Leadership Styles


There are many leadership styles, ranging from decisive to coercive, from collaborative to inert, and everything in between. While there is no single style that fits all occasions, there are certain characteristics that are demonstrated by an authentic leader, regardless of style:

  • Listening before acting, knowing that he or she doesn’t have all the answers

  • Providing direction, creating and supporting a vision, mission, and purpose for him- or herself and the organization

  • Creating an environment of motivation and support of others, while also always looking for a better way

  • Showing respect and encouragement (rather than engaging in ridicule and finger-pointing) for those who are willing to try new things, even if they occasionally fail

  • Supporting continuous learning and self-renewal

  • Leading by example and honoring a set of values that remain constant

  • Demonstrating high personal and professional standards, and appreciating the richness of a diverse workforce

  • Making and keeping commitments

  • Sharing decision making with others throughout the organization and understanding the difference between strength (effective action) and power (desire to dominate)

Finding that your new boss is lacking in some of the finer points of leadership can be a challenge, especially if he or she demonstrates one or more of the Four Deadly Management Styles: the Bully, the Know-it-all, the Incompetent, and the Micromanager.

The Bully Boss

There are bosses who are demanding but kind; there are bosses who are well intended but lacking in self-awareness; and then there are Bully bosses. Bullies sometimes use a pattern of small and subtle actions over an extended period; each individual deed may not seem abusive, but the cumulative effect makes the situation unbearable. Other Bully bosses are constantly pushy, hostile, angry, rude, blaming, threatening, attacking, and inclined to erupt in a fit of rage.

During the high-tech boom of the 1990s, talent was hard to find, and some people were promoted beyond their abilities. The economic downturn that followed encouraged those ill-equipped individuals to push harder in order to prove their worth to their organizations.

Thus, the Bully:

Ron was recruited away from a small software company in the Southwest into a more senior position with a larger software firm in the Northeast. After the first few weeks of indoctrination and assimilation into the new company and its culture, Ron was invited to a monthly leadership team meeting. Ron’s peers at the SVP level, his boss and his boss’s peers at the EVP level, and the president of the company were all in attendance. After Ron was introduced and welcomed, the president asked him a question. Consulting his notes, Ron began to respond, but the president abruptly cut him off: “You don’t know what the hell you’re doing! I’ll call [the client] and get the answer myself!” he shouted. “I don’t know why we hired someone so stupid!” Welcome to your new company, Ron.

Ron was humiliated in front of his peers and senior management, and because he had not been clued in about the president’s Bully style, he concluded that he was a failure in his new job. After the meeting, however, Ron spoke with his boss and his closest peers, and he realized that at one time or another, everyone in the room had been on the receiving end of the president’s brutal behavior. He heard stories about those who stood up and challenged the boss, those who shied away and tried to avoid him, and those who threw in the towel and quit.

Ron considered his own, similar options: He could fight back (not his style), he could try to hide (also not his style), or he could change the way he responded to, and internalized, the boss’s behavior. He chose the last option.

Ron realized that he really liked his job and the company, and he was willing to work with his boss, his colleagues, and the president to create a communication process that would work for them. He identified his needs, values, and basic style, and he created a communication style plan that he shared with each of his leadership colleagues, including the president. It included an assessment of his value to the organization, a review of key results and motivations, and a section on “how I’m best managed.” Since doing this, Ron has not been a target of harassment or humiliation.

The Know-It-All

Your boss has been there, done that, and told you all about it at every opportunity. This type of manager believes her- or himself to be an all-around expert, and will typically stick to doing things exactly the way they have always been done in an effort to eliminate surprises and ensure consistent, although not stellar, results.

This is another insecurity disguise: In an effort to appear as a powerful authority, this person will make sure of being seen as all knowing. Because these managers demand followership from their team, they tend to discourage new processes or ideas, or to pinch the good ideas or accomplishments of others:

Brett is the seasoned general manager of a diversified service organization. He joined the leadership team in August, following his repatriation to the United States after several years in the United Kingdom. During the first few months of his employment, Brett came to suspect that his boss, Jon, expected huge increases in service results—without changing anything. Jon told Brett several times that the processes and people that were in place, the way things were being done, and the people who were doing those things were “right,” and that if Brett were only a better GM, he would deliver the results expected.

