Your Leadership Style: Define, Flex, and Refine

We discuss Leadership Styles, looking at the strengths and weaknesses of different natural styles, biases that are introduced when a person with one style works with another style, and how to flex your style to maximize your and your team’s success.

Transcript

Dr. D.  0:04  
Hello, and welcome to the realm. I'm Dr. D, I bring the strategy.

Dr. K  0:08  
I'm Dr. K, I bring the psychology, we are business psychologists and your guides to the executive route where we bring strategy and psychology together.

Dr. D.  0:16  
So you can bring your best to your C suite, your teams, and your customers. Today we're talking about leadership styles, looking at the strengths and weaknesses of different natural styles biases that are introduced when a person with one style works with another style and how to flex your style to maximize your and your team's success. So let's get to work. Dr. K, there are so many different models and ways to evaluate leadership styles. How do you think about the leadership frameworks you use when working with your business clients?

Dr. K  0:47  
You are absolutely correct. There are so many different leadership frameworks, for the most part, there tends to be a commonality there tends to be within all the frameworks there is the leader that tends to guide or is one that walks with their employee instead of walking ahead of them. And there is the leader that is that tells everyone what to do very transactional, this is what I need you do it, okay, that's the end of our relationship. And then, of course, there's always going to be the, you know, the leader, that's just kind of like, hey, do what you got to do get it done, check in with me when you need. I believe that that happens in all of the frameworks, even if there are different ways to phrase it, if there are different names to the frameworks or the different leadership styles within the framework, I believe, overall, it's very common throughout all the frameworks. So for me, it's working with how I better understand leadership styles. That way, I'm giving more of an authentic self with my

Dr. D.  1:47  
business client, there is a bit of a danger in applying a label to somebody's leadership style, because people tend to then identify with that label and feel stuck maybe that this is who they are. And they don't have the ability to flex or they don't necessarily recognize when they need to flex. What's really important to take away from any leadership style you're using is it is flexible, the labels, well, if you apply them to yourself and say, Well, it's because I'm an autocratic leader, I have an autocratic leadership style, it's just who I am, well, then you're missing the point of what the leadership styles are about. There are a lot of good frameworks. And you're right, they do have some commonality. It's the number of dimensions and the descriptions that go along with those. There's the transformational transactional laissez-faire avoidance model. There's Goleman six that has six elements from visionary and coaching and democratic pacesetting. commanding, you have Lewin's model which looks a lot like the transformational transactional laissez-faire. I think it's autocratic, democratic, and laissez faire. And then there's the situational leadership style, which has four dimensions. So there are a lot of good frameworks. And I think it is important that an organization adopt a common language around leadership styles so that you can say, here's my natural style, here's where I flex when I'm stressed out, here's where I am really uncomfortable so that when you're having a conversation, you can say, Hey, you know, it'd be great if you in this situation maybe went more democratic, instead of coaching, leadership style, the language is good. But the risk is that you adopt a persona and other people label you as a particular leadership style when everyone really flexes along these dimensions as they're working.

Dr. K  3:33  
Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, there are some people that feel more comfortable in certain leadership styles for whatever reason, whether it's, that's what they were taught, or that's just their natural style. And there's always going to be someone from the outside labeling a leader. What's interesting is that someone could if one person may say, oh, Kelly's trans, she's transformational, but someone might have had a different experience with and all of a sudden, it's transactional. So it's not just how you portray yourself. It's also how that person sees how your employees see how you work. In the end, it doesn't really matter how they see you, it's being able to change to work with that person so that the work gets done a feel safe because some people work better with a transactional leader. Some you know, some people work better with transformational some people work better with laws a fair you know, hey, they just let me do what I need to do. And I check it. So it's, it's always it's a ever-changing concept within a business or as a leader.

