4 essential-leadership-styles-e book-v2_20131017

The Four Essential Leadership Styles to Solve Performance Issues and Increase Profits

The FourEssentialLeadershipStyles

The Four Essential Leadership Styles to Solve Performance Issues and Increase Profits. Renshi Consulting Group | 2

There are four key leadership stylesthat need to be learned and executedcorrectly in order for your companyto solve performance issues andperform at its best.

1 Authoritative2 Consultative3 Supportive4 Challenging


Authoritative, Consultative,Supportive and Challenging

The four styles of leadership written about in this eBook arenot the only styles you should have in your arsenal – they arethe essential ones. With an understanding of when and how to usethese key leadership styles, as well as successful implementation,your company will be rewarded with three critical componentsof improved performance and increased profits:

1. New ideas (Creativity)2. Actions (Implementation)3. Accountability (Involvement)

Generating new ideas and having accountable employeesacting on them will drive down costs, increase revenueand improve profitability in your organization.

Let’s examine the four essential leadership styles in more detail.


Authoritative LeadershipAuthoritative leadership is a technique successful leaders use to free up ideas andget processes moving. It involves using hierarchy and managerial pressure to getthings done. Leaders using this style understand what is important, right and goodfor the business and can see that actions are not being taken to implement theseideas. The leader’s role here is to demand that action happens.

To do this, leaders “pull rank” and demand that actions happen now. They presentan idea and ask employees what they are going to do now to start implementing theidea. The leader does not take on the action himself. The leader’s role is to ask employ-ees for actions and make sure they are relevant to the idea or goal, and that they areshort-term. By short-term we mean the action will happen within the next few days.Be wary of “joy and peace to the world” actions that are too long-term and will neverbe achieved. Action items should be something achievable in one week or less.

Once the leader has demanded that action take place, they should step aside andlet the team implement the action item(s). As a leader, do not fall into the trap oftrying to implement the action yourself. Let your team do it. Your role is to holdthem accountable.

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To hold employees accountable, hold a weekly review meeting. Thismeeting should be 60 minutes or less which includes an action item listand the presentation of key metrics.

Be aware of a few cautions when using the authoritative leadership style:

1. Only use authoritative leadership when you are workingwith problem employees or attempting to free up a newidea or action. Using it too often can cause employees tomove into a shell and rely on you for all the ideas.

2. Be careful when you are working with people who areexperts in their field and are pushing back. They mayhave a point. Really listen to their argument. Don’t beafraid to push back and ask a lot of open questions toget all the issues on the table. At the end of the day youneed to look at yourself and be able to answer thequestion “is this good for the company, does it helpus meet our objectives?”

3. Even though you have made the decision that somethingwill be done, make sure you give your people the freedomto achieve the goal their way. Step out of the way, let themexecute, and check in on them to hold them accountableand keep them focused on the task.


Consultative LeadershipThe consultative leadership style involves empowering employees throughcommunication, consultation and delegation. As their leader you still makethe final decision, but you involve your team in arriving at it.

The consultative style is less directive than the authoritative style. You are not tellingpeople what to do; here you present an opportunity and the parameters that your teammust work within, (for example, a budget or timeframe) and let people solve it. Use thisleadership style when your employees have a clear idea and understanding of where theywant to go and what goals they want to achieve. This style works well when you aredealing with non-repetitive creative work.

To use the consultative style you first create a problem statement that accurately describesthe issue you are tasked with solving. Ask an open question about a problem opportunity.It could be something like, “how might we improve our client response time when equip-ment fails?” Don’t ask a closed question like, “are our response times satisfactory?” Recordthe answers to these questions, preferably on large post-it notes or whiteboards for all tosee. Start to develop your problem statement and go through a number of iterationsuntil it completely and accurately describes what needs to be solved.

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The next step is to come up with actions your employees can perform to solve theproblem. Again, record these for everyone to see and when you have exhausted thenumber of options, stand back and rank them. Let the employees decide what actionsare most important and which ones should be done first. Record these in an actionitem list that can be reviewed in a business review meeting and let your folks goand implement.

Hold your people accountable using the business review meeting which is heldat least weekly. A scorecard should be created to quickly see what is going well andwhat can be done better. As noted above, this keeps people focused and on trackto complete their actions.

Make sure you recognize people for completing actions and celebrate milestones.The biggest motivator for employees is progress towards a goal, so make sure youtake advantage of this key motivating tool.


Supportive LeadershipThe supportive leadership style focuses on team harmony, support and care foremployee values to build a positive atmosphere. Research has shown that employeesin a positive atmosphere are more productive. They create more ideas and implementthem more successfully than employees in negative environments.

The supportive style is non-directive and is characterized by open meetings wherenumerous ideas and actions are brought forward and failure is accepted and valued.

