Your Leadership Style Matters

By Terri Norvell

The challenge of running an organization or property full of independent, smart, willing- to-learn people can be a bit overwhelming. After all, many of us jumped into a leadership role without having the benefit of ‘leading’ or ‘managing’ people. We may have witnessed leadership styles and been on the end of ‘being managed’. More than likely we all came away with a definite opinion of what we liked and didn’t like.

Based upon the needs of your organization and team members specific leadership styles works best for each stage of growth. Daniel Goleman in his breakthrough work of Emotional Intelligence identified 6 distinct leadership styles. This knowledge can greatly enhance your e ectiveness.

The goal here is simply to ‘elevate your awareness’ of the different styles and how they interplay with you as a manager and leader in your team today. First, recognize that leaders bring a ‘blend’ of styles to their approach with employees.

COACHING

Coaching is the primary leadership style used with the diverse generational workforce today. A coaching style helps people identify their strengths and weaknesses and ties these to career opportunities. Coaches are good at delegating – giving employees challenging assignments that stretch them versus simple tasks. A Coaching Style garners greater employee engagement.

However, this style is di cult to use with people who lack motivation or who require excessive direction. Coaching works best with employees who show initiative and want to professionally develop. Most often we are ‘coaching performance up’, yet at times it’s appropriate to ‘coach someone out’.

While it’s the preferred style, Coaching can be a tough style to develop as it takes patience and the ability to ask inquiring questions that allow the employee to think for themselves and solve problems. Coaches facilitate action, they don’t necessarily solve the problems.

Key competencies for this style include developing others, emotional self-awareness and empathy. Emotional self-aware leaders are authentic. Empathetic leaders listen rst before reacting or giving feedback.

PACESETTING

Pacesetting leaders expect excellence and exemplify it. Pacesetting leaders, focused on high performance, often think they are coaching when in fact, they are micromanaging.

A Pacesetting style should be used sparingly as it can be unnerving to sta who feel too pushed. Because the Pacesetting leader has a tendency to come across as micromanaging, the staff feel they have to second guess what the leader wants because it’s never ‘good enough’.

The staff won’t feel they can do things ‘their own way’ which is the beginning of the leadership / staff gap. The Pacesetting leader can also tend to make sta feel they only care about production, getting work done – not about the employee.

The more pressure put on people’s results, the more anxiety is created. is continuing pressure can be debilitating. As people shift away from pursuing an inspiring vision, pure survival kicks in. Pressure constricts their innovative thinking.

DEMOCRATIC

Democratic leaders focus on building trust and respect by getting sta buy-in. is style works best when the leader is uncertain about what direction to take and needs to solicit ideas from able employees.

Even if a leader has a strong vision, the Democratic Style works well to surface ideas about how to implement that vision or solicit ideas on how to execute on it. is style is good at keeping morale high.

The best communicators are superb listeners and listening is the key strength of a Democratic leader. They are true collaborators – working as a team member rather than top down leaders. A Democratic Style knows how to quell con ict and create a sense of harmony.