©Leslie Rohonczy, 2024
Here are descriptions for six distinct leadership styles that you have likely seen in action. Some of these styles are best practices, and some should die off as the dinosaurs they are. Leaders will likely toggle between these seven styles over their careers, depending on the situation. As you read the descriptions, see if any names come to mind, based on your own career.
ALL STICK, NO CARROT
This is a short-horizon leadership style with the primary objective of achieving immediate compliance. This leader gives directives rather than direction, by telling employees what to do and how to do it. They expect immediate, unquestioning compliance, and micro-manage tightly to maintain control. This style is ideal for the battalion commander under siege in a military conflict, who must ensure that every soldier comes home alive. Of course, business challenges are rarely life-and-death, but some leaders still believe this is what good leadership looks like. Their feedback is corrective, often brutal, with little recognition of what employees do right, and they wield threats of negative consequences for non-compliance. Turnover is typically high as employees endure this leader only until they can get the hell out. And that hits the bottom line with higher recruitment and training costs.
VISION & STANDARDS
This style of leadership provides inspirational long-horizon vision and inspires employees by connecting them with the ‘why’ behind that vision. Vision and Standards leaders chart the course and are usually powerful storytellers whose passion for their vision is contagious. They invite employees to share their perspective on the vision and they set clear standards of performance for how their organization will move forward towards their visionary objectives. Vision and Standards leaders use a balance of positive and constructive feedback as a motivation tool. Employees rarely leave leaders who can inspire them.
ALL CARROT, NO STICK
This leadership style seeks harmony on the team and is focused on building and recognizing positive interactions. These leaders place a lot of importance on employees’ personal needs, providing recognition, and boosting employee morale. While that sounds great on the surface, beware of the downside: these leaders sometimes settle for ‘adequate’ performance because they avoid providing corrective feedback that could help employees grow and propel the business towards their goals faster. Not only does it promote artificial harmony, but by avoiding productive conflict, the team misses out on diverse thinking, challenging assumptions, building conflict resolution skills, and creating authentic team cohesion. Employees leave this type of leader not because they’re being mistreated, but because they perceive their leader is not investing in their own growth and development or not treating everyone fairly because they are too soft on nonperforming employees.
TASK MASTER
This leadership style has a task-focused short-term horizon, with the goal of getting the maximum amount done, and done perfectly. There are similarities with the ‘All Stick No Carrot’ type, but the difference is that Task Masters require employees to spend significant time and resources to provide a rationale every step of the way, and they withdraw responsibility and support when employees fail to meet their exacting standards. This leader enjoys leading by example – but not in a good way: they set their own bar unreasonably high, and then admonish their employees for ‘poor performance’. They avoid delegation, often leaping in to rescue a project or situation with detailed task-based instructions. The Task Master leader typically has little empathy and will only focus on collaborating at the task level, where they work in the weeds, rather than on business strategy and values. This leadership style can create high absenteeism, continuous employee turnover, burn-out, and medical stress leaves.
M.I.A.
This ‘missing-in-action’ leadership style is so hands-off that they become virtually invisible to their employees. Some M.I.A. leaders prefer to spend their time on their own pet projects; others are so focused on themselves that they spend most of their time positioning themselves with their peers and leaders, to the detriment of their teams; still others are afraid to be perceived as directive or micromanaging, preferring to let their employees lead. This style of leadership can be a great growth opportunity for the right employee to lead an initiative, but the direction and wellbeing of an entire team requires leadership presence. In all three of these scenarios, they are abdicating their leadership responsibilities for oversight of their teams in some way. The M.I.A leadership style often creates confusion, silos, lack of collaboration, overlaps and conflict, capacity challenges, and disengagement.
LEADER-COACH
The goal of this ‘gold standard’ long-term leadership style is the growth and professional development of employees and peers. Leader-Coaches help grow employees’ awareness of their unique strengths and limiting weaknesses, and work with them to establish long-term developmental goals. They seek the participation of their people in the process of leadership by trusting their employees to interpret and develop appropriate direction – both for themselves and for the organization – and they welcome diverse perspectives in decision-making. They seek commitment and create new, innovative ideas. They also look for opportunities to achieve alignment, as they listen to concerns and feedback from employees. By focusing on the holistic growth of the individual human (note I didn’t say ‘worker’), they provide ongoing feedback and support to help their employees be all they can be. They may even loosen current performance standards to help employees develop into a new role (and sometimes that new role is not even on their own team), because it’s the best thing for the employee. For them, the tradeoff is worth it. The Leader-Coach style creates empowerment, transparency, engagement, productivity, knowledge-sharing, and the space for employees to show up authentically. Sometimes, the downside is slower outputs while employees are learning, but the return on that investment is exponential.
PRACTICE: LEADERSHIP STYLE REFLECTION
Based on the descriptions above, which leadership style is your ‘center of gravity’; your go-to preferred style? If you typically toggle between two, list them both.
How does your predominant style affect your employees’ experience of your leadership? Answer this question from each individual employee’s point of view.
Employees typically have three questions on their minds when meeting with their leader: 1) do you care about me? 2) can you help me? and 3) can I trust you? How might your employees evaluate you on these three aspects?
What other styles might you experiment with to grow as a leader and help your team achieve success, and what styles might you dial down as you experiment?
How will you track, reflect on, and measure your progress on these experiments?
If you’re curious to explore more about your leadership style, contact me for a free coaching consultation. I’d love to help you grow your leadership skills.
www.leslierohonczy.com | 613-863-8347 | leslierohonczy@live.com