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The Do’s, Dont’s and Dichotomy of Directive Leadership.

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In today’s world, it would appear that the Directive leader has had their day. There is much more of an emphasis on people focused leadership and making collaborative decisions. When we look into the Directive style in more detail however, there are still times where it comes out on top.

Here is our guide to Directive Leadership, when to utilise it and how to get the best out of this style.

What is Directive Leadership?

Directive Leadership has been detailed in many leadership theories from Vroom (autocratic 1&2), House (path goal theory), Tuckman (Forming stage) and many others. For this article, I will be discussing Directive Leadership from Blanchard and Herseys Situational Leadership model (they describe Directive Leadership as ‘Telling’).

This is the first of four articles where we will discover the stages of Situational Leadership (Follower Readiness levels) and their accompanying leadership styles (Telling, Selling, Participating and Delegating). Below is the full Situational Leadership model, for this article, we are only focusing on the Yellow box ‘Telling’.

Blanchard and Hersey described Directive Leadership (also known as Telling in the model) as a style where the Leader uses their skills and knowledge to provide direction, set expectations and make decisions. As you can see from the above image, this style uses a highly directive and low supportive approach to leadership, with more focus on the task than the relationship with your follower.

The model uses each Leadership style based on the Follower’s Readiness level, to understand where Directive Leadership will be most effective, we must therefore evaluate our Followers Readiness level.

Readiness level 1 (or R1) can typically be used to describe a new starter, who is in need of clear structure and direction. Consider your team, have you got any new starters that will require clear structure and direction? Have you recently up-skilled someone and now they have a low level of competence for this task? If so, you may want to read through the Do’s and Don’ts of this approach so that you get the best out of it whilst maintaining healthy relationships with people.


The Do’s

1. Do use Directive Leadership on New Starters

Think about a time where you were new to a role, you weren’t sure of your responsibilities, what processes to follow or what was expected of you. How did that make you feel?

It can be a daunting experience joining a new team, culture or position. People can feel uncertain and anxious if they do not understand their responsibilities,  the business values or what they need to do to succeed. It can be a relief then, for someone to explain to you what your responsibilities are, what is expected of you and where to find the processes you need to follow.

Consider a leader using a coaching role here and trying to pull this information from you. You would likely get frustrated because you simply don’t know what you don’t know – you can’t guess a companies values, which process to follow or what your Leader expects of you – so a coaching approach in this position may damage relationships between the Leader and the Follower. The Directive approach for new starters can help relieve their anxiety of the unknown. It can give your Followers a purpose and a focus.

Business Example

In my first leadership role, I had very little experience or knowledge of leadership theories. I thought that every opportunity was a coaching session as it was all I understood about the role, developed from my time working in the fitness industry helping people with stretching goals. A new starter joined my team and I was eager to coach them to success, it was going down well with my existing team so surely it would work! Whenever I had them at my desk I would ask them what they thought they should do with A, B and C and why these tasks were important.

They didn’t know and became frustrated with my coaching approach – I was asking questions they just couldn’t answer yet. I realised that whilst it goes against my natural style, I had to be the one talking at this point. I had to tell them what they should be doing, what they were doing well, why each action of each task was important and what my expectations were of them. By doing this, their frustration turned into direction, they knew what they had to do and why they were doing it. Soon, they knew the processes and policies they needed to follow and due to becoming more confident in their role, they became open for coaching.

Key Learning

Directive Leadership can be compassionate, it can alleviate both the frustration and anxiety new starters may have about the unknown aspects of their role, allowing them to focus on the task at hand.

Once your followers are more capable and confident in their role, you can increase the level of ‘supportive’ Leadership and allow Directive Leadership to take more of a back seat.

2. Use Directive Leadership in emergencies

Your building is on fire and people are beginning to panic, some people are stood around, unsure of what to do. Time is if the essence, you have to get your people to safety. Can you imagine involving your team in decision making here by facilitating or coaching them? Not only do you risk peoples lives by not taking control, you’ll likely lose credibility here too.

