Leaders should switch their leadership styles to effectively lead in different situations. Research shows that there are four behavioral leadership styles* to choose from:
1 - Directive leadership provides guidance and structure for a team to complete complex tasks with unclear rules.
2 - Supportive leadership provides nurturing care for team members when doing repetitive and unchallenging tasks.
3 - Participative leadership involves the team to accomplish unclear and unstructured tasks.
4 - Achievement-Oriented leadership challenges team members to work through complex and challenging tasks.
How do you, as a leader, help your team members to define their personal, team and organizational goals and accomplish those goals? Directing, guiding and coaching actions based on leadership style should change to suit different work situations to accomplish work goals. Many leaders that I know stick with one preferred leadership style most of their professional career, when they could lead more effectively using the style that works best in the situation that they are faced with.
Please contact us for your leadership development needs and for guidance in more effective leadership style choices.
* From Leadership Theory and Practice by Peter G. Northouse on pages 121-122.
My doctoral program (DOL) asks me to think and write about my leadership style, strengths and effectiveness, to determine what makes me the authentic leader that I am. This requires practicing self-awareness and understanding my internal and external motivators -- components of emotional intelligence, according to Daniel Goleman's Harvard Business Review article, "What makes a leader," that I just read in HBR's 10 Must Reads on Leadership, 2011 (HBR-10).
Part of a recent DOL assignment required me to complete the CliftonStrengths survey online to identify my top five strengths as a leader, which are:
1 - I am an Activator who generates enthusiasm in people to transform ideas into tangibles
2 - I am Futuristic in my vision and self-direction, always planning for the future
3 - I thrive on Input, always craving to know more to broaden my knowledge
4 - I am a Strategic thinker who recognizes and communicates patterns in data and information, and
5 - I am an avid Learner who is always acquiring knowledge and challenging myself to understand different perspectives.
This survey suggested that, in the future, I should start a training or consulting business to help others learn -- which I have already done with Rogers Consulting LLC. After completing this survey, I realized that I am being an authentic leader -- true to my strengths, passion and values. I am using my internal and external motivators to do what I love and help others to realize the same leadership characteristics about themselves, as well as, to start working toward achieving their own authentic leadership. I am thankful to train for Pryor Learning Solutions to enable my authentic leadership and help others do the same!
I just completed a month of training "Management & Leadership Skills for Women" for Pryor Learning Solutions in the Northeastern U.S. and I noted an interesting difference in the mindset of my class attendees. Some students focused on management skill development as the key to their professional success, while others believed that leadership development is their most important ability, to develop themselves individually and those they supervise.
We discussed the difference in being a Manager vs. a Leader as it applies to the type of power they have in their organizations. Formal power comes from a position of authority, a job title, their place in the organizational hierarchy, e.g. being a "Manager." Informal power comes from relationships, influence, mentoring and motivational communication, and is demonstrated by how you are a Leader for yourself and others. Mastering informal power is the strongest indicator of your leadership effectiveness, and is the focus of that class, because you can be a Great Leader without being a Manager, but you cannot be a Great Manager without being an effective Leader.
I recently found more support for this idea from a book that I am now reading for my doctoral program, "Mindset: The New Psychology of Success -- How we can learn to fulfill our potential" by Carol S. Dweck, Ph.D. She discusses that most managers/CEOs become bosses, not leaders, wielding their organizational (formal) power instead of transforming themselves and their workers (by leading with their informal power). Why? Dr. Dweck states that managers learn their job duties and once those skills are mastered, they cease to value learning when they feel content that they know their position. Leaders value constant learning and development of leadership ability for themselves and others, this is why subordinates want to follow them as their leader, not just do what they are told by their manager. Organizations that value the development of ability create new leaders, whereas organizations that grow managers develop non-learning bosses.
My focus and joy in leadership training is growing leaders who value lifelong learning and develop organizations to have a "culture of development" (Dweck, Mindset, p. 142). In my professional experience, people leave bosses, not jobs, because they are not being developed and all human beings need to keep growing. Contact me with your thoughts on this or my other blog articles and please let me know of any other topics you'd like to see more about!