Colby Goodman, CTIE
Introduction
There is nothing more disconcerting than a boss looking over your shoulder all the time, or taking the credit for your good ideas. Double standards, one-way streets, bad attitudes, and just plain unpleasant behavior; these are all aspects of bad bosses that most of us have encountered or will have to deal with at some point in our lives. If this hasn’t happened to you yet, it will. It’s just a matter of time, unless of course you’re your very own boss, or you’ve just recently won the lottery and no longer have to work another day in your life. There may be some of us out there who just may luck-out and never have to deal with a bad boss, but that seems statistically unlikely, to some un-scientific degree anyway.
Having to work with someone who makes your life miserable, in terms of attitude or demeanor is one thing, but what about that boss that never did anything to contribute to your success? We’re not talking about pay raises, days off, or token promotions here. We’re talking about being taught new skills, and being encouraged to reach for greater, higher, and better. These are the hallmarks of excellent bosses – the ones who develop you, and actually aim to make you better than they are. This could actually be the point of delineation of the meaning of the word or title “boss” – these people are better – they are Leaders.
Leaders are the people we are lucky to work for. These are the mentors and strong guides who empower us, and make us want to be better tomorrow than we are today. This of course sounds a bit cliché, after all, this is a paper about leadership and not an empowering Hollywood movie script. Not all leaders push us to epiphany in the form of big self-realizing, immediate life-changing fireworks, some do, but most don’t. Some of the very best leaders do us right with subtlety, in small, measured doses of “better” and “stronger” and “growth”. These are the people who are in it for the long haul, a dedicated bunch. These are the managers who make our lives better and more rewarding, and keep us motivated to go to work every day and succeed, not just go through the motions. A good leader is who you want to work for, and the kind of person you want to emulate.
Defining Leadership Styles
We look up to those we consider to be great leaders. They are those who inspire, help us look at problems and solutions differently, and those who we see as impacting life (our or someone else’s) positively. Of course, there are those we consider having been poor or bad leaders; history has a few examples that meet this identification.
It can be argued that style is an important aspect of leading others. Style is the way the act of leadership is approached, and how the mechanics of the day to day of guiding others is delivered. In his book, How to be an Effective Leader, Author Allan Green identifies 25 different leadership styles. These styles or approaches range from time & goal based leadership identities to situational, and all the way to personality-based styles. All 25 styles could be applicable to a broad discussion on leadership, but for the purpose of this discussion, we will focus on the leaders’ personality-based styles. Green identifies these as Participative, Influential, Innovative, Paternalistic, Courageous, and Charismatic (Green 61).
Participative is of course a focus on participation. This style is executed by the leader’s own contributions of work, expertise, training, and skills This approach assumes the leader shows aptitude and can perform the work of his or her team, and then delegates the actions to the subordinates. This approach can help to show the mastery of the knowledge by the manager, which in turn supports the respect of the team to the leader. Green points out that this is a democratic leadership approach, and it cannot be an autocratic in nature.
When a leader exercises some of their power of conviction and vision, they are influential. “The influential style of leadership uses a perception of an omnipotent conviction and vision to achieve the target via the modes of their power and influence” (Green 68). This method required subordinates to be in-line with the overall strategic vision of the company, and for the leader to also be in alignment with corporate goals and mission. It is important to note that while a leader may be influential, their projection of influence will only be valuable if efforts are channeled into overall alignment with corporate goals. It is possible to be misaligned if the influencer is not communicating or influencing on the correct objective. Influential leaders are also innovative, which is one of the styles of leadership. The importance and role of innovation will be addressed in a later section of this discussion.
A Paternalistic style takes on a “father-like” approach but also plays upon other leadership styles. To those other styles, it adds a level of concern, care, desire to assist, participation, involvement, influence, and an overall inclusion of team members (Green 67).