The final straw for Brett came after a new client signing. Brett had changed an approach and several processes and had offered expanded services to a new client—and the result was the biggest contract the company had ever seen. Brett was pleased and proud of his team and their work, and he sent a memo to Jon outlining their accomplishment. Jon immediately sent an almost identical memo to corporate headquarters, with copies to all employees, identifying this new client signing as his own win (with no mention of Brett or his staff).

Brett had several options: He could confront Jon, asking for acknowledgment of the accomplishment and any future accomplishments; he could make sure that all future announcements on client signings were sent to corporate headquarters and to Jon at the same time; and he could reevaluate working for a boss with these tendencies. Brett decided to do all three. He first confronted Jon, asking for appropriate acknowledgement in the future, and he then made sure that each client win was broadcast to the company under his own name. Then, finding that the energy required to “watch” Jon was more than he was willing to expend, Brett started a job search campaign to find a position that was more closely aligned with his own values.

The Incompetent

It is difficult to work for someone when you are continually distracted by the depth of his or her incompetence. Unfortunately, people are sometimes promoted beyond their abilities—and in a competitive landscape, if you are overlooked for promotion into a position that an incompetent now holds, you may find the situation even more aggravating.

Diane was a client relationship director for a relocation services organization. When a corporate restructuring occurred, self-contained business units were created, increasing the manager’s span of control under the new title “business unit director.” Diane was the only one of her peers who was not chosen for the new position. She was instead told that she would be responsible for training the sales manager, Steve, in the ways of operations, and that Steve would be the new business unit director.

Steve did not want to let on that he did not understand operations, and he was not open to learning from Diane. He tried his best to hide his lack of knowledge, yet he was known for making promises to clients that were impossible to keep. The last straw for Diane was when Steve made a commitment to a client to provide a special service at no cost—not realizing that the fee for that service was in fact $25,000. When questioned about how such a foolish mistake could have been made, Steve told his boss that Diane was the culprit. Diane asked Steve why he had blamed her, and he admitted to her that he had indeed made the mistake, that he had indeed blamed her, and that he would do the same thing again to save his job and his reputation.

Through this episode, Diane learned that the new structure within the organization was not going to work for her—and that her type of incompetent boss knew just enough to keep himself out of trouble, while letting others take the fall.

There are incompetent bosses who realize that they are in over their heads, and they may welcome your help and support. Then there are incompetent bosses who have no clue. This lack of awareness provides you with an opportunity to complain or ridicule, to open the door to discussion and learning, or to make some critical decisions about where your career is headed. One of these choices keeps you stuck, and the others move you forward.

The Micromanager

This manager gives lots of feedback, almost exclusively negative. A micromanager is preoccupied with insignificant tasks, magnifies complaints, issues infinite orders, is devoid of priorities, sends conflicting messages, watches your time, works long hours (and expects subordinates to do the same), is fanatical about paperwork (e.g., a quality report is measured by the pound), uses performance evaluations as weapons, and freely gossips about the shortcomings of others.

Potpourri: Daniel’s Story

For several years I have worked for the devil incarnate and his ill-mannered and insensitive minion. He is an intimidating, micromanaging brow-beater, with limited integrity; he enjoys humiliating employees in team meetings, taking credit for work he did not do, and screaming when things do not go his way—and his assistant is just as bad. She “befriends” you in order to get you to open up, and then she uses the information she gains against you. Blame and condemnation is the management style, fear is the reaction—and the problem is, as unhappy as we are, we are in a small town in an industry that is growing, so that even with the poor management style of our leaders, we are showing good bottom-line results. This predicament is wearing me down. I don’t know if I should just keep quiet and take it, hoping that someday someone will end this craziness, or whether I should pray for the overdue apocalypse with its ensuing lake of fire event and hope for the best.




How to Shine at Work
How to Shine at Work
ISBN: 0071408657
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2006
Pages: 132

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