From high performer to new leader
You’ve been promoted, or you’ve just completed your Masters or an MBA and you’ve landed your first leadership role. And it’s important to make a good first impression, right?
There is a lot of complexity with leadership roles and oftentimes I think this gets over shadowed by the role title or the position within the organisation chart. It’s a simple oversight – one though that will catch up with you at some point.The first and most important point I want to make clear is that leadership is not about titles, it’s about behaviours and actions. Yours primarily in this case.
Good leaders, especially great leaders, first lead themselves. They understand who they are, what they stand for, what conditions and environments they thrive in and how they can best manage themselves and their responses when dealing with conflict, discomfort and uncertainty. Investing the necessary time and energy in developing these skills is an important first step to developing a natural leadership style. But more on that later.
High performers are often rewarded with promotions to leadership and most of the time, rightly so. The dazzling shiny lights of the new management role, coupled with the hint of authority and ‘membership to the leadership club’ that is often felt, is intoxicating, especially if you’ve worked long and hard to achieve it. These initial feelings of excitement, expectation and desire to prove that you’ve earned the role, hide one simple fact.
Leadership is about leading people.
Yes, your technical skill and knowledge is still important and deeply valued, as are your previous achievements that have helped you to get to this point. You are though about to embark on a steep learning curve of people leading and the one, most important skill you definitely need along the way is self-trust.
Many new leaders will pour over leadership texts and read the latest in journals and articles that may cause them to feel they need to chop and change and adopt the latest and greatest leadership style – because that’s what Forbes says is working right now.
Don’t get me wrong, keep your finger on the pulse and be aware of the trends and influences in leadership and management. But if you start to adopt a style, that doesn’t feel ‘right’ for the kind of person you are, then it won’t feel right for the people that you are leading and then very early on your credibility and influence will be compromised.
Be wary of adopting or cobbling together a style that doesn’t represent your innate value and authenticity. It will take time, give yourself that gift. You’ve earned it.
What leadership styles are there anyway?
There are many different leadership styles and each one has a place and a purpose. You could call them ‘situational’ or ‘contextual’. In my own experience, leading with different styles when they are necessary for the situation or the team member, is how I like to operate. My innate, everyday style of leadership is a combination of strategic and servant styles. I’ve discovered this over time and as I’ve gained in experience; it was certainly not how I started out.
Many new leaders feel that they need to adopt one particular style and stick to it so they become known as being that type of leader, they have what they would probably associate as a consistent leadership brand. And that’s important to a point. Don’t let that impinge on your future growth opportunities though by limiting your options to responding differently in various scenarios that will inevitably be necessary. Don’t make your choices binary
This is where your self-trust comes into play, and to develop deep self-trust, you need self-leadership.
In my own humble opinion (for what it’s worth), an agile leader, one that is able to adopt and adapt to a particular style (that fits them and their personality) when it’s necessary, is a great leader.
Listed below are the 5 most common leadership styles
The Democratic Leader
This is a collaborative style of leadership that encourages and respects the participation and contribution of team members in decision making. This style is popular with millennials in particular and younger team members who want to be a part of the process and learn / gain knowledge along the way. This style is best suited when trying to solve complex problems creatively or innovating to support growth is the goal.
The Servant Leader
These leaders are excellent communicators and they understand the different needs of their team members. They are comfortable coaching and encouraging team members to push beyond their comfort zones by inspiring them with projects and meaningful tasks. They work hard to affect positive change and invest in a healthy and safe team culture. As a transformational leader, one of their signature traits is their genuine desire to see others succeed personally and professionally.
The Transactional Leader
These leaders are goal orientated – their focus in on achieving the objectives necessary to positively impact the bottom line. They can be a little micro-management(ty) and they tie the performance of others as their own measurement of success. This is not a style of leadership that many people thrive under, however during times of crisis and the need to make critical decisions quickly that are followed by dedicated actions, it can be effective.
The Strategic Leader
These visionary types of leaders are future-focused and set strategic goals to motivate, inspire and grow the skills and confidence of its their team. Although they delegate, they have no qualms in rolling up their sleeves and being highly involved with team achieving its success. They encourage and support their team members to stretch their skills and become better versions of themselves along the way. This type of leadership inspires loyalty, nurtures and protects team culture and delivers results.
The Autocratic Leader
This type of leadership is synomonous with the military and is characterised by decision-making without consultation or collaboration, demanding complete compliance and sub-ordination – that may result in punishment if not followed. This is not a popular style of leadership and one that I often suggest to clients belongs back in the dark ages. There is nothing personal or ingratiating about this style of leadership.
How do you know which leadership style works
In all honesty, the best place to start is to observe. Observe other leaders in your organisation or your industry and see how they operate and the results that they get. Listen to their teams and what they say about their experience of working with that particular leader. Pay attention to how you feel about yourself when you’re around those leaders. Do they lift you up and encourage you to dig a bit deeper? Do they trust you? Don’t they acknowledge your experience and value? This type of knowledge building, will take you far.
Leadership is in building knowledge – and knowledge takes time.
Getting to know yourself in your new role will take time. No one is expecting you to have all the answers straight away. Often new leaders feel the need to prove themselves early on. In the grand scheme of all things – this is not so. The expectation is for you to get it right and that will require collaboration, trial and error, strategy, humility and connection. And all of that takes time.
Invest the energy first in leading yourself. What are the behaviours and traits that you want to see within your team? How do you want to be treated as their leader? And then mirror that to them by treating them in the same way, with the respect and grace. Don’t doubt the people that gave this opportunity to lead. They could see your potential and your capacity, show them respect and provide them with the confidence that they made the right choice in you.
One of the most important skills (another one that I feel gets overshadowed) is building loyalty and trust. When you show your team that you trust their capabilities and experience, that you’ve got their backs when they need it the most; it will pay dividends. Anyone can sail a ship in smooth conditions. But when the conditions are uncertain, vague or uncomfortable, you need to know that with your support and guidance, you can rely on your team to be loyal and trust your judgement to keep pushing through and reaching their objectives.
Developing your own leadership style (and it’s not as hard as you think)
The core component here is time and knowledge. Time to develop your own self-knowledge, knowledge about the context of your industry, knowledge and understanding of the future trends that may impact or influence the outcomes you are working towards; and most importantly knowledge and understanding of each of your team members and the ecosystem of the team.
Take the time to develop and deeply understand those areas and then look at which leadership style is going to serve you and the objectives that you’re working towards, best.
That may sound complex, and it is. Leadership is complex. It’s an ongoing dance between the spinning plates of priorities, influences, accountabilities, responsibilities and interruptions. The most important element of all of these is the way in which you manage and respond to these competing and sometimes conflicting demands.
If you’re a new leader, or one with a few years of experience now under you belt, I’d love for you to share your thoughts on what it was like getting started.
Liz Ellis is a certified Leadership and High-Performance Coach, Master Practitioner of Neurolinguistic Programming, Conscious Hypnosis and Timeline Therapy. She is the founder and Principal Coach at Empowered Leader. When she’s not coaching, she is outdoors either doing something fit or enjoying a glass of wine with good friends.