Nutshell: Leadership styles in practice

We may have a preference when it comes to our leadership style, but to become fully rounded leaders, we also have to flex that style as circumstances demand.

Thinking around leadership has come a long way since the school of thought that it was all about Great Men (sic); heroes who were born to lead, set apart from others by their natural leadership qualities and abilities.

We know now that the opposite is true. Leaders are “made, not born” and we all have the capacity to develop and hone our leaderships skills. 

What’s also beyond doubt is that leadership is as much about our behaviours as it is about fixed characteristics or traits.

As leaders, those behaviours – our leadership style - have the potential to make or break a team’s performance. That’s why it’s helpful to understand the preferences, motivations, habits, defaults and biases that make us behave the way we do.

So how can this knowledge, and the theories that have developed to explore and explain a range of leadership styles, help us make sense of the kind of leaders we are today and the kind of leaders we might want to become?

Two practical leadership styles frameworks can help us to plot a way forward. Say hello again to our old friends, Henry Mintzberg and Daniel Goleman.

Dynamic balance: Henry Mintzberg’s art-science-craft triangle

Back in 1973, Mintzberg’s book, The Nature of Managerial Work, made a significant contribution to the literature by focusing for the first time on what managers actually do.

[It’s useful to note that Mintzberg is not one to overplay the distinction between management and leadership. He acknowledges that they are different, but they’re often carried out by the same person, suggesting that the best leaders have an eye to “the plumbing as well as the poetry”.].

By tracking the working lives of executives, he identified his famous management ‘roles’, a blueprint for how managers and leaders operate by moving between the 10 roles summarised below.

For example, if we’re recruiting and mentoring a new staff member, we’re in leader mode; if we’re at an industry conference, we’re a monitor; if we’re knocking heads together, a disturbance handler.

The trick is to have the self-awareness to understand the roles, and what they mean, and to balance their deployment in the right time at the right place. 

Mintzberg’s 10 roles are grouped into three categories:

1. Interpersonal: roles that involve co-ordination and interaction with employees.

2. Informational: roles that involve handling, sharing and analysing information.

3. Decisional: roles that require decision-making.

Thirty years and a lifetime’s work later, Mintzberg retraced his steps, acting once again as a fly on the wall in organisations of all sizes and types, and across sectors and continents, to test his original thesis.

As well as revisiting the roles – defined this time around as competencies which need to be deployed in dynamic balance – Mintzberg also shared a new vision for practice-based management: his art-craft-science triangle. 

Mintzberg’s triangle builds on his idea of leadership as a practice that takes place where art, craft and applied science meet:

• Art produces ideas, insights and vision based on intuition.

• Craft is about learning from experience, working things out as we go along.

• Science provides order through the analysis of knowledge and data. 

The triangle and management styles

He also realised that different combinations of these three categories are a means of identifying different management styles.

He points out that there are myriad combinations of styles; he’s not especially enamoured with his predecessors for attempting to pigeonhole managers into specific categories when, in truth, one size doesn’t always fit all. 

But he does acknowledge that looking at our personal styles in this way allows us to consider the effects of how we behave at work. The key for Mintzberg is that balance: no one style should be dominant, and there are definite disadvantages to relying on one (or even two) to the exclusion of the others.

Too much focus on applying the science? Then being cerebral might tip over into the calculating style. 

Too much art? A focus on insight, the creative and insightful style to the exclusion of all else can become narcissistic.  

Too much craft? Those among us who are stuck in the engaging style, finding it hard to move beyond their own personal experience, can become tedious.

Even a combination of two styles, without the third, can be problematic. 

• Styles excluding craft can be disconnected.

• Styles ignoring science can be disorganised.

• Styles excluding art can be dispiriting.

The best place to be is inside the triangle, aware of our default management styles and the influence they might have on others, and able to flex that style as needed.

Mintzberg also created a diagnostic which can help us to identify which bit(s) of the triangle we might naturally prefer – the aim being that this awareness will help us to rebalance and adjust.

Six leadership styles: Daniel Goleman

Mintzberg also strikes a note of caution about context.

Understanding our personal styles cannot be done in the abstract: as other thinkers have taught us, we need to be alert to the situation and context in which we’re operating. While Mintzberg is wary of leaders who try to stray too far from who they are and what they know, he also sees a degree of flexibility and adaptability as a leadership fact of life.

It’s an idea taken even further by emotional intelligence guru Daniel Goleman with the six leadership styles he outlines in his classic Harvard Business Review article, Leadership that Gets Results and his book, Primal Leadership.

The styles are based on components of Goleman’s emotional intelligence framework. His research reinforces the idea that the best leaders use most of the styles “in any given week”.