Directive leadership will be needed to focus and guide the people out of danger by telling them exactly what they need to do. The focus here is high task behaviour (keeping people safe) and low relationship/supportive behaviour.

Directive leadership isnt just for life threatening emergencies but can also be used at anytime an urgent decision needs to be made and there is no time for discussion.

Business Example

In 2015, I had recently moved offices to support a team going through major role profile and wage changes, their morale was extremely low and they were clearly going through the Storming stages of Team Development.

The team were all individually very skilled and I knew they had a good work ethic. They had however, gone through multiple leadership changes, witnessed conflict amongst the leadership team and had been promised wages increases to match their role changes.

A month into the role, a senior leader called a meeting with my team. The senior leader delivered an unfavourable message about the promised wage increase and the teams frustrations boiled over, the team threatened to walk out. The senior leader, clearly disagreeing with the message they were delivering broke down in front of the team and began to cry at their reactions.

I had to act quickly to support my team and the senior leader, I needed to make urgent decisions to calm the situation, bring structure to the legitimate concerns of my team and keep my team working towards our objectives.

I thanked the senior leader for delivering the tough message in person and I adjourned the meeting. I told the team we weren’t going to get a solution today and summarised each of their concerns. I promised to look into each point and whilst I couldn’t confirm a solution today, I would keep them updated on progress.

I told the team what they would risk by walking out and asked them to take a break for the remainder of the allocated meeting time and then return to work on their projects.

As soon as the room cleared, the leader thanked me for taking control of the situation. I outlined what went wrong in the meeting and suggested a more robust preparation format for future meetings. With the urgency gone and the situation calm, I spoke with the leader about their reaction, moving to a more supportive and less directive role.

Key Learning

Directive Leadership can take control of volatile or urgent situations by setting expectations and the directing the focus on to an immediate plan of action.

Whilst I knew the team were highly skilled and capable, in this moment they were directionless and needed to see a better structure to the handling of their concerns. I set my expectations for the remainder of the day and after their break, everyone returned to work.

We had a long road ahead of us but the urgent situation had passed, Directive Leadership had allowed me to take control of the situation.

3. Use Directive Leadership for non-negotiable necessities

Directive Leadership can be used when there can be no leeway to the rules or policy. Consider workplace compliance as an example. GDPR was a big buzzword throughout 2018 with it’s new rules on data protection and harsher penalties for breaches to the rules. Those rules are specifically there to protect customers, just like health and safety rules are there to protect employees. Of course, rules can be discussed and policies can be amended but until the change takes place, the rules need to be followed correctly.

Business Example

During 2019, I was in between roles as a Learning and Development Officer and Team Leader in a collections environment. Our line of work saw us helping people in very vulnerable circumstances everyday. We did this by building trusting relationships and seeking to understand our customers situation. It was a bank holiday, so people were feeling more relaxed than usual at work and a few members of staff began making a lot of noise.

I approached these members if staff and quickly set my expectations. They were still in work, they still had a job to do and conduct deemed inappropriate on a normal working day didn’t suddenly become appropriate because it was a bank holiday. I let the team know that any further instances of conduct would result in formal disciplinary action and that should a customer overhear laughing and interpret it as mocking their situation, we could quickly lose the trust and respect of that customer, damaging our reputation and more importantly, impacting our ability to help them.

Key Learning

Directive Leadership can be used where leeway could lead to reputational damage, be a risk to quality or team productivity.

Where standards are uncompromising, a directive approach will help enforce the importance of your rules and expectations.

4. Do be human

The Directive Leadership approach has seen a lot of criticism for being archaic and focused on being managerial instead of a supportive and participative approach.

It’s important to remember that just because you are setting expectations and direction, you can still be human! Being autocratic doesn’t mean losing your manners or understanding that your team are people with their own needs. You should still explain the rationale behind your decisions and the purpose of your teams work (just not when the buildings on fire).

5. Do be reflective

The situational leadership model requires you to understand where your follower is in relation to their readiness level. Reflect on their performance and their reactions to your leadership style, is this still the best way forward?

