Navigating the stormy seas of leadership
What to use as ballast?
‘I want to be a better leader so I feel like I need to define my leadership style.’
This came up in conversation with a startup founder recently and got me thinking about the frequency with which I see hear some variation of this statement, often borne out of a desire for some sort of ballast that might provide stability as they navigate the stormy seas of leadership. And I understand that desire - I’ve been there myself, feeling like you’re being thrown around in the storm.
But is defining a leadership style the appropriate ballast? On one level I believe it’s both interesting and useful to understand how others have thought about and categorised different leadership styles, and in what situations those styles might be most effective - something I'll come on to discuss - but to my mind there is no such thing as a leadership style other than your own. Not really. There are many different frameworks on leadership styles, but each of them is simply an attempt to group some common observed patterns into something coherent. The truth though is that there’s so much subtlety and depth to the connection between a leader and those they lead, that two different people exhibiting the ‘same’ leadership style will likely be doing just as many things differently as they are similar to one another, and may be getting vastly different results.
To my mind, the more interesting questions-behind-the-question include, ‘Who do I want to be?’ 'What do I really stand for?' And ‘What am I truly lacking here and now?’ I’d propose that it’s in answering those questions deeply, that leaders might find much of the ballast they need for smoother sailing through stormy waters. Something unique and effective that goes beyond the styles outlined in any framework.
What actually is leadership?
It’s surprisingly difficult to come to a satisfying definition of leadership. If you spend some time researching it you might see common themes around influence, persuasion, achievement of goals, execution of plans; but I choose to simply define it as ‘the act of creating collective alignment’. The ‘what’ you are collectively aligning around, and the ‘how’ you go about it, will of course vary widely dependent on the context; but at it’s core I believe this to be the essence of leadership.
What are some different styles of leadership?
With the above definition in mind, and the caveats around the limitations of any framework, I’ll point to what I believe to be a pertinent and succinct outline of common leadership styles, by psychologist Daniel Goleman. Goleman defines 6 core styles as follows.
Authoritative
Authoritative leadership, as defined by Goleman, means being clear on high level vision and direction, whilst allowing a high degree of autonomy for others to decide how to get there. This style of leadership is widely recognised as the most effective in the broadest set of circumstances but success often depends on the degree of autonomy being well matched to the capabilities within the team - a very inexperienced team, for example, may require a period of more specific guidance.
Coercive
Directive or command-and-control style of leadership. Typically associated with telling people what to do and how to do it. There are many public examples (and many of us have personal experience) of the negative effects of working with leaders who solely deploy this style of leadership; however, it can be used effectively in the face of a crisis for example, where there may be a need to move quickly and decisively.
Affiliative
Affiliative leadership focuses on people and culture over goal setting. It can be used to create community, harmony and individual growth. However, if a leader fails to pair this with a more authoritative style then there is a risk of lack of direction; and if not paired with a coaching style then a risk of lack of direct feedback.
Democratic
Democratic leadership focuses on inclusion of differing perspectives and a spirit of collaboration. On the plus side people can feel heard, and it can tap into the power of diverse opinions. The risks include a greater burden of meeting time, slower decision making, and the erosion of trust in a leader who is unwilling to take a clear stance or make a bold decision.
Pacesetting
Pacesetting leadership is focused on consistent pursuit of excellence - holding everyone to extremely high standards which the leader themself role models. In the current economic climate I know this is the style of leadership that many leaders in the tech industry are expected to deploy - to drive teams harder and create an ever greater sense of urgency. Pacesetting is a form of leadership with a high risk of burnout both for the leader and those they lead so often needs to be paired with other forms to mitigate this risk.
Coaching
Coaching is centred around the personal development of those you lead, with a core belief in a growth mindset and people’s ability to rise to new challenges. Whilst coaching involves a high degree of empathy, it’s important not to mistake high empathy for a lack of directness. As with all leadership styles, if utilised in isolation then there are pitfalls, such as a lack of clear organisational and team direction.
Changing tack dependent on the conditions
The conditions that modern leaders are trying to navigate are relentlessly changeable. In the last few years alone we’ve had the pandemic and the associated paradigm shift in remote and distributed working; rising interest rates and the associated recalibration of organisational goals from growth-at-all-costs to a more profit-oriented model; acceleration in adoption of AI and the associated implications of that for all organisations; not to mention the ongoing generational shifts and the implications of that for what employees truly value e.g. Gen Z now make up around 25% of the workforce and are often associated with greater emphasis on diversity, social and environmental responsibility, and awareness of mental health, amongst other things.