Each has its pros and cons. The trick, of course, is to know which style is best suited to different situations and to understand that we may need to work at deploying styles that are less natural to us.

Goleman uses the analogy of golf clubs in a golf bag, with more experienced leaders reaching automatically for the right style when they need it.

The six styles are:

• commanding (or coercive)

• visionary

• affiliative

• democratic

• pacesetting

• coaching

Goleman also found that each style has a different impact on the working culture of teams and organisations, and that four of them have a more positive, long-term impact than the others – in terms of not just wellbeing but also financial performance.

He describes the four most positive styles (visionary, affiliative, democratic and coaching) as resonant: able to create a positive emotional impact.

The other two (commanding and pacesetting), if used inappropriately or too routinely, can become dissonant, leading to cultures characterised by a lack of trust and safety.

Commanding (or coercive) leaders demand immediate compliance.

Like Kurt Lewin’s authoritarianism, this is a style that relies on issuing orders and exerting control. It can be useful in a crisis, when rapid change is needed, or with underperformers. But if misused it can damage morale and productivity.

• Style in a phrase: “Do what I tell you!”

•  EQ strengths: drive to achieve; initiative; self-management

Visionary leaders can mobilise people towards a vision.

They are able to articulate this vision clearly and push people to use their initiative. It can be a real positive when organisations or teams need a new direction or are undergoing change. However, it’s less effective if we’re leading experienced teams (democracy and consensus might be a better choice) and can be overbearing if overused.

• Style in a phrase: “Come with me”

• EQ strengths:: self-confidence; empathy; change catalyst

Affiliative leaders create emotional bonds and harmony.

The affiliative style promotes harmony within the team and emphasises emotional connections, bringing people together by encouraging inclusion and resolving conflict.

It’s a style best used when bridges need to be built and trust and relationships improved. It can also motivate people if they’re going through tough times. We need to beware, though, that we’re not preferencing relationship building at the expense of clear direction, getting things done or avoiding conflict at all costs.

• Style in a phrase: “People come first”

• EQ strengths:: empathy; relationship building; communication

Democratic leaders build consensus through participation.

The democratic style focuses on collaboration, with leaders actively seeking input from their teams, and listening more than directing. It works well with more experienced colleagues, when we need input from our people or when we need to build team consensus. It’s less effective with more inexperienced, less motivated or less knowledgeable colleagues.

• Style in a phrase: “What do you think?”

• EQ strengths: collaboration; team leadership; communication

Pacesetting leaders expect excellence and self-direction.

Pacesetters focus on performance and achieving goals. They expect excellence from their teams, and everyone is held to a high standard. It’s best suited to getting quick results from highly motivated and competent teams. But it can also be a real negative, associated if overused with stress, burnout and high staff turnover.

• Style in a phrase: “Do as I do, now”

• EQ strengths: conscientiousness; drive to achieve; initiative

Coaching leaders develop people for the future.

Coaches are empathic and encouraging, and help people to develop and learn. It’s a positive because it establishes rapport and trust and boosts motivation, and helps people to link their own values and goals to organisational priorities. It is, though, time-consuming and is less effective if a team member is reluctant or needs more direction.

• Style in a phrase: “Try this”

•  EQ strengths:: developing others; empathy; self-awareness

Flexing our style

Because Goleman’s styles are based on emotional intelligence, and because emotional intelligence competencies can be learnt, we can develop styles that feel more alien to us by focusing on the EQ strengths of each style.

So, if we are a natural pacesetter, driving our people mad with our relentless pursuit of high standards, we might want to temper this with the empathy, relationship-building and high-end communication skills associated with being more affiliative.

Or, if we are a coach, there may be times when we need to work on being more commanding with an uncooperative team member, focusing more on our drive to achieve and self-management.

As with Mintzberg’s triangle, the starting point is knowing our own defaults; try the diagnostic based on Goleman’s styles here.

We need to consider the leadership style we most identify with, its benefits and drawbacks, and reflect on how confident we are about flexing as circumstances demand.

Being a leader requires us to master the art of adaptable authenticity, combining a strong core of guiding values with the ability to flex our style as circumstances demand and change.

Knowing what kind of leader we are now – our preferences, biases and motivations – will help us to be more aware of what we might need to do to round out our practice and when and how we might need to adapt and change.

If we can plan for how to expand our repertoire, we can then experiment (ethically) with trying on different styles to see how they fit, how we might use them in combination and how we can keep building our practice to become the leaders we want to be.

Test your understanding

• Identify the three elements of Mintzberg’s management triangle.

• Outline the phrases that summarise Goleman’s commanding and coaching styles.

What does it mean for you?

• Consider the leadership styles that come more or less naturally to you. Create a plan for what you might do to improve your dynamic balance, or to build a better golf bag of Goleman styles.