Learn to Adapt to Different Leadership Styles

Leadership styles are behavioral adaptations to particular situations.

The key to getting the most from all these leadership learning activities to coordinate them. Know what knowledge, skills, and experiences you need, and plan how to acquire them in an integrated fashion.

Leadership styles are behavioral adaptations to particular situations. Effective leaders learn, practice, and master each of the six leadership styles. Even though these leadership styles are presented as distinct behaviors, they often overlap as needed.

STYLE: Coercive

CHARACTERISTICS: Leader gives orders and expects to be obeyed.

WHEN USEFUL: Turnaround situations, natural or man made disasters. Dealing with difficult employees

WEAKNESSES: Inhibits organization's flexibility, weakens employee motivation.

STYLE: Authoritative

CHARACTERISTICS: Leader establishes overall goal and pushes people to follow.

WHEN USEFUL: Business is adrift and needs direction. Business is in a downturn.

WEAKNESSES: Leader's goal may not be the best one. Experts may disagree with the leader.

STYLE: Affiliative

CHARACTERISTICS: Leader assumes a "people come first" attitude.

WHEN USEFUL: need to build team cohesion, need to raise low morale.

WEAKNESSES: May allow poor employee performance to continue unchecked, employees may not have a sense of direction.

STYLE: Democratic

CHARACTERISTICS: Leader gives employees role in decision making.

WHEN USEFUL: Need to build organizational flexibility and responsibility.

WEAKNESSES: May result in indecision and a sense of confusion

STYLE: Pace setting

CHARACTERISTICS: Leader sets high performance standards.

WHEN USEFUL: Highly motivated employees can work on their own.

WEAKNESSES: May feel overwhelming for employees who cannot attain the high standards, some employees may feel resentful.

STYLE: Coaching

CHARACTERISTICS: leader focuses on personal development.

WHEN USEFUL: Employees want to change and improve professionally.

WEAKNESSES: Not successful when employees are resistant to change.

You may find some styles more comfortable than others, but the more you can develop a range of styles, the more effectively you will perform as a leader.

ACTION POINT: Adapt your leadership style to the needs of your people. Give latitude to those who can handle delegation; provide coaching to those whose skills and confidence need a boost; give explicit directions to those who need close supervision.

How to Acquire Leadership Skills

Be aggressive about becoming a leader.

Becoming a leader does not occur by osmosis. If you want to be a leader, you need to work at it. You probably have some of the skills mastered already. You may have excellent communications skills, or you already have a pretty good idea of what your vision is. You may even have that gift to inspire others. but if you lack some skills, knowledge, or experience, go out and get them!

How? Here are some suggestions:

Enroll in formal leadership programs. There are plenty of management training programs; aim for the ones designed specifically for leaders. Offered by consulting companies or universities, these programs may include focused weekend workshops or yearlong programs that cover the whole range of leadership skills. The training techniques may vary from case discussions and role playing to games that simulate analytical or decision-making situations.

Learn from experience. Even here, however, don't learn passively. Think strategically about how you will gain the experience you need. here are some ways to gain real leadership experience:

Ask to be assigned to challenging projects that will provide new and unusual problems to solve, such as joining a cross-functional team or a team working on a merger or acquisition.

Stay Alert. Try to observe situations from different perspectives. Watch how different people approach and solve similar problems.

Don't be afraid to fail. You probably learn more from failing once or twice than from succeeding all the time. The important thing is to take responsibility for your failure and recognize how you could do better the next time.

Get involved in a variety of assignments; don't just do the same old tasks over and over again.

Ask for feedback. Find out from others how you are doing. Be open to helpful criticism.

Elect to join job rotation programs. These programs can help you develop your managerial, technical, business, and communication skills in diverse roles.

Find a true mentor. Mentoring may seem like an excellent source for gaining knowledge about leadership, but the results have been mixed. The mentor should have the experience you want to gain, a genuine willingness to help you along, and a positive relationship with you.

ACTION POINT: Identify the programs, experience and mentors that will develop your leadership skills.

Evil and Humility

Deliver us from evil... Matthew 6:13

None of us knows until we have been through difficult problems and tragedies what we would do in a challenging situation. Once I attended a panel discussion of people who had suffered during the Holocaust and other barbaric oppressions of this century. One woman on the panel had survived the Holocaust, but her parents had been killed. She had started a humanitarian organization to prevent such horrors from being repeated and mentioned casually, "You know, I couldn't have started that organization unless I knew that, with the situation just a little different, I could have done the same things that the Nazis did to my parents and the others in the concentration camps." This woman, it seems to me, possessed true humility -- the knowledge of one's self that clearly perceives that with just a little change of circumstances, one is capable of any evil.

Matthew 6:13

And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: for thine is the kingdom, and the power, and glory, for ever. Amen

Do you Remember

Where you were when Elvis Presley died? (August 16, 1977) That was the question I was asked when I walked into Ike and Jonesy’s to meet a group of folks for a beer on Thursday night of this week. Technology had just delivered the news to a fellow’s phone that Michael Jackson had died.

Earlier that day (June 25, 2009) on a country road in Southern Ohio I heard that Farrah Fawcett had surrendered to cancer. Someone said it was tough day for those of us that grew up in the 70’s.

I did remember where I was when Elvis died. Athens, Greece around midnight and I was sending messages out of the Comm Center I was assigned to for the US Air Force.

Etched, certain times simply get etched into our lives. Like the day in first grade and we had just rolled out our nap maps for afternoon rest time. My teacher came in crying and said the school was closed, President Kennedy had been shot. (November 22, 1963). Sadly the same day the world lost C.S. Lewis and Aldous Huxley, but I didn’t know whom either of those guys was till much later in life.

I walked home and remembered the black and white TV playing nothing but the news coverage of the event for next three days. I was too young to know what the loss of the president meant, I only knew it cancelled Saturday morning cartoons.

Then there was the night the phone rang and immediately upon hearing my sister’s voice say my name, I knew that my father had died. (December 13, 1979). I cried as I listened to the Neil Young Harvest album over and over and thought of my dad. Here is where I recently took two of my kids to visit. I remember him, I miss him and I am thankful for the years of good memories he gave to me.

ACTION POINT: Remember someone special today.

Effective Leaders are Future Focused

In general, leaders who are effective now and in the future have learned how to be:

future-focused. They create a vision, articulate it to their group, and stick with it. They understand how their unit or organization fits into the larger picture, and they organize short-term tasks according to long-term priorities.

comfortable with ambiguity. They are willing to take calculated risks, can handle a certain level of disruption and conflict, and are willing to change their minds when new information comes to light.

persistent. They can maintain a positive, focused determination in pursuing a goal or vision, despite the obstacles.

excellent communicators. They know how to write clearly, listen closely, run meetings, make presentations, negotiate, and speak in public.

politically astute. They have acquired a solid sense of their organization's power structure, listen carefully to the concerns of its most powerful groups, and know where to turn for the support and resources they need.

level-headed. They know how to stay calm in the midst of turmoil and confusion.

self-aware. They know themselves enough to realize how their own patterns of behavior affect others.

caring. They have a demonstrated ability to empathize with other people's needs, concerns, and professional goals.

humorous. When the situation warrants it, they know how to inject a little mirth to relieve tension within a group.

ACTION POINT: Be the change you want to bring about--model the behaviors you're trying to encourage.