Reflect on how your style is impacting your team. Are you getting the results you need? What could you do differently next time?

To summarise the Do’s of this model, Directive Leadership can be a great option when you are:

  1. Leading New Starters or people with low levels of competence.
  2. Leading through an urgent situation or making quick decisions
  3. Where rules must be followed without exception
  4. You remain polite and professional
  5. You are reflective and utilise it with a purpose

The Dont’s of Directive Leadership

1. Don’t disregard diversity!

Situational leadership was developed with the purpose of flexible leadership in mind, to be able to understand your Followers readiness level and utilise the most effective Leadership style for that situation.

Think about how you would feel if you were considered a subject matter expert in your chosen field but despite your blatant skill and commitment, your Leader constantly told you what to do and how to do it.

You would probably feel frustrated, micro-managed and incompetent, starting a vicious cycle of losing confidence, engagement and producing poor work. These frustrations will likely lead to stress and having a defensive mentality about your work. The lack of freedom to showcase your skill sets will likely leave you bored and looking for a new job.

Business example

I was in a meeting with colleagues and there was some tension between one of the senior leaders on the call and another member of the project. I knew both people well and they were both highly skilled in their roles but they had contrasting personalities and would often clash at misunderstandings.

The senior leader began discussing some of the work my colleague had done and took the directive approach, advising what they wanted changing and how my colleague should proceed. There had already been tension based on the directive leadership approach and my colleague reacted in a very defensive manner.

The situation quickly escalated and I knew I needed to step in. I reframed the senior leaders comments, taking the focus away from the work itself and reinforced the common ground that we all wanted to build a successful project in order to meet our objectives. I began asking questions around the completed work and whether there could be a more effective way to meet the objective. The tension settled and we worked towards getting the right outcome for the project.

Later that day, the senior leader spoke to me about the situation, thanking me for the intervention and asking what the other persons problem was. Conscious that this leader likely knows more theories than I do and had more experience than me as well, I knew telling them their approach could have been better wasn’t going to get us any long lasting results. I explained that my colleague is passionate, is an expert in their field and that even with the best intentions, telling them what to do rarely goes down well. Despite it being from the right place, my colleague understood the criticism as an attack on their work instead of an attempt to deliver the best product possible.

I then asked how the senior leader would typically deal with this kind of scenario as I work closely with this person and could do with a few tactics to maintain relationships whilst making suggestions for improvements. The leader thought for a minute and suggested a supportive/facilitating style so the colleague could come up with a better way themselves.

Without realising it, the senior leader had just been coached on how best to interact with my colleague in future meetings and their change in Leadership style went over a lot better than their previous one.

Key Learning

Directive leadership has its place, using this leadership style in the wrong situation could have disastrous implications for your followers morale, mindset and your relationship with them. Where your team have the skill set, trust and support them to deliver.

2. Don’t dictate, collaborate

There are times where a follower, despite low competence may have a great idea. Disregarding this idea may damage their confidence, morale and trust in you as well as depriving the business a great new solution. There is something we can learn from everyone, so don’t close yourself off from new ideas just because someone is new to the role.

Whilst it’s true, the purpose of Directive leadership is to tell people what to do based on their competency, you can actually create problems by being too directive! The below example demonstrates this.

Business Example

Deadlines were tight, we had targets that needed to be met, audits that needed competing and feedback needed to be provided to front line staff. We were drowning.

In our weekly planning meeting we focused on key time-stealers and tactics to deal with them so we could prioritise our time and maximise our efficiency. We all agreed, the number one cause of lost time for us was the front line agents asking us questions, seemingly on every call, in every situation. We were failing as leaders. With the agreement of the leadership team in the room, we decided to turn this around. We would take shifts as ‘blockers’, the blocker would literally intercept agents coming to other members of the leadership team whilst they were working on their prioritised tasks.

The real success was in the time the blockers invested with the staff however. We realised that by telling people what to do, we had removed their autonomy. They hadn’t developed the confidence to make their own decisions or find the right process to follow. The blockers real job was in refusing to give answers, they simply asked the staff what the process said or coached the staff on what they thought they should do based on the right outcome.

