We all have natural ways of doing everything, from our handwriting to our sense of humour – management and leadership are no different.
The way we communicate, make decisions, delegate and respond to challenges is shaped by our individual preferences, experiences and personalities.
Identifying your natural style is a great starting point and understanding your own preferences is a great help, too.
But good leadership isn’t about finding one ‘perfect’ style and sticking to it – no such thing exists. To be truly effective, you must be able to call on different styles as appropriate for different situations, people and challenges.
What is a leadership style?
It is the combination of behaviours and approaches a leader uses to work with others – including how they communicate, make decisions and support the development of their team members. Every leader will have habits and patterns they have fallen into naturally:
For example, some people naturally feel inclined to set the pace and be followed. Others prefer to bring people into the conversation and make progress together.
Some managers lean instinctively towards using their experience to mentor their teams. Others feel inclined to ask the right questions and coach them.
Each style has its own strengths and each can be useful in different circumstances.
The important question is whether the approach you’re using is right for the situation you’re in or outcome you’re trying to achieve.
What is your natural style?
Before you can adapt your leadership style, you need to understand where you’re starting from.
Self-awareness is an important part of effective leadership because it helps you recognise how you behave on the day-to-day level – and the impact that behaviour can have on other people.
Ask yourself questions like:
- How do I tend to make decisions?
- How much direction do I naturally give?
- How comfortable am I handing over responsibility?
- How do I respond when things aren’t going to plan?
- What might my team value about my approach?
- Where might my natural preferences create challenges?
It’s not always easy to reflect in that way, but there is real value in recognising what your ‘default’ behaviours are, and even more value in thinking about how these behaviours land (and feel) on the receiving end. It can illuminate your blind spots and, given all good leaders should always be developing and improving, signpost some development areas to work on.
Once you’ve figured out your natural style, however, the journey doesn’t stop with the simple conclusion of “this is just how I lead.”
The risk of relying on one style
Your natural style can be a strength… and a comfort zone.
A leader who is naturally decisive, for example, might be excellent at providing clarity and momentum. But if they make every decision themselves, they can unintentionally limit opportunities for their team to contribute, feel involved and – ultimately – develop.
The answer isn’t to abandon your natural style – it’s to recognise that what works in one situation may not work as well in another.
Learning to pause… and flex
Highly effective leaders have more than one approach available to them AND they are practised in adding in space within their own thought process to ask themselves…
“What would I normally do here? And what might the situation call for instead?”
That might be a new team member who needs more direction from a naturally delegative leader.
Or an experienced colleague who might benefit from being given more autonomy by an innately directive leader.
Or maybe a crisis requires decisive, directive action from a leader who prefers a democratic approach.
Developing flexible leaders
Leadership development programmes shouldn’t aim to copy + paste everyone into the exact same kind of leader.
Their goal should be helping people understand themselves, prompting them to consider the impact they have on others and supporting their development of a broader range of skills and approaches.
That means giving leaders opportunities to practise different behaviours, reflect on what works and apply their learning to real situations.
And that is what strengthens the powerful thought process of:
Knowing your natural style ➡️ having the flexibility to adapt it ➡️ using judgement to know when to do so.
That’s what gives our leadership development real impact beyond the training room – helping leaders make better choices in the moments that matter.
For more than 25 years, we’ve been helping organisations develop flexible, effective leaders.
Let’s talk about how we can support leadership development in your organisation.