Leadership Styles: There are as many leadership styles as there are different personalities and different points of view. Why does this matter? These traits create bias that colors a leader’s judgement.
The Effect of Leadership Styles
The leadership style that you use will affect the morale, productivity, engagement, and, ultimately, the success of your organization. Here are some ideas to help you rise above your emotions and your prejudice to create a leadership style that will lead to a successful organization.
Moods
We all have high moods and low moods. When we are in a low mood, we can become impatient and abrasive. Additionally, we can lose confidence and become less effective as leaders.
On the other hand, when we are in a high mood, we can become generous with our time and the company’s money. We can become less demanding than required for success team effort.
Whether we are in a high mood or a low mood, we must focus on the performance of the team. Before we start to lead, we must level out our moods. Great leaders establish an understanding of what they expect of an entire organization. A bad mood can undermine the understanding an organization has of the leader and the mission. Trying to follow a leader who is up one day and down the next is confusing.
Consistency
Some leaders are inspirational teachers. Other leaders are practical teachers. There are leaders who micromanage. Some leaders delegate. Still other leaders leave all the decisions on how to do things to the people who are doing them.
There are countless leadership qualities that lead to success. Throughout my career as a recruiter and business owner, I have made notes on leaders I admire. One of the things that I most admired was consistency. Once I knew what to expect from a leader in terms of their expectations in our relationship, I could manage my style to meet the leaders approach to business.
For example, I worked with a senior vice president of sales who wanted to speak with me at 6:00 PM on a regular basis. She wanted an update on each recruiting assignment and my plan to complete each search. I prepared before the call and gave her the information she wanted. Therefore, our calls were short, to the point, and productive. The consistency made working with the person simple.
Leaders who let their personality control their leadership often fail to focus on the organization’s mission. Therefore, as a leader, ask yourself whether you are acting in the best interest of the organization or to feed your ego.
Photo by Silas Baisch on Unsplash