The Most Frequently Asked Question
“What’s your leadership style?” – This question was most frequently posed to me when I first took on a leadership role and also a frequent question I get from interviewees when I was hiring to fill the team.
When I took on my first leadership role many years back, I was not prepared and there was no training or resources I could turn to. People started to tell me that I needed to find my leadership style that would work for me; I needed to be firm and be dominant so that my team would fear me; I could not be on friendlier terms with the team members as they would not respect me, etc. It was confusing for me because that was not how I wanted my team lead to treat me.
When I became a seasoned team lead, I continued to get this question whenever I had to do a hiring interview. And the interviewees would look at me expectantly, with anticipation to hit the jackpot when I sprouted a certain keyword that would align with their preference. I often wondered if I had disappointed them when I used neither of those anticipated keywords. Instead, I typically described my expectations of my team and how I would operate in a couple of scenarios.
One Leadership Style is Not Enough
There are many leadership gurus, theories and concepts out there in the market that provide reference, guidance and food for thought for one to determine what leadership style or approach would suit them so that they could be more effective leaders. Through my own leadership experience and partnership with various development specialists, the idea of developing each individual leadership style is just quite impractical.
- One is not enough. A leader faces a myriad of situations in a day. It could range from a team brainstorming meeting, having a career development conversation with a team member or to other extreme of managing a crisis. The same leadership style that is suited for fostering creativity, innovation and involvement would certainly not be suitable for managing an emergency where clear and fast directions would be most critical.
- One again is not enough. A leader is unlikely to have a homogeneous team made of members of the same learning style, same amount of experience and same competencies. Instead, it’s likely that a leader will build his team to have members skillsets and experience to complement each other to form a high-functioning and competent team. In such a situation, the same leadership style for an experienced, competent team member and a new hire fresh out from school would definitely not work. At least one of them will face enough frustration to consider leaving the job.
Authentic Leadership
So exactly what should a leader do in order to be effective?
In my opinion, I think a leader would first need to have clarity on the values close to his heart and what it means in his leadership practice. Beyond that, he has to build awareness of his preferred leadership styles and strengthen his leadership practice by acquiring other styles. In this way, he would have a repertoire of leadership styles to flex according to the situation he is operating in. A combination of the clarity of his values and a good mastery of varied leadership styles, would allow him to deploy what would be most suited for the situation, while remaining aligned with his values. In this way, his leadership practice would be consistent and the interactions and relationships he builds with his team would be authentic.