Trying to be too rigid on style in the face of all this change seems like a losing strategy, and almost all of the frameworks are in agreement on this - it’s not about having one style that is continuously deployed but about being able to skilfully match your approach to the needs of the situation. Reading through Goleman’s styles above, it’s hard to imagine using only one of these all the time, regardless of circumstance.
The need for constant adaptability though, can also come at a cost - leaving leaders feeling unbalanced and fearful of appearing inconsistent to those they lead. They are faced with a dilemma of where to find the ballast and stability in amongst all the change.
Internal ballast
Rather than orienting around external definitions of behavioural styles, I’d like to offer an alternative source of stability here - focused on who you want to be as a leader as opposed to what you specifically need to do.
I’ve written at length about self awareness previously, and that’s simply because I believe it lies at the core of what it takes to be a leader. To create collective alignment requires a deep understanding of the human condition, which starts with a deep understanding of oneself. By making the unconscious, conscious we give ourselves the opportunity to move from auto-pilot to steering the ship where we want it to go.
Imagine a tight deadline for example. In auto-pilot an Enneagram type 2, whose core fears revolve around losing connection to others, may try to ‘protect’ their team from the stress of the situation by taking too much on themselves, and they may be unwilling to have the hard conversations to reset expectations if the deadline is unrealistic. A type 3 meanwhile, whose core fears revolve around not being valuable if they aren’t achieving, might take on too much, not to protect their team, but in a naive attempt to ensure success. Perhaps frustrating those around them, or other times pushing others to the point of burnout. Each of their auto-pilot approaches will sometimes be well matched to the needs of a particular situation - sometimes things will turn out great - but often that won’t be the case.
Now if either of these leaders have a high degree of self-awareness, so understand some of their core fears, assumptions and patterns, they might stop to recognise what’s going on, which gives them the opportunity to behave differently. It puts them back in charge of steering the ship. But how to navigate from there?
Values can be a great directional compass. As a designation of what we believe to be truly important, well-articulated values are specific enough to provide genuine direction but abstract enough to be more widely applicable, hence I find that there is a sweetspot with values - one word e.g. ‘authenticity’ tends to be so open to interpretation as to be close to meaningless, whilst lengthy statements become too specific and limiting. More than a bumper sticker but less than a paragraph is a good rule of thumb. Well-articulated values can provide a great foundation from which to lead - sense-checking decisions and actions against those values; but more importantly serving as a reflection of the depth of thinking and self-knowledge of the person who created them. So values can be a compass that points you in the right general direction, but that doesn’t mean you know how to sail. That, I believe, is where intuition comes in.
If there’s one thing I’ve learnt as a coach it’s this - that deep down, most people know what to do most of the time when they slow down and get out of their own way. That inner knowing; wisdom; whatever you choose to call it, is what I mean by intuition here. It’s not the ‘intuitive leader’ who behaves like a bull-in-the-china-shop making reactive decisions; nor is it the lazy leader who refuses to back themselves up with any data or evidence. In my view, true intuition, from a deep state of self awareness is what creates a great leader. Someone who knows the theory about how to sail, has put in the practice, but who can read the conditions in front of them and know how to respond.
Where this intuition comes from is a point of fascination for me and the work of psychiatrist and writer Iain McGilchrist may hold some clues. Having spent many decades studying the different hemispheres of the brain and the role that they each play, in his book ‘The Master and His Emissary’ he suggests that the left and right hemispheres have very different ways of attending to the world, with the left breaking things down into component parts and prioritising narrow focus, whilst the right views things as more connected and whole. Another way to state it is that the right prioritises wisdom whilst the left prioritises knowledge. He illustrates this with research based on the drawings from patients with brain damage in a specific hemisphere - those with damage in the right hemisphere could draw individual details but struggled with coherent wholes, whilst those with damage to the left hemisphere could draw coherent wholes but struggled with detail of the individual parts. With these different ways of attending to the world, he proposes that we are much better served when the right hemisphere is essentially the Master, yet, we (particularly in Western society) have become a largely left-hemisphere dominated society. We’ve learned to drown out the wise intuition of the right hemisphere which sees the bigger picture in favour of the narrow, analytical left. Perhaps intuition may simply be a case of allowing the right hemisphere to be heard once more? It’s been talking all along, but we’ve just failed to listen.
Concluding thoughts
Leadership is rarely typified by smooth sailing so ballast for leaders is important. Whilst the literature on leadership styles has useful and relevant information about what leaders might do, it rarely explores who leaders wish to be, and in so doing fails to adequately capture much of the important nuance. By developing a stronger sense of self awareness, having clarity on values, and learning to connect to their intuition, a skilful sailor capable of navigating even the choppiest of waters emerges.