To create this environment, supportive leaders may allow for employees to volunteer theirtime for philanthropic activities. Providing in-house meals so employees can congregateand share ideas is another way to facilitate harmony. Companies can provide supportivepolicies like flex-time, flexible break times and cross training to further support employees.

Supportive leaders allow employees to have a high degree of autonomy when decidingwhat group activities they want to do. Leaders support employees developing their own“fun” activities and don’t rely on HR departments to program the culture.

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To measure positive atmosphere, supportive leaders look at metrics such as the ratioof senior leaders versus front-line people speaking in meetings. You want this to be low.The less you talk as a senior leader the better. Another metric could be lunchroom humour.Sport coaches pay attention to locker room humour as a leading indicator of team har-mony. Another metric you might track is the number of unplanned fun events that occur.Unplanned events is an indication that employees are involved in creating team harmonyamongst themselves. Another metric might be observing the number of “pick me” state-ments employees make. This is where employees jump at the opportunity to take onnew tasks. If any of these metrics start to decline leaders should ask why and developactions to improve.

Another thing to remember is supportive leaders pull, they don’t push. For example, theydon’t create fun, but rather facilitate it. They will allow the fun to take place by creating abudget and time for it, but it’s up to the employees to take advantage of it.

Track your supportive leadership metrics in the same way as previous leadership styles:hold weekly performance reviews where ideas and actions are captured in action item lists.

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Challenging LeadershipThe challenging leadership style is where leaders encourage employees to go beyondthemselves, to have the initiative to take on tough challenges, the ones they neverthought they could do.

To create this environment challenging leaders communicate clear expectations thatemployees are to take on tough challenges. Leaders are challenging yet supportive. Theysay things like “this is a new step for you, I know you can do this and I expect it from you.”

In this environment, challenging leaders set their employees up to win. There are numer-ous ways to do this. One example is allowing for failure in the organization. Leaders set theexpectation that failure is OK and even welcomed. Employees know that they will still havetheir jobs and the support of the organization if they don’t win. Many organizations findthis difficult to pull off. Think of this, if you are asking people to step up and go beyondthemselves, it means they are doing something they have never done before. If they havenever done it, the likelihood of them failing is higher and leaders must understand andaccept this.

The challenging leadership style, like the other styles, tracks actions and progress towardsthe goal and really stresses the small wins. Celebrating small wins are even more importantwhen people are reaching beyond themselves.

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Facilitating an environment where employees will take on tough challenges meansleaders must make sure employees have the correct training - both academic andpractical, school and street smarts. However, training isn’t forced on an employeit is discussed. Get the employee involved in deciding what training they require,how they will apply it in the business and what they expect the results to be.Cross-training is also important, and agai challenging leaders make sure thattheir employees are involved in what cross-training is required, how they willapply their learnings and the results they expect.

In most cases the challenging leadership style is indirect, however, depending onthe employee you can be direct or indirect here. In other words, sometimes theydon’t know what skills and onsite training they need, so you can be more direct inyour suggestions. Often they do and you should err on this side. Let the employeedecide where they should cross-train and what instructional training they shouldtake.

When employees decide what they want, they are clearer on their trainingobjectives and more importantly, they are invested in the learning. It becomestheir training choice. They own the outcome. You don’t want them saying orthinking, “I am taking this training because my boss said I have to.”

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Again, as in all the leadership styles, track progress and celebrate wins. The mostimportant thing is to thank the individual for their efforts, win or lose! Challengingleaders are also personally supportive to their employees. Often it is the quietwords of encouragement that are great motivators.

When leading employees through challenging assignments don’t say things like“it’s OK,” or “I understand.” Just listen. Use the power of silence and listen. Ask openquestions to get employees to realize themselves that failure is OK. The question,“tell me how you fell off the bike,” will get employees thinking about what actuallyhappened, and what they can do about it rather than you preaching to them.

PUSH PULL

DIRECTIVE NON-DIRECTIVE


Leadership Tools Summary

The table on the next page summarizes the key concepts of the Authoritative,Consultative, Supportive and Challenging leadership styles. Learning these fourstyles is essential but remember, there are many more leadership styles that canbe used depending upon the situation at hand. Also, don’t be afraid to getcreative and combine styles, alternate the use of them and mix it up a bit.

Supporting Tools

Action Item List.

http://www.renshicon.com/action-items-list/

Power of Silence.

http://www.renshicon.com/power-of-silence/

Open and Closed Questions.

http://www.renshicon.com/open-and-closed-questions/

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Want More Information?

Contact us any time to expand on these leadershipstyles or any other business performance concerns.

Want to work with Renshi? Learn more aboutour full immersion assessment phase and ourapproach to guaranteed ROI on our website(http://www.renshicon.com/approach)or contact us directly.

Phil Uglow, [email protected]

Rob Van Cott, [email protected]

1-403-585-8172

Vice President

Business

4 essential-leadership-styles-e book-v2_20131017