One of The Greatest Misconceptions of Leadership (Episode 4)

Transcript

Hey, friend. In today’s episode, we’re going to talk about what I consider one of the greatest misconceptions of leadership today.

Now, what is this misconception? To me, it’s leadership styles. Leadership styles. Many people get leadership styles wrong. And it’s kind of dangerous and scary in ways because we’ve talked about the state of leadership in our country, in our world, in our businesses and such.

And we’ve also talked about the kind of levels of knowledge and the superficial and that sometimes people think having a certain quality or trait makes them a good leader or makes someone a good leader. And I think that happens with leadership styles.

It’s kind of a surface level knowledge of what’s often presented that people follow and they think it makes them a good leader. They think, oh, if I know what leadership style I am, then I’m going to be a great leader. And that’s just not true. Because it’s not about knowing your style, it’s about having good qualities and following good principles of leadership.

When you search for leadership online, Leadership Styles is the number two search for leadership. Leadership itself is number one, Leadership Styles is number two, and what’s often presented and given to people on these articles is wrong.

And then people live these things and try these things thinking it’s going to make them a good leader, and it’s not. Now, why is that? Well, let’s kind of dive into it some more.

Leadership styles is just really a theory about leadership. Researchers over the years have tried to study what makes a good leader. They’ve looked at relationships between the leader and employee. They’ve looked at skills and traits and behaviors and so on. And leadership styles is really just kind of a behavior theory when it comes to leadership.

And there’s different kind of versions of it too. So there’s not just the one that I’m speaking of here. There’s different viewpoints, I guess even on leadership styles, but the one I’m talking about now is the one that’s really often presented online mostly.

And so on so how is it often presented? Well, this is what you’re often told: There are multiple leadership styles. So for example, you could be affiliative, authoritarian, diplomatic, laissez-faire, or delegative, bureaucratic, transformative, transactional, coaching, visionary, charismatic, and some people include like transformational and servant leadership and so on.

So there’s all these styles and you are one of them. And if you want to be an effective leader, you need to find out which style you are. Because all of them are equal, you just need to know which one you are so you can be the best you you are as a leader.

 So they present that and then they say, you can’t always be that one style though because sometimes you have to do other things, you know, you may be what? Diplomatic, but sometimes you need to coach so you need to switch from your diplomatic and go to coaching and coach, and then you switch back.

So you well, I’m diplomatic now. So let me switch. Womp womp. Oh, I’m coaching now. Okay, let me switch back. Womp womp. Okay. I’m back to diplomatic.

And really all that’s kind of silly because, for a number of reasons. First of all, you can’t just be one style. Iif you are one style and you just live that one style, you’re going to fail as a leader, period.

And really, a lot of these styles that they talk about, some you don’t really want to be, but a lot of the styles they talk about are really functions or things you should be doing as a leader. For example, you should be building relationships with people, you should be coaching and mentoring, you should be delegating, you should be getting other people’s input at times, and at times, sometimes, a leader, you just need to make the decision.

All those different things are things maybe you should be doing in different ways at different times. And the idea that we have to switch styles is silly because think of it as a carpenter.

When a carpenter is cutting wood, he’s not doing his cutting wood style. And oh, he’s measuring the wood now, so it’s his measuring style. Oh, and so he’s nailing now, so now he’s using his nailing style. And that could keep going on, but that’s silly.

Kind of with baseball, while I’m doing my batting style, oh, I’m doing my running style to base. Oh, no, now I’m doing my catch the ball style. No, that’s silly.

These are functions that you do as a leader to be a good leader. You should coach, you should build relationships, and so on. You can’t just be one, you don’t just switch from one to the other. They’re just who you are as a leader, and those are things you do as a situation needs. You can be more than one at one time.

Now the question is, do we lean towards certain styles? Sure.

Yeah, we may lean toward being very diplomatic. We may lean toward being very authoritarian. We may lean toward being very affiliative and building relationships or delegates. There may be things we lean to.

We may love coaching. But just because we lean to that, doesn’t mean that’s what we should always do. Because we, as a leader, have different functions, different things we’re supposed to do, and we do it as it’s needed.

It’s good to know which way we lean because then we can work on the things, the areas that we’re weak in. Or if we’re always trying to coach people when that’s not always needed, maybe we can reel it back in. If we’re always trying to get everybody’s input, even when it’s not needed, we can reel that back in.

We can be aware of our tendencies so we can be better. And take note, though, that just because we lean a certain way doesn’t mean it’s a good thing. Now, we may lean a certain way because of our personality, and that’s understandable.

But we sometimes lean certain ways because of our insecurities. Someone who’s very insecure or has high ego, they may lean toward authoritarian because it makes them feel more secure or more confident because they are commanding people around and micromanaging people. Or because of their ego they think they know best. So they just, that’s the way they do, tell everybody what to do.

Some people who are insecure may be diplomatic because they are afraid of making mistakes. They are afraid of making the wrong decision. So it makes them feel better to get everybody’s input because if the decision’s made, then it’s not really their fault, it’s everybody else’s too.

Somebody may lean affiliative and they love that, but then they might disregard everything else. So just because we lean towards something doesn’t mean it’s good. Some people lean toward being a jerk, but it doesn’t mean you should be a jerk. So again, just because we lean towards something doesn’t mean it’s what we should always do or that it’s always good.

So that’s something to really take note. Because leadership isn’t based on your personality. It’s not based on your tendencies or insecurities. It’s based on good principles.

Now does this mean we don’t have our own approach to the way we do things? Well, sure we do. Because we do have different personalities and so on. If you’re following good principles of leadership, then the way you approach it, that’s probably okay, as long as you’re not doing some of those tendencies that often make people more of a poor or bad leader.

Also think about when it comes to a lot of the great leadership books. You have all the John Maxwell books, you have all the Jim Collins books, Simon Sinek, so many others. Do they focus on leadership styles? Do they say, oh, if you just know your style, you are going to be an effective leader? No, no.

What makes you effective? It’s following good principles of leadership.

Now again, it’s good to know which ways you lean, because if you lean authoritarian and you micromanage people, you want to know that so you can get better at that. If you lean toward affiliative and always building relationships, but you ignore getting results, that’s good to know so you can work against that, so you can build those relationships, but also get results.

If you always get input from others and end up wasting time on decisions that really doesn’t need everybody’s input, or you’re always trying to get consensus when that doesn’t really work, then yes, you need to know that so that you can work on that.

So kind of to sum it up, leadership styles to me is one of the biggest misconceptions because of that level one surface knowledge. People feel that if I just know my style, I’ll be a good leader. And leadership so much more than that.

So I do encourage you, know yourself, know your leanings, know which way you go, but don’t just think that following what your leanings are will make you a good leader. What makes you a good leader is following good principles of leadership.

I’ll see you next time.