WrightWay Consulting Inc

Leadership Styles

Author, Adena S. Wright,
CEO, WrightWay Consulting, Inc.

Leaders vs. Managers

While both styles are important, leaders and managers are not the same.

What Managers Do

Direct
Implement
Control
Maintain stability
Solve problems
Assemble resources
Deflect politics
Plan
Hold meetings
Set goals
Organize
Coach
Evaluate

What Leaders Do

Inspire
Empower
Strategize
Create vision
Offer resources and information
Shares vision
Establish direction
Look for opportunities
Innovate
Measure success
Coach
Create
Mentor

Managers focus on creating and maintaining stability and solving problems – often at a very high level. Leaders focus on inspiring change and developing fresh approaches and new options. Leaders have a developmental perspective in contrast to managers’ technical perspective. Managers direct energy toward goals, resources, structures and identifying problems needing to be solved. Leaders direct energy toward guiding people toward practical solutions.

To be effective, you do not need to choose one approach over the other. The key is to know when to lead and when to manage. People tend to have greater comfort practicing one set of skills over the other. Your impact will be much greater if you pay attention to what your situation calls for and respond accordingly. If the status quo needs to be preserved, problems solved and short-term results met, wear your manager’s hat. If change needs to be initiated, human resources developed and long-range strategy established, it’s time to be a leader.

It is highly likely that your circumstances require that you draw from both skill sets to meet the needs of your company, department or team.

Application

1. How much time do you spend doing management vs. leadership tasks?
a. What kinds of things do you do on a daily basis that are management tasks?
b. What kinds of things do you do on a daily basis that are leadership tasks?

2. Does your organization need your focus to be more on stabilizing and perfecting the status quo, initiating change or both?

3. What would it take for you to use a skill set and style that is less comfortable, if it would help move your organization forward?

Two Types of Leaders: Controllers VS. Empowerers

Although leaders have a vision and the ability to make that vision a reality, they differ in the tactics they use to accomplish that vision. There are two classic leadership styles: those who lead through control and coercion; and those who lead by inspiring and empowering others.

Controllers

Are intent on realizing their own purposes whether or not their purposes, motives and values are shared
Impose their will
Exert tight, external control
Communicate with subordinates indirectly, using 'signals'
Reward compliance and personal loyalty
Foster conflict, competition and in-fighting

Empowerers

Seek mutually beneficial goals
Set high standards
Build trust and relationship first
Shape, alter and elevate others' motives, values and goals
Create environment that elicits internal motivation and commitment
Induce followers to act in accord with the values and the motivations of both leaders and followers

Application

1. What are the consequences of each style on staff, peers, the environment and results?

2. What underlying beliefs drive each style?

3. What kinds of behaviors do you or your supervisory employees exhibit that are controlling?

4. What kinds of behaviors do you or your supervisory employees exhibit that are empowering?

5. How have your behaviors in each style impacted staff, peers, the environment and results?

6. How would your organization benefit from you becoming a more empowering leader? What actions can you take?

References:

Building the Bridge As you Walk On It by Robert E. Quinn, John Wiley & Sons, 2004; High Performance Leadership: From Control to Empowerment, The Center for Organizational Design; Illusions of Entrepreneurship: The Costly Myths that Entrepreneurs, Investors, and Policy Makers Live By by Scott Shane, Yale University Press, 2008; Leadership by James MacGregor Burns, Harper & Row, 1978; The Living Company by Arie de Geus and Peter Senge, Harvard Business School Press; 1 edition (April 1997)