Companies, generations, speed, technology and people’s expectations have changed.
Has the way your leaders lead changed?
For decades we have talked about multiple leadership styles: autocratic, transactional, democratic, laissez-faire, bureaucratic, transformational, servant leadership, coaching leadership, situational, among others.
The problem begins when a leader turns one style into their only way of leading, regardless of the person, the context or the challenge.
When yesterday’s leadership becomes an obstacle
A leader who performed extraordinarily 10 or 15 years ago can become an obstacle today if they keep:
- Directing when they should be developing.
- Controlling when they should be delegating.
- Talking when they should be listening.
- Solving when they should be teaching people to think.
- Demanding results without understanding what their team needs to produce them.
- Leading every person in exactly the same way.
And that has a cost
A senior executive who does not know how to lead can be extraordinarily competent technically and, at the same time, be destroying organizational value.
Turnover. Disengagement. Low collaboration. Talent that doesn’t develop. Decisions that always depend on the boss. Lack of succession. Teams that execute but do not evolve. Valuable people who eventually decide to leave.
All of that eventually reaches the P&L.
Two capabilities that must be combined
Transformational leadership. Able to inspire, mobilize, develop people and elevate the team’s level of thinking.
Situational leadership. Able to adapt the way they lead according to the person, their level of autonomy, experience, motivation and the moment they are going through.
But achieving both requires something even deeper: self-mastery.
A leader needs to first recognize their own emotions, patterns, triggers, biases and behaviors in order to read and understand others better.
You cannot effectively lead what you do not understand. And you can hardly understand others deeply if you still don’t know how to observe yourself.
The right question for companies
The question is not only: do we have good executives?
The question should be: do we have executives capable of leading the people, generations and challenges our organization will face over the coming years?
Promoting or keeping someone in a leadership position does not mean they automatically know how to lead.
And maintaining leadership styles that no longer work may be costing your organization far more than appears in any budget.
Are your leaders prepared to solve the new problems… or are they still trying to solve them with the leadership of the past?
See how we develop leaders inside companies and teams.