I’ve been asked to talk about leadership styles recently.
Which has created a dilemma, as I reject the idea that effective leaders have a single style.
In my initial exposure to being a leader – guiding high school age kids on walks in the beautiful English Lakes District (the incomparable Wasdale in particular) – an authoritarian style worked.
“Follow me”.
Simple, and in the 1980s was effective.
My next significant development as a leader was at The Royal Military Academy Sandhurst (RMAS).
Now into the 1990s, this largely involved shouting orders (well it did for me, apologies to those more enhanced and nuanced leaders I shared this hallowed grounds with)
This worked well enough (just).
It did not work when I landed in the communications sector in the early 2000s. Many HR interviews can attest to this fact.
I then had the privilege of being able to reset in a new and very junior role in a new sector – ambulance technician. For a few years, the only thing I was leading was myself. It became immediately apparent that a new form of leadership something less shouty, more inclusive, and more consensual was going to be needed.
I became quiet.
There are a number of people I worked with who will tell you that the more serious the situation was, the quieter I became. Usually in small groups, and usually with a shared vision (getting patients to the hospital alive primarily) created an opportunity to grow as a leader. A fresh start. A privilege.
Over the course of the following decade, I developed a number of tools to lead. Different tools for different situations. Leading a prehospital resuscitation called for different tools to persuading a board on a remote call to change a mindset.
Rapidly approaching the thirty year anniversary of starting the Common Commissioning Course at RMAS, I can reflect on having a range of leadership tools/styles that can be employed. Being so flexible we are fluid is a phrase I heard last week at the Defence Medical Academy (DMA). It’s funny to a degree, but also deadly serious. Being agile, having an open mind, and hanging onto the humility that permits a change of plan. All these are critical to success.
So, when a social media platform suggests I write about my leadership style, I reject the premise, unless it is possible to say “evolving”! My leadership style is adaptive to the environment, audience, and task. How I lead this year is different from how I led last year. In turn, I will continue to evolve as a leader, so next year will be different again.
There are three things that have empowered this journey of life long change. Especially in the last ten years.
Accepting vulnerability – it’s okay to not know.
Maintaining humility – ask those around you.
Hearing others – using the power of the group.
This change has impacted my performance as a leader, an instructor, and of course as a coach. It’s the opposite of some testosterone-driven, twentieth-century, false imagery of leader.
It has been a journey.
How are you doing with yours?
An Turas = The Journey
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