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• 05-05-2023

Changing Leadership Styles

Changing Leadership Styles

John Quincy Adams (6th President of America) wrote, “If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more, you are a leader”.

The role of a leader is to establish and effectively communicate the following –

1. Purpose, reason behind doing what they are doing – Often referred as the Mission / Goal Statement
2. Long Term Objectives – Often referred to as The Vision
3. Heritage and Core Values / Ethics – What defines the Company (or Group) and values that drive the firm
4. How to achieve Goals along with defining Key Focus Areas / Key Business Drivers

An effective leader is able to stick to above roles and as a result influence followers to live the mission and achieve the vision.

Traits of a successful leader

• Communicates a vision to his team, and then outlines a mission which will ultimately lead to the attainment of this vision.
• Intelligent, honest, confident, creative and dominant
• Leader should successfully should be comfortable wearing various hats of leadership as defined by Daniel Goleman –
  • The pacesetting leader – Set high standards under strict timelines, set the pace, get right into the work and set timelines. (may work negatively at times)
  • The commanding leader – Authoritative to get the work done in a particular manner. (may work negatively at times)
  • The affiliative leader – Empathetic, builds teams and is connected to everyone. (mostly positive)
  • The coaching leader – spread knowledge and help people over achieve (mostly positive)
  • The visionary leader – Give clear direction and be a change catalyst (most strongly positive)
  • The democratic leader – To build a consensus and be collaborative (mostly positive)

Trends in Leadership

• Changing workforce demographics: Managing multiple generations and a global, diverse workforce. One size no longer fits all.
• Non sustainable workforce – with people changing jobs more frequently than ever. There are studies about changing jobs every 2-3 years in order to excel whereas our forefathers used to stick to 1 or a maximum 2 jobs.
• Opportunities and increasing competition: Given the diverse industries and competitiveness, leaders need to be able to influence employees to continue performing year on year.
• Chaos and Complexity: The need to “anticipate” where the new competitors will come from is extremely important.
• Regulatory Compliances and implications: Regulatory compliances are severe especially in the changing economic landscape of ecommerce and technology companies. Taxi aggregators, mobile trading companies have multi-million dollar law suits filed against them. Leaders need to be vigilant.

The style of leadership and how to be a successful leader – one who is respected by his/her followers – has evolved. Earlier leaders demanded things be done without the need for consultation or explanation (think of the days of the Great Depression… no consultation before big discussions were taken). Command and obey was the accepted nature of leadership during this period. However, over the past century, leadership styles have evolved from authoritarian to participative and, more recently, delegation. All 3 leadership styles are as explained below –

• Authoritarian is where leaders tell their ‘followers’ what they want done and how they want it done, often using abusive language and resorting to the fear factor to get results.
• Participative is a form of leadership which often includes one or more follower(s) in the decision-making process, determining what needs to be done and how they will do it. This often leads to the formation of a team with better decision-making qualities, although the leader still retains final decision-making authority.
• Delegation is an extension of the participative style of leadership and has been around for centuries, as practiced in the Westminster form of government. The leader encourages followers to make decisions but retains overall responsibility for those decisions. Some businesses and sporting teams are now applying its principles, but this type of leadership can only work when you have total confidence and trust in the people below you.

Leadership with delegation and vision are the most successful sort of leadership styles today as it demands respect and influences people to follow them.

References

Dr. Linda Pittenger’s publically available works on leadership.

Leadership: Past, Present, and Future by David V. Day and John Antonakis.