A style that requires even more top-down alignment than the Influential style is the Courageous style. This is where a stand is taken, and a leader is seen as being strong and revolutionary in approach. Green identified this type of leadership plunges the leader (and his/her team of followers) into rebellion along with their “rush of courage.” This form of leadership can have a strong emotional-drive element, and can do more harm than good if there is misalignment of any type along the way. The leader and his/her team must keep their target in sight, and must not be come distracted from their goals.
A Charismatic leader is one that inspires others to tackle a problem, or to have some level of purpose or drive to approach their responsibilities or desires with a certain positive affect. This type or style also calls on other styles and is highly inspirational in nature. Charisma adds a touch of personality and identity to those who follow, and many people enjoy following charismatic leaders. A leader should always have some level of charisma as part of their individual attributes.
These are just 5 of the many leadership styles that Allan Green discusses. Many of the styles draw upon other styles and are complimentary to varying degrees. This is especially true of styles that incorporate inspiration and charisma. It is important to note, however, that most of the styles examined are inclusive and participatory, and are not necessarily complimentary of autocratic and highly authoritative styles. Leadership styles depend on the situation and needs at hand, but are also closely tied to the personality and visions of the leader. At times a leader may choose to use a few different styles to complete the mission at hand.
In Practice: Leading Others
Regardless of the leadership style that is either natural to you or that you specifically choose, you will most likely need to call upon your own strengths to lead effectively. It is important to also recognize that a good leader recognizes and leverages his or her own opportunities and weaknesses. This is not only important to avoid any potential missteps or pitfalls, but to also anticipate any possible needs of the team you lead.
A good leader is in touch with what I call their own “AOE-IQ”. AOE refers to your Area or Areas of Expertise – the skills and concepts in which you are an expert. The IQ part is simply that- the knowledge of (using the term intelligence quotient a little loosely). So, as a leader, what is your AOE-IQ? Is it a skill, a concept, mathematics, planning? It doesn’t matter what it is so long as it is a tool that you can use to lead your team to success. Leaders can’t be experts in everything, it is impossible. A good leader knows a little bit about a bunch of things, but may very well be an expert in 1 or 2 things. The team will benefit overall from the pooling of talents and will benefit from cross-utilization of skills and abilities. The job of the leader is to recognize those talents (including his/her own) as well as those of their team members, and to mobilize and apply those talents and abilities towards solving the problem at hand. It’s like they always say, “knowing is half the battle.”
Once a leader knows their own AOE-IQ, and those of the team’s, they can apply those abilities to solving the problem. That solution should be aligned with the needs or the mission of the company. In fact, many of the things we do for our companies: actions, deals, decisions, everyday tasks should be in the direction of the solution or of the mission – this is called corporate alignment. Do the actions you take support the overall mission and vision? In addition to being aligned, you need to lead your team towards the goal in the direction that the company prescribes. This can be approaching problems and tasks through an established set of rules, policies, or documented workflows. These guidelines are called corporate directives. A good litmus test to your team’s approach to solutions is what I call the “CA-CD” test: Corporate Alignment-Corporate Directive test.
CA-CD is important in leading others because as leaders we want to make sure we are directing our teams to the right goal, the right way. There is larger disservice we can do to those looking up to us as leaders (except for that of mistrust – implied or otherwise) than to make our teams work hard towards the wrong goal. This would be a waste of not only time and money, but of the efforts and talents of those supporting us. It is therefore imperative that before we even begin to leverage the talents and abilities of our teams, and before we decide which style to employ, that we are crystal-clear as to corporate alignment and the directive of our companies.
Teaching Others to Lead
Leading others is one thing, but teaching someone to be a good leader is a whole other ballgame. Inspiration is one of the foundations of leadership. As leaders, we must inspire others to join us and to play a part in the cause or solution. Sometimes it feels like we do more convincing or even arm-twisting than inspiring, but even that is delivering a “follow-me” message effectively. While we are concentrating on inspiring others to lead, it is important to point out that leading is more than inspiration alone. It is also based on trust, the ability to influence, the power to persuade, and is based on relationships (Wilbers).
