life Styles Inventory (LSI)

Personal Thinking Styles

The LSI chart shows that my primary thinking style is avoidance (raw 25, 99%) and

dependent (raw 32, 99%). People inavoidance style usually like to avoid making

decisions and leave them to others. The commitment would be their difficulty in

management and leadership. I kind of agree with that because I do pay most

attentions to my own concerns and most likely ignore others; however, I disagree

with that it is difficult to forgive myself after making mistakes because mistakes don’t take me down for a long time and I would like to do whatever it needs to correct the issues. Other than avoidance, dependent is so true to me and I feel like this thinking style totally descripts me. I am very sensitive to people’s feelings and I usually let them get satisfied and then follow them. For example, whenever I hang out with my friends, I always let them decide what to do and I just need to join them without making challenging plans and decisions.

My secondary thinking style is conventional thinking (raw 29, 97%), which makes sense that it comes with my primary thinking style.That group of people respects others pretty much and is conservative. They like to follow policies and practices avoid conflicts. In their opinions, rules are usually in a higher priority than ideas. I totally agree with this because I don’t like to try new things or ideas. I believe rules exist for reasons and are made based on trustworthy experience, so following rules would be a less risky behavior and I don’t like take even a small risk in my life.

It turns out that my limiting style is achievement that is actually a key factor to a successful leadership. The achievement style means achieving and enthusiasm as well as high level of aspiration. People in achievement style would like to think ahead, share responsibilities, set own goals and accomplish them. They focus on results and are not afraid to tough tasks. Therefore, they would most possibly enjoy the success in the end. The LSI result chart shows that I got only a raw score of 15 and a percentile score of 7%, which means I have problems in this area. Without achievement-oriented thinking, I may not be capable of setting goals, making plans and progress, and finally accomplish a project successfully. The lack of those skills will stop me from being capable of managing and achieving the success.

Primary style:

Impact on Management Style

A. Planning

I am not a person with achievement-oriented thinking, so I am not capable to plan things and set goals. Based on the LSI result, I got a really low score in achievement, which shows that I have limited ability to make plans.

B. Organizing

Once again, due to lacking such abilities to set goals and make plans, I am not capable to organize people or resources in order to lead a project or team. In addition, I am most likely to be organized due to my dependent personal style.

C. Leading

The basic requirements of leading are making decisions and commitments; however, I am a dependent person with avoidance thinking and I couldn’t meet any of those requirements. As a result, I am not able to lead even a very small team.

D. Controlling

As you see, I am a dependent person and I don’t like to control things or people; instead, I like to follow others or rules. Moreover, I am a conventional person and respect others but not create new ideas. It turns out I am not able to control a team or project.

Genesis of Personal Style

My family did develop my personal style of conventional and dependent thinking. Since I was a child, my family has decided everything I need to do. I usually didn’t have any idea or plan because I knew my family would give me one and I preferred to be passive and follow them. In another word, I really depended on my family and even could not live well without them. In school, I always tried avoid thinking about plans when staying with my friends because it was a kind of tough job to me and I enjoyed following them and didn’t need to be responsible. When meeting conflicts, I was always the girl who was always listening and keeping quite. Both my family and school life were leading me to develop a personal style avoidance.

Conclusion and Reflection

According to the LSI results, my primary thinking style is avoidance and dependence and secondary thinking style is conventional. It shows that I am not able to lead due to lacking basic leader personalities and management skills. In addition, my childhood lifeis the most import reason why I developed those person styles. I am taking this course is to learn management skills and I hope MGMT591 would help me develop more about leader styles such as achievement-oriented thinking.

LSI Results