The time invested here, saved us time in the long run as we began to build a more confident and autonomous team. The amount of queries slowed down over the next few weeks and over the following months, despite other time constraints, we achieved our targets and actually managed to utilise spare time to help other departments hit their objectives as well.

Key Learning

Be mindful on how your approach is impacting your followers, by telling our new starters what to do in every situation, we didn’t allow them to build up any confidence in how to problem solve by themselves or bring their own creativity to the role.

By collaborating with them and boosting their confidence, we were able to build a stronger workforce that, despite their limited time in role started to find their own solutions. We would still guide them towards the right process, we just stopped spoon feeding them every step of it.

3. Don’t dismiss development

One of the key disadvantages of Directive leadership is that it rarely allows for the development of your followers. The Leaders time is spent telling people what to do, not providing coaching feedback to see them improve.

Whilst it’s great in the short-term, which is better for your time in the long-term? Having a follower that you have to direct for each change to their task and role or having a follower that you can delegate work to and trust it can be completed to a high standard?

The Directive leader relies on their experience being greater than their followers. This means that if you don’t develop your people, the success of your organisation relies solely on your ability to follow market trends and maintain industry standards. Where you do not you are putting your organisation at risk.

By developing your people, you have a better chance of retaining this employee, saving your company money on recruitment and training costs. You can also help create and enable your Follower to be an innovator and encourage them to progress. I don’t know about you but my personal belief is that a Leaders job is to create more Leaders, not to have subservient Followers.

 

To summarise the don’ts of this model, Directive Leadership can be a great option when you are:

  1. Don’t disregard diversity
  2. Don’t always dictate – collaborate
  3. Don’t dismiss development

With the Do’s and Dont’s covered, it’s time to look at the Dichotomy of Directive Leadership:
 

The Dichotomy of Directive Leadership

 

Summary

Directive Leadership is a fantastic tool and is best utilised as part of a varied skill set, inline with the other leadership styles outlined in Situational Leadership.

The best situations to use this style are

  1. Leading New Starters or people with low levels of competence.
  2. Leading through an urgent situation or making quick decisions
  3. Where rules must be followed without exception

Key points to remember about Directive Leadership:

  1. You should remain polite and professional
  2. You should be reflective and utilise it with a purpose

Remember that using Directive Leadership for every situation is unlikely to yield you with the best results or the most effective team. Whilst it is a great tool to use in certain situations, it can leave your team feeling like they are not trusted, valued or competent in their role and may create barrier for you to be an effective leader.

Thank you for using your time and our resources to further your understanding and skill set. If you have any feedback, queries or requests please get in touch with us at:

CONNECT@developtheedge.com
 

We have created the below resources for you to utilise. Click each image to preview the content and download it to your device:

One page guide – Directive Leadership

One page guide – Situational Leadership

Course – Directive Leadership

Video – Directive Leadership

Reflection template – Directive Leadership in practice

Quiz – Directive Leadership

We are currently working on our Learning Management System, this course will be available shortly.

File Name: Directive-Leadership-Reflection-Template.pdf

File Name: DTE-Directive-Leadership-Quiz.xlsm

 

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Celebrating Servant Leadership – Eight enriching positives of this Leadership style.

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If you are interested in getting up to date with the how and why of this leadership style, check out our article Summarising Servant Leadership .

Today, we are going to focus on the positive impacts of this leadership style, enabling you to decide whether servant leadership is the right fit for you, your team and your business. We are elaborating on eight enriching results of the servant leadership style.

1) Decisions made for the organisation

“The secret of institution building is to be able to weld a team of such people by lifting them up to grow taller than they would otherwise be.“

A common misconception about Servant Leadership is that the leader will put the individual before the organisation. It is important to understand that putting the individual first for the sake of serving that person, could detriment the wider team or organisation as a whole. This is where the Servant Leader must be able to think of the bigger picture, of serving the team and the organisation as a whole.

