What kind of LEADER are YOU?

byOnly1Hugh

1.7K followers

3 years ago

Background

I remember when I was in primary school I had a Principal named Mr. Wyke. He was a pillar of correctness. Long sleeve shirt with tie, polished shoes, always in control. He commanded respect from the all boys school. He always seemed to have the right answers and appeared to be adored by parents. I knew my mother just loved him. She thought that he was just what I needed to stay on a straight and narrow path. I looked up to Mr. Wyke and I dare say, part of me wanted to be a leader just like him.

Since my days at school I have come across many leaders in my personal and corporate life. Leaders in the form of captains of the cricket and rugby teams, Church Leader, non-profit organizations like Habitat for Humanity and like me, you surely have seen many examples of political and business leaders. Some have stood out like my Mr. Wyke, while others you just cannot fathom how anyone selected or voted for them and can’t wait to see their back on their way out of office.

What I perceived was that there were certain habits and traits which I could pick up from one leader to the next. Years later in business school I was taught to better differentiate between different leadership styles.

I thought it would be useful therefore to delve into some of these leadership styles for two reasons.

• The first is that it is beneficial to understand your own leadership style and what impact it has on others particularly in how you interact and communicate with them.
• Secondly, I think knowing leadership styles, or traits, will help you better assess people and assist in better determining how to respond to them. This would give you the best chance to assess the type of persons you want close and others who are not good for you.

There are 7 Leadership Styles I want to go into:

1) It's My Way or the Highway - Autocratic Leaders

‘Staff are like chickens. When you are finished with them just wring their necks and move on to the next one’. Mrs. Joyce my CEO at the time was......my apologies to the Puritans... a BeYatch to the highest degree. She was conniving, highly distrusting and always had to have the last word. Her nickname was Jackass J. or JJ. In more polite business speak she would be referred to as an Autocratic Leader someone who controls what goes on, when it goes on, who should be held responsible…you get the drift.

Joyce was like a Queen of Everything. She wielded full control with little to no delegation of power to subordinates. That's the epitome of an Autocratic Leader. Sure there were executive meetings but in actuality ultimate decision-making was never shared and innovative thinking by line staff was always stifled.

I remember JJ went off on a long vacation and I had to hold on as Acting CEO. The company was going through a turnaround at the time and I was asked to present a restructuring report to the board that I had penned for Operations in my substantive role as Divisional Manager. It was well-received by the Chairman and board however upon JJ’s return she did everything to re-engineer the report to make it appear that she was more the author than I. I realized after that incident that she mistakenly thought that I was coming after her for her job Such is the mindset of an Autocrat, always suspicious.

2. The People’s Sweetheart or Charismatic leader

Whenever there was a major protest by the staff and when I say major probably about 200 people with flags, signs and horns blaring all types of insults. I remember JJ asking this particular manager, Tommy to go out and speak to the union leaders. Tommy had a good relationship with the workers. He was personable, empathetic and always willing to make sure the voices of workers were represented.

Some would say that Tommy was a Charismatic leader that was able to inspire and influence people by using good communication and personality to gain affection. He knew everyone’s name. A real charmer with an infectious personality which one him a degree of respect as employees felt he valued and respected them.

3. Transformational Leaders

I worked for a quasi state real estate development company that controlled nearly 15,000 acres of prime real estate. Dr. Timarie, our line Minister (or in the States you would say Congress Leader or Senator) was a visionary. He believed that the property, largely an under developed green space, could be re imagined into a premier recreational and leisure park, that would be the best in the Caribbean. Massive plans took off with millions of dollars of investment for construction flowing in.

Dr. Timarie was a transformational leader that inspired others. However, unlike Tommy, who was in the organization, Dr. Timarie was able to effect transformation through the organizational by motivating employees to perform with grand plans.

Whenever Dr. Timarie gave a speech people would come away willing to work hard regardless of the setbacks that would typically squelch willingness to work. Transformational leadership often demands a high level of performance and involvement from staff. While this style can be quite effective for real change, it may overwork some employees to the detriment of others. Transformational leaders have also been known at times to take too many risks and to have unrealistic expectations of the organization's team members.

4. Laissez-faire leadership

We had another manager in charge of the property department. We thought Mr. Harry was somewhat lazy. He tended to allow his staff a high degree of autonomy not so much because he believed in a laissez-faire management style but more so he could not be bothered to go out and do inspections as he was supposed to. Several of his supervisors beneath him loved his hands off approach to their decision-making and providing them with the tools to carry out their jobs. Unfortunately for Mr. Harry the laissez-faire leadership style works best with highly competent staff that require little direction. Mr. Harry did not have that with his subordinates. Many times job scope were done improperly and worst there were numerous sightings of company equipment undertaking what appeared to be unauthorized PJs (private jobs).. The consequence therefore of Mr. Harry’s laissez-faire leadership style or passive approach was that his department lacked direction, there was a high degree of disunity and lack of the idea of team. Projects were often late due to the lack of oversight which lead to a lot of blame calling.

Unlike Mr. Harry, Warren Buffet has been said to be a Laissez-faire leader. In running him mega billion dollar empire he provides vision and trusts in his competent people to carry out their duties to the best of their abilities. His Managers make the decision concerning their respective teams and allow staff to develop and implement the appropriate solutions.

5. Transactional Leaders

As mentioned above with the large scale investment a number of construction projects got underway. To properly manager these projects a number of project manager were brought in. Thees project managers could have also been referred to as Transactional Leaders. They were expected to deliver the projects or transactions as assigned under the terms of contract.

\By bringing in project managers we were able to have a clearly–defined project structure which operated outside of the organization however was able to meet our short-term goals. However, transactional leadership does not allow for much innovation or creativity in employees. It also establishes a rigid structure that may not respond well to change. Something that Bill Gates has allegedly been accused of.

6. Supportive leadership

Supportive leaders delegate and assign tasks to employees, but they also ensure that the employees are able to obtain the requisite skills needed to complete the assigned tasks. They partner with their employees by sharing in the responsibility to work through problems and issues. They offer a high degree of attention and coaching on an as-needed basis. The employee maintains autonomy, but the supportive leader will step in and work through issues and problems with the employee as they arise.

Supportive leaders tend to have heart or compassion and are respectful to their employees. In turn, employees feel considered and empowered. Still, supportive leadership can have some pitfalls. For instance, a supportive leader may lose recognition as a manager if he only steps in when problems arise and be less involved in the overall workflow and realization of the organization’s goals.

For the reasons above mentioned, Colin Powell could have been considered the consummate Supporter Leader as the Secretary of State in the George Bush administration during the Iraq War. He had unparalleled credibility and was able to convince large sections of the world that Saddam Hussein had Weapons of Mass Destruction, which however he found out later to be untrue.

7. Democratic leadership

Going back to my organization, on the other end of the leadership spectrum to the CEO, there was the Chairman who believed that he should always solicit the opinions of everyone. He used to try to have these meetings as part of his process towards making an overall decision. His style had a tendency to cause staff to participate in decision-making. This resultingly had a tendency to allow many ideas to flow from the bottom up.

Democratic leadership tends to be fairly effective as it promotes creativity, fairness and highly values integrity, intelligence and honesty. Like everything else however there are drawbacks. These leaders operate where roles are more fluid. This can cause confusion and communication issues.

So what's your leadership style?

You may already know which of the above leadership styles you favour or practice. Are you happy with it? Do you interact well with others when you use your leadership style or do you offend and turn people off, not able to gain their support? The most successful leaders and managers tend to utilize a mix of leadership styles combining the best elements of different ones in a bid to achieve the highest performance and output.

Have a good one folks.

Hugh

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