Dr. D.  4:38  
Yeah. And I think that's really an important dynamic to consider in your leadership style is it's not about how you lead it's how others follow. It's how they perceive you. For example, I tend to lean towards the transformational style in that three-bodied framework or in Goldman's I tend to lean towards the visionary style. I like to Talk about change and inspire people and motivate folks to try new things and explore what opportunities are available. And someone who is highly transactional. Somebody who is change-averse, somebody who likes a lot of normality and routine in their day-to-day activities, my style, my natural approach is very disruptive in their day-to-day working style. So I have to think consciously about who I'm working with, and how I'm communicating to make sure that I am resonating in a way that's going to be understood by them. And when I'm talking to a large group, I have to make sure that I cover all the bases that I am visionary that I touch on the emotional component for folks that are much more emotive in their style, I have to be directive for those that want to know very clearly, where are we going. But I also have to be supportive and coaching for those that want to feel like they're taking the lead on whatever the change in the transformation is. So you really have to adapt and be very cognizant of how you're communicating what your style is, and what your approach is, so that it can resonate with the most number of people if you're talking to a large group, but you also have to be very specific and targeted when you're working with an individual or small

Dr. K  6:18  
group. Absolutely. It's fluctuating between all of them. And for me, my style is somewhat the same. If I go through the transformational transactional types of leadership, I am very, let's look at your strengths, and how can we build upon them, let's look at your weaknesses and how can we improve those, and I will use what my clients need, then with the transactional part that I bring in is offering different steps to take the laws a fair part of me allows them to choose what works best for them allows them to individualize these transactional ideas or suggestions so that it works best for them. I can fluctuate within one session through all three of those depending on what is happening. As a leader, you want to go with your biggest strength, because that's what you are good at. But you want to allow room for flexibility, because just because that's where your strength is

Dr. D.  7:15  
doesn't mean that your team or individual employee, or what have you will be able to resonate with that particular style. So it's very important to kind of get an idea of what all the styles look like. And then individualize all the styles to yourself, while keeping what is more naturally your style, you can overuse a style. So if you tend to a laissez-faire approach to leadership and you step in when it's necessary, you can become too disconnected from the day to day operations from the tactical from the operational people can think that you're not engaging enough even though you might be well aware of everything that's going on within your team, your style of delegating can be perceived as being far too hands-off, somebody who is transformational can overuse the transformational element. And the same thing with transactional. If you are highly transactional, and you don't bring in your transformational you can come off as being overbearing or a micromanager and not open to change, which is a risk for a leader. So understanding what your natural style is and what your natural bias is, then being able to flex that based on the situation is certainly necessary. And it's a risk of overusing your natural style and being too slow to adapt.

Dr. K  8:34  
It's also important for the leader to know their team or know an individual and they'll better be able to say you know what this style wasn't working. So let me see what I need to change. Let me see if asking them how they feel about this might be a little bit more motivating or if someone seems stuck, and not exactly sure what direction to go, okay, maybe that's where I can be more transactional, and give them steps 123 so that we can get here and then we can progress. It's important for the leader to open up their lens to better see what is happening within again, the individual or the team, and then make decisions based on that a creative team may be different than the accounting team. As a leader, you may work with the accounting team very differently than the creative team, but it's still you're working with them to what leadership style they need to get everything done, but also allowing them to feel good about the leader.

Dr. D.  9:34  
It's about clarifying what it is that you want to accomplish. It really doesn't matter what kind of team that you're working within some regard because you want to inspire, motivate and set the direction you then need to facilitate collecting information from people and then you need to deliver results, and then you need to let people actually do the work. What kind of let them go and run so you really do need all of the leadership styles for any conversation across the span of an engagement? You're absolutely right. A message fundamentally needs to resonate with the team and folks that are in creative roles, gear messages differently than those that are in tactical operational roles. It doesn't mean that people in finance or in operations in day-to-day operations are not creative. There are a lot of creative elements to that. But the actual getting the work done, there is a mindset that goes into the level of precision that goes into accounting, for example, and just like in marketing, or in a creative element, or a strategic part of an organization, yes, people will tend to want a more motivational message, but they still have to get the work done. So they need that tactical, getting motivated and moving and getting things accomplished to hit a deadline. So you really do it doesn't really matter, the messaging. And the approach might be stylistically different in how you approach those various teams, but the end result is still the same. You've got to motivate, you've got to solicit input. And then you have to get the work done.

