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Leadership Style Questionnaire3

Leadership Style Questionnaire Test

In about four minutes, the Leadership Style Questionnaire Test asks 20 questions about everyday management choices and interactions. Your result shows how you tend to organize work, involve colleagues, make decisions, and grant autonomy, giving you a concise basis for self-reflection about interactions in managerial situations.

Questions: 204 minutes

Leadership Style Questionnaire Test: agreement scale card

October 2, 2025October 2, 2025Material has been updatedOctober 2, 2025Material has been published

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Scale Explorer

How the Scales are Structured

Collegial StyleCS

Measures the degree to which a person prefers collaborative, partnership-based decision-making that incorporates the group’s input.

example score15/25

15/25Moderate collegialityexample score

5 – 11Low collegiality

12 – 19Moderate collegiality

20 – 25High collegiality

A score of 15 indicates a moderate collegial style, suggesting you often seek shared decisions and input from others while still balancing collaboration with independent direction.

Directive StyleDS

Measures the extent to which a person prefers making independent decisions and directing others while closely overseeing implementation.

example score20/25

20/25High directiveexample score

5 – 11Low directive

12 – 19Moderate directive

20 – 25High directive

A score of 20 falls in the High directive range, suggesting a strong preference for taking charge and ensuring decisions are executed.

Overall ScoreOS

Measures overall inclination to engage with people in managerial situations, reflecting activity versus passivity in group interaction.

example score63/80

63/80Moderateexample score

20 – 40Low

41 – 69Moderate

70 – 80High

A score of 63 falls in the Moderate range, suggesting a fairly active but not consistently dominant approach to leading and collaborating in group work.

Task-Oriented StyleTOS

Measures how strongly a person prioritizes task completion, work organization, and goal achievement in team leadership.

example score17/25

17/25Balanced business focusexample score

5 – 11Low business focus

12 – 19Balanced business focus

20 – 25High business focus

A score of 17 indicates a balanced business orientation, suggesting you typically organize work and pursue goals while still allowing room for collaboration and flexibility.

Laissez-FaireLF

Measures the extent to which a leader prefers to give team members autonomy and avoid intervening in their work.

example score14/25

14/25Balanced autonomyexample score

5 – 11More hands-on

12 – 19Balanced autonomy

20 – 25Highly non-interventionist

A score of 14 falls in the Balanced autonomy range, suggesting you generally allow independence while stepping in when needed.

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DATA-BASED USER COHORTS

Who Usually Takes This Test?

New and aspiring managers

41%OF USERS

People stepping into leadership use it to understand how they communicate, make decisions, and handle conflict with a team.

HR and team leads

34%OF USERS

Those responsible for hiring, onboarding, and team development use it to match roles, improve collaboration, and reduce friction.

Employees in team roles

25%OF USERS

Individual contributors take it to see how they naturally interact at work and adjust their style for smoother teamwork.

BASED ON AGGREGATED, ANONYMIZED DATA FROM TENS OF THOUSANDS OF FREUDLY USERS.

Benchmarking

See How You Compare

Once you complete the test, your results are compared with real-world data from people in your country.
Below is a preview of how scores are typically distributed across each scale.

Shaded area — where most people score

Dot — the average

You — your score lands on each curve after the test— your score, after the test

Collegial styleCs

You?

Average11.5

Typical rangeTypical7.8 – 15.2

Possible5 – 25

Directive styleDs

You?

Average19.3

Typical rangeTypical16.2 – 22.4

Possible5 – 25

Overall ScoreOS

You?

Average53.1

Typical rangeTypical45.2 – 60.9

Possible20 – 80

Business styleBs

You?

Average15.5

Typical rangeTypical12.6 – 18.5

Possible5 – 25

Non-interventionN

You?

Average15

Typical rangeTypical11.3 – 18.6

Possible5 – 25

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SAMPLE QUESTIONS

Example Questions From the Test

Below are 20 statements. Using a 5-point scale, rate how often (5 = most often) the person of interest behaves in each of the following ways when interacting with other people.

- Very often
- Often
- Sometimes
- Rarely
- Very rarely
- Very often
- Often
- Sometimes
- Rarely
- Very rarely
- Very often
- Often
- Sometimes
- Rarely
- Very rarely

These are 3 of the 20 real questions — the rest appear in the test. No sign-up needed to start.

WHAT THE TEST MEASURES

Leadership Style Questionnaire Test - Description and methodology of the test

business communication

business

Managers, team leads, and people examining their workplace influence can use the Leadership Style Questionnaire Test to reflect on coordination, participation, and the responsibilities attached to leading others. This leadership style assessment offers a structured prompt for self-reflection, team discussions, and considering how managerial responsibilities are handled across different situations. The result is most useful when its scores are read as indicators of the listed management behaviors.

What This Assessment Explores

The questions focus on managerial behavior, not abstract personality labels. They cover instructions, explanations, listening, consultation, recognition, disagreement resolution, initiative, and independent action. Together, these themes show whether your profile favors involvement, shared decisions, close direction, or autonomy. This leadership questionnaire supports reflection on fit across teams.

Five scales include an overall measure and four separate management tendencies:

Overall Score (20-80) reflects active or passive interaction in managerial group work: Low 20-40; Moderate 41-69; High 70-80.
Task-Oriented Style (5-25) reflects work and goal focus: Low business focus 5-11; Balanced business focus 12-19; High business focus 20-25.
Collegial Style (5-25) reflects shared decisions: Low collegiality 5-11; Moderate collegiality 12-19; High collegiality 20-25.
Directive Style (5-25) reflects independent decisions: Low directive 5-11; Moderate directive 12-19; High directive 20-25.
Laissez-Faire (5-25) reflects autonomy: More hands-on 5-11; Balanced autonomy 12-19; Highly non-interventionist 20-25.

Methodology and Scientific Basis

Each statement uses a five-point frequency scale from Very often to Very rarely. The items address directing work, consulting colleagues, recognizing contributions, resolving disagreements, and stepping back from others' decisions. Responses are combined into scale scores and compared with the displayed bands, although the questionnaire does not state how individual answers are weighted. The profile summarizes reported tendencies rather than assigning a fixed type.

Conceptually, it is consistent with House, Filley, and Gujarati (1971) in attending to leader behavior in group and task settings, but that study does not establish or validate the questionnaire's four style scales. It is not an adaptation of that study. House's path-goal theory offers context for how leader behavior can interact with follower motivation and task conditions.

Bass and Avolio (1994) provide context for transformational leadership, while Yukl (1998) discusses organizational leadership; neither source validates or establishes this online questionnaire's scales. This leadership style test has no stated standardization or reliability estimate, so its bands are descriptive, not norm-referenced. Self-report may reflect social desirability, memory, workplace pressures, and self-awareness; role expectations add context.

Author: R. J. House

Literature:

House, R. J., Filley, A. C., & Gujarati, D. N. (1971). Leadership style, hierarchical influence, and the satisfaction of subordinate role expectations: A test of Likert's influence proposition. Journal of Applied Psychology, 55(5), 422-432. 10.1037/h0031775
House, R. J. (1971). A path-goal theory of leader effectiveness. Administrative Science Quarterly, 16(3), 321-339. 10.2307/2391905
Bass, B. M., & Avolio, B. J. (Eds.). (1994). Improving organizational effectiveness through transformational leadership. Sage Publications.
Yukl, G. A. (1998). Leadership in organizations (4th ed.). Prentice Hall.

Updated: 2025-10-02