Obviously I am a bit of both, but I tend to lean to the dominant side. Probably 60-40.

When I was dragged out ghost-hunting in woods late at night and scary stuff started happening, I didn't do that badly as 'leader' thanks to a complete lack of a panic reflex. Got a bunch of terrified teens to go deeper into woodland when they were seeing 'apparitions' everywhere.

My main strengths are talking and an 'inspirational' (mostly exaggerated) lack of respect for obstacles. My main weakness is probably that of Satan in Paradise Lost: I assume everyone else's thought processes are the same as my own, and need to think carefully, almost spreadsheety, about their perspective before i get it right.

Motivating and goal-setting is generally the role of the MOST dominant person. Detail people and planners are going to be right under them, and under them will be the order-carrier-outers.

I need to get out the habit of editing my posts

I suppose I'm dominant, just put more faith in other people than most dominant folk. It's a 'I'll be next door, don't make me come over there' kind of thing.

Dominance doesn't necessitate, or imply, a lack of faith in others. For a leader to be successful, they MUST HAVE faith in others. One person can't accomplish all of a group's tasks, nor can they keep an eye on everything at once.

Genuinely curious: what's your take on Machiavelli? A lot of people think he's just telling home truths these days.

I don't have any direct knowledge of what he's written (he wrote, right?), but my understanding is that he basically talked about how to effectively manipulate people?

If I'm right about that, I think a little manipulation is very useful, and every leader will employ it at some point in their career.

He's basically an arch-cynic, 'far better to be feared than loved' etc. Thought the ideal leader ruthless and driven, showing a firm hand to all opposition and setback.

In that case, he was a moron. The ideal leader inspires his followers, using fear only as a last resort; a willing follower is much more effective than a frightened one, and they're also more likely to provide honest feedback and show initiative. Ruthlessness should be there to an extent because on occasion, opposition quite simply must be destroyed, but only rarely. An iron fist will only serve to turn away potential new followers and irritate existing ones. I sure hope anyone following that idea loves crushing rebellion.

It was actually a satire of the Medicis, it was just so good people thought he was being serious

I agree. Trouble with being totally ruthless is, people have no reason to be loyal to you. After all, you might turn on them in the blink of an eye. You have to have some moral fibre or sense of justice or else you're just a user, at the top only as long as it takes someone to make the promises you're not and put you in your place.

Yeah, I've worked for people who thought that fear and general unpleasantness were the best motivators. They weren't, people did the bare minimum and even then only if they had to, and not just that, they would actively work against those people given half a chance. Likewise managers who think that everyone else is incompetent and nothing will be accomplished without their constant micro-management, shoulder-surfing and assorted other interference and meddling. The one thing they all had in common is that they were far less capable than they thought, especially compared to others, but were too incompetent to realise. But as has been pointed out, the best managers and most capable leaders are those who are skilled at using positive motivation and who have the ability to delegate with no more involvement than absolutely necessary.

Calling someone an idiot is both aggressive and assertive, they are not mutually exclusive. Townsend can define assertion as she wishes, but that doesn't change its definition. I agree that assertiveness is best served alongside respect, but not honesty, although that can help keep things simple. Then again, I think it is kind of moronic to think honesty is morally sound. Lying is a tool, one that can be good or bad. Generally, I err on the side of honesty, because I think that keeps things simple. If you called me something, you would be assertive in your opinion, but it would also be aggressive. Aggression without assertion is basically passive aggression. If I sugar coat something, it is to make a point, without pissing someone off. I am not saying something like, "Hey, I got an idea, you should do _____, simple stuff like ______ is more suited to you." That is just pulling the venom out of an insult, which is passive aggressive. I am more along the lines of "Look, _____ is a specialty for Jessy, you should do ______ instead, as it is a better way to divvy up the workload, don't you agree?" I think the problem here is that you think I really lay on the sugar coating, but I am just giving a thin glaze at best.

As I said, in my experience, many people are willing to let someone else make the decisions, they simply don't want the responsibility. If someone else offers to do the work, they are even more happy about that. With that kind of attitude, I am not about to let my grade ride on their unenthusiastic attempt at a project task. As for that last bit, I am well aware of it. But that attitude isn't common. It is more like, "This is our project, will anyone in the group do anything? Please make me do as little as possible." On the rare chance I get someone who is enthusiastic about working on the project, I am stoked about it.

If you're going to describe Machiavelli, do so correctly. He did not say that it's better to be feared than to be loved. What he said goes along the lines of this: a leader should strive to be both loved and feared by his subjects. In cases where he must choose between them, he opts for fear. But the most important part of all is that he must not be hated.

I was paraphrasing. 'Far better to be feared if you cannot be both' is what I believe he originally said. It's hard to deny that the views in The Prince were cynical in the extreme, though.

And just by extracting that one quote in isolation, and taking it out of context, you've completely mangled what Machiavelli was all about. The truth is, both you and Manwe actually agree with him more than you think.

He called 'inhuman cruelty' a virtue. Even in context, that's not an optimistic statement. I agree with his general thrust, but I have my limits.

Actually, if you called me an insult directly, it'll be just assertive. Look, I referenced Townsend not because she created the difference between assertion and aggression, but because that is in line with my values regarding assertive communication. Here is what the http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-living/stress-management/in-depth/assertive/art-20044644 says about the two concepts. You may not agree with how people defined behavior, but the distinction is prevalent. I think that's good because it better defined good communication, and from my experience, it works. Furthermore, I think honesty is morally sound, but full disclosure can be damaging if you fail to gauge how the information will affect them. On the other hand, deceit is never truly justified. Deception is a tool among the passive-aggressive. Still, with your example, you weren't sugar-coating at all if you've been doing that.

And as I said, I think you're unlucky with your peers.

I think those attitudes tend to be more likely if you're managing a group whom you think are subordinate to you than a group whom you think are professional.

If a leader has a problem with the calibre of his team, he should lead by example or show them how he thinks it ought to be done. Straight-up condescension never got anyone anywhere.

As someone who's worked in a professional environment for my whole career, I've seen both of these approaches from managers. I see them as indicative of bad managers and good managers respectively.

Arguably the worst mistake I made in my career was to turn down the position of overall IT manager as I was perfectly happy being the infrastructure manager and didn't want to faff about with the responsibility of staff reporting to me. So they recruited a manager from outside the company, who was a clueless git, and who soon had me reporting to someone junior to me, one of the many cronies he brought with him. What with that, constant interference and other work prevention and quickly blowing the entire departmental budget on vanity projects, I rather rued my sniffy "I'm too busy to manage people" attitude.

Edit: yeah I know, if I'd employed the magic of delegation I would've simply accepted that position, but I never claimed to be a leader!