Dr. K  11:05  
how we communicate may be different, again, individually or through teams. But it's important to communicate as a leader holding yourself accountable. If you recognize, you know, wait a minute, I was using this leadership style with this person, but it didn't seem to work, hold yourself accountable and go, you know what, I could probably change that. Let me see what I can do differently so that we can get the work done, be honest with yourself, maybe you don't go to that particular employee and say, Hey, I messed up. And sorry, I was, you know, doing it this way. Or maybe you do depend on your level of relationship or what the atmosphere of the organization is. But as long as you can recognize, you know, what needs to change and you hold yourself accountable for your part in it that change, right there shows an amazing characteristic of a leader, because then you can make the change, help the organization help the team help the individual along the way. And that's really important. Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And

Dr. D.  12:02  
you don't necessarily have to guess whether or not a message resonated with somebody else. Or if your approach was appropriate, ask to have that conversation. Ask your team on reflection, what did I miss? How could that have better resonated with you as an individual or if you have a trusted colleague or mentor that is listening in on some of these conversations, you can say what give me some feedback? What could I have done differently better? Could I have reached a broader audience? Could I have inspired more? Did I over-index on a particular part of the conversation? Did I overuse inspiration and underused tactics, you can certainly have those conversations, demonstrating that level of openness to feedback demonstrates you are being cognizant and conscious of your style and your approach. And I think people really appreciate that because people get really uncomfortable having those conversations sometimes.

Dr. K  12:52  
Oh, absolutely. That's not it's not fun to admit to your weakness or admit to your part. It's not always an easy concept to put out there. And it's not always easy for employees to be like, yep, that's exactly how it was. And it's not easy for employees to say, Well, you know, you could have it could have been better spoken this way. Or if you had gone in this direction, we might have gotten more, that's not always an easy conversation to have. However, it's an important conversation to have. And that shows rapport building or relationship building within an individual and a leader, a team in the leader, and then also within the team itself, being able to pay if we can communicate with our leader, this way, we should be able to communicate within our team as well. It's important to flex your natural style. And it's important to flex to other styles.

Dr. D.  13:42  
One of the things that I've observed over my career is that people that are there tend to be some sort of style guilt, right? If you're in a culture that's highly transactional, and you are a transformational leader, people sometimes feel guilty or feel bad about their natural leadership style, because it's in conflict or it's so different from those that they admire. The same thing with a transactional leadership style. I've observed that a lot where people set are so good at inspiring people or bringing people around to a new way of thinking, but I just don't have that ability. But everybody does have that ability. It's about communicating in a way that's authentic to you and approaching just because you are a pick a model. If you are in Golman's model and you tend to lean towards the commanding leadership style, which would be the one that really takes the lead and demonstrates authority and is driving solutions, and is trying to drive results. People can feel guilty about being that powering command presence in a world where emotional connection and inspiration and getting people on board is a preferred style in many cultures. So people tend to feel a little guilty about their style and are ashamed of their style. When it's not a label, it's not something that you are, it doesn't define who you are, it is a piece of approach. Yeah, it's a base-level approach that you lean on in uncertain or unusual, or new situations. And you just have to be conscious that in this situation, I'm going to flex to this style, or I'm going to sit back and wait and see what the situation bears before I lean in. And I know I have a tendency to be overly visionary in my approach. So I need to hold back on that until it's time to be visionary,