Some say the ability to inspire is an organic trait – we are either born with the ability or not, while others say it can be learned. Let’s assume for the purpose of this discussion that the ability to inspire is a combination of organic leadership ability as well as learned skill. A good leader “enlightens his team to visualize the promises of the future and the imagery of their possession of that sweet, successful and joyous tomorrow” (Green 40).
One of the most important parts of teaching others is letting them fail. We remember our failures and we learn from them. The same holds true in teaching others to lead. Yes, we can teach our student leaders about the different leadership styles, and teach them how to draft detailed and efficient project plans and efficiency models, but we need to go “hands-off” at some point and let them go. This is a lot like teaching a child to ride a bike – they need to keep doing it to learn. The difference here is that leadership involves other people, and many of those people are relying on their leader (student or not) to send them into battle prepared, so we can’t expect them (teams) to give the learning leader too much slack and freedom to fail before there is a mutiny and trust is lost. Therefore, we let our students fail in as much of a controlled setting as possible, letting them self-reflect and take an inventory of their missteps along the way. Simulation exercises, role playing, controlled learning environments can allow those learning to be leaders the opportunities to correct their errors, and to eventually gain the confidence they need to be successful (Warren).
While there are many more aspects of teaching others to lead, one of the best words of advice for new leaders is to teach by example. This concept seems way over-simplified and obvious to some degree, but as leaders we let this slip perhaps more than we should. We must “practice what we preach” and set the right example every time, every day. Getting ourselves to live by this regularly is hard enough, teaching it to new leaders is even harder. New leaders have a lot going on, and some of that new-found authority will end up going to their head. We need to teach new leaders to remain grounded, and stay in touch with what matters. They must be taught by our lessons, and their own failures, that loss of trust by their team is a death blow to their credibility. If they lose trust, they may still have followers, but only because people must follow them, not because they want to (Perks 234).
In Conclusion
Earning a position of leadership can be one of the most professional challenging changes in one’s career, but also be one of the most rewarding. Leaders are either remembered or forgotten. If they are remembered, they are either revered for their outstanding capabilities in unifying the masses, or they have earned a reputation for being truly out of touch and ineffective. Equally bad may be the leader who was forgotten; the one that did nothing remarkable. We must ask ourselves how we wish to be remembered.
Leading effectively starts with defining what leadership means. What is the mission, and what is the goal? How will we get there? How will those following me benefit? These are all questions a leader must ask themselves before they can begin. We must remember that we lead people, not things. These people have expectation just like our bosses have. They have feelings, goals, and a life outside of work. We must continually take these facts into account when we draft our expectations and strategies.
We must be in touch with our area of expertise (AOE-IQ) and make decisions and guide our teams per our alignment with corporate goals and procedures (CA-CD). It is not important to simply achieve our goals, but complete them the way our company needs them to be approached. We must seek to remain aligned with our company’s direction, otherwise we lose sight of the big picture and can potentially lead those who follow astray.
Special care must be taken to teach those who follow us to lead one day. We must remember that each of us had different talents and views on those things we encounter in our lives. We must strive to lead by example as difficult as that may seem sometimes. Although choosing a shortcut may save time, the end-result can end-up very different than what we expected or intended. In conclusion, we must remember that not all of us are good leaders or will be. The “good ones” are those that are remembered not just for the goals they achieved, but for the positive impacts in the lives they touched.
Works Cited
Green, Allan. How to be an Effective Leader. Kindle ed., 2014-2015.
Wilbers, Gary. The High Achiever Leadership Formula. Kindle ed., 2016.
Warren, Jack. How to Be the Best Mentor Possible: You Can Be an Inspiration to Others. Kindle ed., 2014
Perks, Jonathan. Inspiring Leadership: Leadership Lessons from my Life. Kindle ed., Fisher King Publishing., 2015
