Leadership Styles

'I fear nothing for a match of equals.' - Aeschylus

Leadership is commonly characterised as either:

• situational leadership: tactically leading people to the best outcome given a set of circumstances; situational leaders are flexible and decisive but can lack the vision to see the big picture and may trample on people to get the task done.
• transactional leadership: providing 'contingent reinforcement' of either promises, praise and reward on one hand, or correction through reproof, threat or discipline on the other (a 'carrot and stick' approach). The transactional leader looks inwards to resources and infrastructure for improvements, favouring the rational argument, quality and productivity, and clear roles and objectives. Typically concerned with teamwork, they may not be so good at inspiring communication or leading by example.
• transformational leadership: providing inspirational motivation and idealised influence; enthusiasm for the new, the radical or the revolutionary, tending towards innovation and decisive action. Transformational leaders are a driving force, and show an apparently attractive style but one which has been criticised as dictatorial and ethically neutral.

However none of this theory is terribly useful in the real world.

A new kind of Leadership

Ask many analysts what makes a great leader and they will use transformational words like visionary; commitment; drive; proactivity. But leaders cannot do it all themselves. To achieve highly, consistently, you need to be able to get the most out of people around you. This is what distinguishes a great leader from an average one.

In this sense the best leadership is about building the collective. The trusted leader ensures the people he or she manages have all that is necessary to be excellent- through support, challenge, guidance and values.

So ‘management’ when best practised means achieving the organization's objectives while putting in place the conditions required for the people you manage to excel.

'To manage is simply to create the conditions under which the work will be done and done well. Management is therefore about enabling or empowering effective action.' - The Open University Voluntary Sector Management Programme

To these leaders, the joy of seeing a member of the team blossom in skill, motivation and initiative is every bit as much as the joy of ‘results’ in the way they are commonly understood: as targets achieved. This suggests leadership is akin to parenthood, but not in a condescending sense: the ultimate aim is not to achieve control, but to develop mature independence.

This is the polar opposite of a bullying culture, where too much control is the hands of too few; for more information on bullying see the FAQs in this site.

Leadership is also commonly characterised as either directive, delegative, consultative, or participative; or alternatively as either task-based or people-based. Ultimately different styles suit different situations, but in achieving a balance you must ask yourself:

• Do you see the person as well as the task?
• Do you believe in values as well as results?
• Do you believe in lateral not linear management?
• Is the motivation of the team as important as targets?

If so you are on the way to being trusted, and with trust comes an entirely new level of commitment, staff retention and results.

Leaders do not have to be limited to deciding the tactics of a given situation, nor do they have to rely on transactional analysis, or on transformational charisma. What they do have to do is define directions and bring about continuous improvement - not just through what you decide and what you do, but by creating the values, communication, systems and rewards that encourage everyone else to contribute to continuous improvement.

Trusted leadership aims to encourage this responsibility. It creates a culture where everyone else contributes their own maximum leadership potential. The ideal leadership style to get the best out of most people is 'high support, high demand': the leader offers high support but at the same time places high demand on the achievements expected, usually stretching people beyond what they think they can achieve. 'High support, high demand' does not mean nannying or depriving of responsibility; rather it is the ingredient for the opposite: self-reliance.

To adopt the trusted leadership style, read and use the Six Keys to Trust listed on this site.

Task versus Person?

These are not alternatives: you don't have to be either a task-focused or a people-focused leader. You can be both. Trusted leadership is not necessarily people-focused. Rather it sees the high support and high demand of people as the best way to get results.

• If you have built up a 'credit' of trust with someone, you can become directive and task-focused when the situation absolutely demands it, like in severely time-limited tasks. People will accept it better because they feel that you acknowledge and value them as a human being and they trust you to lead them to the right destination.

Responsibility

More confident organisational models are based on devolving of responsibility and on collective decision-making – in a word, on trust. This challenges the leader by reducing his or her control, but rewards everyone with a greater sense of self-reliance where people take more responsibility for their actions. Sharing with support breeds self-reliance, communication and trust – the smart way to long term success.

It is easy to dismiss this ethos as too ‘soft’. Handled poorly, it could degenerate into mere talkshops. To avoid this you need to balance teams with different characters - each team needs its share of people who like implementing and completing things, to counterbalance people who like creating or evaluating them.

Even then, there will be days when the more linear 'masculinity' of command and control structures appeal more than a lateral culture based on sharing. But trusted leadership is not a soft option: it demands tremendous self-discipline, and, as explained in the section ‘Staying True’, your obligation to the team’s values means positively challenging lazy, destructive or undermining behaviour.

Trusted leadership - creating the values and systems, challenge and support, but letting go of control - challenges our confidence in ourselves and tests our ability to trust others. It can seem risky and hard to master. But it is necessary because a lateral structure produces a more responsive, dynamic organisation, one in which people take more responsibility for their actions.

These are the teams and the organisations that achieve the highest results.

Structure

Through the toolbar you will get to learn about the six daily behaviours of leaders who serve, and who build trust and motivation. But it is not just about what you yourself do. It’s about every aspect of the culture in the workplace.

Most organisations have a linear shape. They think in terms of structures that define people by who manages whom. They appear to be based on control and command structures rather than on collective responsibility.

• How many organisations include an organisational flow-chart in induction packs for new staff? They show the structure of control – who manages whom. Instead or as well, summarise the values of the organisation – ‘the way we do things here’, an endorsement of teamwork, sharing knowledge, and supportive styles of management.

Language

How often do you hear words like these:

In the linguistics of a linear structure, people talk about some levels being ‘above’ or ‘up the line’ from others. They talk about ‘their’ teams, which implies ownership and control of the people in them. ‘Managing’ suggests people will mismanage themselves if left to their own devices. ‘Line management’ implies that without it people might not manage to walk in a straight line. And ‘supervision’ implies a leader’s vision is better than anyone else’s.

But you are all dependent on one another for the organisation’s success. Many people’s vision is excellent because they work all the time with clients, consumers, partners, donors, investors – with the part of the public that the organisation exists to serve. So change your language. It’s not an end in itself, and language should not be ‘policed’ or changed for its own sake – a vacuous and obsessive exercise. But changing the language you use does signify a change in the beliefs underlying it.

How about the following words instead:

"I work alongside five people, who each work with a team, in different areas of responsibility. They meet with these teams and individual colleagues regularly, to make decisions and share any concerns."

'The virtue of co-operation has taken the place formerly held by obedience.'- Bertrand Russell