Dr. K  15:34  
if you struggle with this is exactly who I am. And this is the only way that I am able to do this. That's where coaching comes in. That's where finding a coach of leadership styles or someone that can help walk you through it, the power of having a professional coach come in and help to identify what your natural style is, and your strengths that might be a characteristic of the other styles. The power in that can be amazing can be overwhelming to where it can take you as a leader to a whole nother level. Just because you feel that this is exactly who you are, does not mean that that is a fact set in stone, no changes can be made. But you have to be willing to go you know what this is where I feel that I always am. But I kind of like some of these other characteristics of these other leadership styles. And I want to learn those. And that's when you bring in someone you talk with someone and you practice with that person, that's all part of the coaching is practice. And then you take it out into the real world with an individual employee or with your team, and you can practice those, and then it becomes more natural, it may be a struggle at first, it's a struggle at first, it doesn't mean that change can't happen. But you have to put the effort into it, you also have to put in the time and understanding how different leadership styles are different characteristics of the leadership styles are beneficial to one yourself. Second, an individual and third your team, I think you've hit the nail on the head here, because professional athletes are at the peak of their form in their fitness, and they have a coach, so many leaders don't invest in so many organizations don't invest in leadership development for their senior leaders, because there's a level of maybe hubris that, hey, I've been doing this a long time, I'm a great leader, but everybody needs to hone and polish their skills. Even more importantly, people in the organization who are emerging talent, or are not leaders in the sense that they're developing teams, but they have important strategic roles in the organization, product managers, project managers, they might not have a team of people reporting to them, but they need leadership development skills, too. Too often organizations promote folks into supervisory roles, leadership roles, or give them a lot of decision making authority or influencing authority, and they just don't have they haven't invested in the development of what the style is how to influence people how to bring people along, it makes so much sense to have a professional deliver that knowledge and that skill set, but more importantly, be an independent voice that is outside of the immediate culture and the immediate political influences within the organization to be able to have an objective perspective on situations that happen and give people the blunt truth sometimes that they need to hear that they

Dr. D.  18:34  
might not hear from those around them the power of a development coach, a leadership coach and executive coach, a team coach, whatever you want to call it is so powerful in an organization that it's just silly to me when leadership teams or leaders don't have them

Dr. K  18:51  
leadership development and organization providing the resource to develop either an up and coming leader shows one for that leader shows that they care to allows room for an advantage for that leader to go many places within the organization in the end and being the money on the resources and providing this coaching for a leader can only improve

Dr. D.  19:14  
the organization. I'm not the sports person. But the best teams bring in the right players. And they also have the right coaching staff to get the most out of the players. And they align those players according to the best strategy to win against the competitor that they're playing against at the time. If you think about the elements of business success, it is about having the right people-oriented in the right direction honed to their best capability. If you don't have all three of those pieces, you're not going to win against your competitors because your competitors could figure it out before you do. You always want to stay one step ahead. Keep that razor just a little bit sharper and be ready to win in the market.

Dr. K  19:59  
Absolutely total Totally agree and I love that you even though you're not a sports person, you keep bringing it up so much appreciate there. So dr. D, what can leaders take away from today's discussion? Well,

Dr. D.  20:08  
it's really important to understand your natural leadership style. Understand how your style enhances your strengths and exposes potential weaknesses. Examine past successes and regrets to understand how your style may have played into the situation at the time and what you can learn from that. get feedback from colleagues, peers, and team members on your style strengths and where your style may hold you back. Build strengths from related styles into your leadership Arsenal, you can flex your style when the situation is right. It's important to remember your style is not a label. It's the way you use your tools to approach challenges and exert influence and professional athletes have coaches, business professionals should have a coach helping them to build and hone their skills. So who's yours? Find a coach who will give you insight speak with candor, uncovered biases, and blind spots, and inspire introspection. So Dr. K, what's on tap for next week?

Dr. K  20:58  
Next week, we will be talking about competitive strategy, what it means to think like your competitor, and how that thinking can drive personal and organizational growth. Excellent.

Dr. D.  21:09  
Yeah. It's a fun conversation. Well, thank you for the conversation today, Dr. K. And to all of you joining us on this journey to the realm Thank you so much. I'm Dr. D.

Dr. K  21:18  
And I'm Dr. K. And we are looking forward to your next visit to the Executive Realm.