  Zeeman Doppler imaging has successfully mapped the large-scale magnetic
fields of stars over a large range of spectral types, rotation periods and
ages. When observed over multiple epochs, some stars show polarity reversals in
their global magnetic fields. On the Sun, polarity reversals are a feature of
its activity cycle. In this paper, we examine the magnetic properties of stars
with existing chromospherically determined cycle periods. Previous authors have
suggested that cycle periods lie on multiple branches, either in the cycle
period-Rossby number plane or the cycle period-rotation period plane. We find
some evidence that stars along the active branch show significant average
toroidal fields that exhibit large temporal variations while stars exclusively
on the inactive branch remain dominantly poloidal throughout their entire
cycle. This lends credence to the idea that different shear layers are in
operation along each branch. There is also evidence that the short magnetic
polarity switches observed on some stars are characteristic of the inactive
branch while the longer chromospherically determined periods are characteristic
of the active branch. This may explain the discrepancy between the magnetic and
chromospheric cycle periods found on some stars. These results represent a
first attempt at linking global magnetic field properties obtained form ZDI and
activity cycles.
