THREE TOP TIPS FOR LEADERS
written by Ade Lingard - first published on 4th October 2020 and featured in the Financial Times Futures Forum in January 2021
For leaders, times are always challenging, just in different ways. These tips are relevant to any time but hopefully resonate and are particularly useful right now:
1 – Watch out for proven leadership derailers and be authentic
In raising your awareness of something your behaviour naturally changes. So when I tell you that Multi-Health Systems (a world leading provider of scientifically validated assessments) cite the following characteristics of Emotional Intelligence as potential leadership derailers, you’re already on the right path to avoid them. They are impulse control, stress tolerance, problem solving and independence (the ability to feel, think and work on your own). Consider scoring yourself on how good you think you are in each of these characteristics out of 10, diarise and do it again every week for a month or longer if you wish, it will make you conscious of them which in turn will help you improve them. Formulate an action plan should you feel you need to work hard improve in a particular area. MHS also state authenticity, coaching, insight and innovation as key factors of leadership success. Authenticity is a key basic requirement of leadership in my view, it does not make you great but you can’t be great without it.
2 – Your mood is contagious – common sense and science agree
Our moods often affect others. It’s one of the things that makes us connect as humans. It’s not a great leap of faith then to state that the mood of those leading people affects the mood of the very people they are leading. A lot of this may be common sense, but science agrees. There are scientific reasons why the mood of leaders affects their team for better or worse. Scientists refer to our moods being affected by others because of the open-loop nature of the brains limbic system (our emotional centre). An open-loop system relies on external sources to manage itself whereas a closed-loop system is self-regulating. This open-loop system means connections with others influence our own mood, it’s how we are wired. Moods that start at the top move quickest because people look to the leader, therefore the leader often defines the mood of the room or the business. A leader not affecting the mood of others is not a good thing, it probably means they are not the person people are looking to and therefore not set up for successful leadership.
So all we have to do as leaders is be in a good mood then? Yes, sort of, but handle with care! A leader’s mood will have the greatest impact on performance when upbeat but it has to be in tune with those around them. This is where our Emotional Intelligence (EI) as leaders is vital. Self-awareness, emotional expression, empathy and interpersonal relationships are all key characteristics of EI where strengths in these areas will help us be in tune with those around us. In difficult times we need to recognise where others are in their minds first, meet them there, and then take them with us. To do this we need to add some optimism and model forward what the future possibility could look like. Standing at the metaphorical other end of the room shouting ‘Get yourself over here, it’s great!’ sadly does not work, we must meet people where they are and with a desire and plan to shift to a positive mood rapidly.
For anyone interested in learning more on this topic please look up ‘Primal Leadership’ by Goleman, Boyatzis and McKee. My writing here is based on their work published in Harvard Business Review with a healthy dose of my own experience.
3 – Different styles for different circumstances
We often hear about the importance of leaders being consistent as well as genuine/authentic or true to who they are. Many years ago I remember a conversation with my coach that I started about ‘my need to be consistent’. It resulted in an important self-reflection on an assumption I had made and not fully examined. I had lumped together ‘consistency with people’ and ‘adopting the same style’ as being the same thing and necessary for authenticity. I realised that day that they are very different things. It was important that I was consistent with my team, peers and indeed my own boss to be authentic, which I was, but it did not mean I had to always deploy the same style. Once again I reference the work of Dan Goleman (yes - I am a super fan).
Goleman refers to six leadership styles which he summarises as follows:
Coercive – ‘Do what I say’
Authoritative – ‘Come with me’
Affiliative – ‘People come first’
Democratic – ‘What do you think?’
Pacesetting – ‘Do as I do, now’
Coaching – ‘Try this’
Coercive and pacesetting styles have an overall negative impact on the long-term work environment. An authoritative style delivers a mostly positive impact long-term. Affiliative, democratic and coaching styles deliver positive results over time on balance. There are three key points worth considering from the findings in Goleman’s work:
All styles have a place in certain circumstances, even the negative ones. For example a coercive style may be necessary for turnarounds, natural disasters and problem employees but beware, in most circumstances it dampens employee motivation and inhibits organisations.
All styles have negatives, even the ones delivering an overall positive result. This leads to the next point
The best leaders do not use one style of leadership. They are skilled at several and can remain authentic in operating different leadership styles. They can switch between them to help them deal with different sets of circumstances and know which style to deploy and when.
Mastering more styles means you’re more responsive to circumstance and in turn this leads to greater success. In particular being able to switch between authoritative, affiliative, democratic and coaching styles creates the best results and is a key feature of the best leaders. For more on this topic look up Goleman’s article in HBR titled ‘Leadership that gets results’. It’s a good read.
So where does that leave you?
Be authentic and genuine but don’t mistake that for always being the same. Consider your current dominant leadership style(s), which other style(s) are you good at? How could you use other styles more in certain circumstances to improve your leadership and therefore your business? Watch out for the leadership derailers, they’re real and they don’t have to derail you if you remain conscious of them. Keep an eye on your mood, the bad news is it’s contagious, the good news it’s contagious! Make sure you use your own emotional intelligence to read your people, meet them where they are, add in some optimism and model what the future could look like. Get happy but do it wisely and you will take your people with you.
Improve yourself and your people and the performance of your business will follow.
Ade is an experienced business leader and a registered coach with the European Coaching and Mentoring Council (EMCC). Ade works with leaders/top talent and also operates as a non-exec/business advisor. Feel free to get in touch for a chat or view our blog for more articles, videos and useful tips for leadership:
