What’s your leadership style?
Last month Entrepreneur published an interesting article that describes six different leadership styles.
The styles were described by Tor Cosantino, who assessed himself as a Pacesetter, only to find out that his peers classified him as a very different type of leader, a Visionary. By the way, I really respect leaders who publicly admit when they get something wrong. The world could use a lot more leaders like that.
What’s the difference between a Pacesetter and a Visionary leader? We’ll get to that. First I want to discuss the unicorn in the room – “we are not the best to measure our own leadership skills and gaps.”
This is a hard thing to accept sometimes, especially for those of us in power roles. We’re (usually) in these positions because we’re capable and good at seeing the big picture. We have a lot of experience in our business – it helps us gain perspective. But we are human. Even if we have good perspective about our business, we often are way too close to ourselves to have any perspective about our own leadership. This lack of self awareness is the downfall of many leaders.
How do we make time to get an outside perspective about our leadership style?
One thing we know about power distance is that you are very unlikely to get an honest, outside perspective unless you ask. You have to make it safe for others to give you feedback. They must feel comfortable speaking honestly, not worried that you’ll kill the messenger.
This is the only way to truly know what is happening in your organization, especially if you want to know in time to do anything about it. And it is the only way to know what type of leader your followers think you are (versus the kind of leader you think you are).
On to the assessment Tor took with his team. This assessment, conducted by The Hay Group, narrows down leadership into six styles:
- Directive. The “my way or the highway” leader who “seeks to gain immediate compliance, relying on the use of ‘orders’ rather than providing context and direction.”
- Visionary. “The Visionary provides an authoritative perspective regarding the business’ prospects, as well as why that perspective matters and how every individual can work towards making it a reality.”
- Affiliative. “The Affiliative mode of leadership focuses on people and relationships with a primary goal of creating trust and harmony across the organization. A lot of attention is given to meeting the needs of the individuals without placing a priority on performance or results.”
- Participative. “The Participative approach to leadership seeks to engage others in the leadership process. A key objective of this style is to generate new ideas and solutions from a team using consensus and commitment.”
- Pacesetting. These leaders “tend to have high performance standards and work hard to ensure those standards are met. They also tend to lead by example; however, they can be reluctant to delegate.”
- Coaching. “Leaders who rely on the Coaching method strive to identify the unique [strengths] and weaknesses of their team members with the end goal of helping those individuals develop the behaviors and skills to meet their professional objectives.”
Overall, it’s a pretty good list. It captures many of the common leadership styles. But I think most would agree that the best leaders don’t have just one style. Instead they adjust based on the circumstances – at least that’s what approachable leaders do.
You probably have a natural leadership tendency that is captured by one of the 6 styles listed above. Knowing your “base” leadership style is a solid first step. Then do what Tor did – ask around and see if others agree with your assessment. Once you learn your natural style you can begin working to embrace the qualities of some of the others.
The key is to find a balance in your leadership style.
Being directive is great when it’s necessary. When things are crazy or you are dealing with someone who is new, your direction will be welcomed. If you are naturally more of an affiliative leader, you probably need to get comfortable taking control and directing the team when the time calls for it.
The naturally directive leader also needs to flex. Directive leaders can fall flat on their face if they order people around when things are humming or they are bossing around workplace veterans. This kind of leadership will make your team run the opposite direction.
Leaders with a “my way or the highway” tendency will need to focus on developing relationships with their employees (like the affiliative leader). What they’ll discover is that there are qualities about each individual that motivates them to work. Over the long run you can’t engage and motivate through ultimatum.
You may have to use any of the six (or more) different styles depending on the situation. Does that sound complicated? Don’t worry. Let me give you a short cut.
Approachable Leaders don’t worry about figuring out the “right” leadership style. Instead they let their teammates tell them what style they need at that time. How do they make that happen? By asking the three questions of approachable leaders:
- Do you have what you need?
- What would make work better?
- Where are you going?
If you ask questions like these your employees will let you know what kind of leadership they need (if any). Listen carefully to what your followers say. Then take action. Your leadership style will take care of itself.
Which one of these six leadership styles do you think you fit into the most? What about the leader you most admire? Are there qualities about that leader you’re missing in yourself? How do you think your employees would answer that question? You can download our three questions tool FREE in our Approachable Leadership Toolkit.