Imagine a member of your team asking for an extra day off each week, without impacting their wage. You weigh this up and think about how serving your Team member in this way may positively impact their morale, performance in work, give them personal development time and realistically, you could probably do this for them without massively impacting the organisation financially – it is only one person after all. 

However, what happens when another team member asks for the same and then another? Could you do this for everyone in the company? If your organisation cannot sustain this, it will fail. If you refuse to do this for the other team members, morale plummets, trust in you dissolves and your hard earnt credibility is called into question. Not to mention, by giving your initial team member time off, you have missed an opportunity to encourage more efficient time management techniques to be developed by themselves.

It is in our peoples best interests for the organisation to achieve, to effectively serve as many people as possible, we need to focus on the success of the organisation, the safeguarding of jobs and increasing opportunities to develop. This in turn, serves more customers and helps to keep the business profitable.

A sobering example of a Servant Leader putting the business at risk for the people can be found in The Bass Handbook of Leadership. A US company called Maiden Mills saw one of their factories burnt down. During this time the insurance money was used to pay employees their full wage whilst the Factory was rebuilt. They were praised for this approach and although morale was at an all time high, bankruptcy ensued for their company as their competitors managed to get ahead. Had the Leader invested the money in securing an alternative factory, they may have survived and kept some of their people in jobs. – An ethical dilemma for sure and whilst it was the nice thing to do for their employees at the time, would a Servant Leader have safeguarded the company first?

Pro Tip:

Remember, when the organisation wins, the people win. You can serve more people by serving the needs of the organisation. Create balance between serving individuals, the team and the organisation to build trust, credibility and foster growth. An Operations Manager once said to me “My outlook is this, not everyone will like me or what I have to say – but no-one will say I have been unfair or treated some more favourably than others. If I can help I will but the needs of the business come first.” 

2) Saying ‘No’ is easier and fair

Linked directly to the above point of serving the organisation, Servant Leadership puts you in an optimal position to say ‘No’ fairly and take the sting out of its delivery – it all comes down to intent and purpose. 

When you say ‘No’ to someone, Servant Leadership provides a credible and respectable answer, it isn’t about ego or your personal agenda, it is about the success of the operation and fairness for the teams and customers. Of course, we need to look internally here and ask ourselves: “Are my intentions honest and credible? Do I demonstrate my service to the team and organisation in everything I do?” – If the answer to this question is ‘no’ – we may have issues getting people to see our part in the bigger picture.

It is important that we discuss the reasons for the ‘No’ and where possible offer either an alternative or the desired solution at a later date. Below are 3 quick ways to say ‘no’ whilst limiting the sting:

  • I can’t agree to that, it wouldn’t be fair for the rest of the team and as a business, we couldn’t justify it long-term. What else could we do to support you?
  • I cannot agree at this time as our priority is achieving project X. We do however complete it next month and I would have more availability for you then – can you use this time to build a business case for me?
  • At this time I don’t see how this serves our customers well, could you help me understand more on how this will add value? If not, we may need to consider alternatives.

Pro Tip:

Consistency is key here, we must use the same rational in order to avoid playing favourites and losing our credibility. By being open and honest with our reasons and exploring the proposal in more detail, we are able to coach, lead and develop our Followers. Who knows, exploring an initial ‘bad idea’ may uncover an absolute gem.

3) Team Development

One of the main purposes of Servant Leadership is to help us develop our team by understanding their current skill sets, goals and empowering them achieve. A great leader looks to develop people, even if this development sees them move on from the team and company due to their success.

When discussing who a Servant Leader is, Greenleaf asked:

“…do those served grow as persons; do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants?”

We can see from this question, Greenlead believes the purpose of a leader is to create more leaders. We can do this effectively by developing our teams – which is great news for the individuals, the company and its customers. What is the alternative? A group of people unable to make their own decisions without a process? A team that has had its confidence damaged so much that they are unable to resolve their own issues?  

Servant Leadership doesn’t mean doing everything for someone, it means really listening to people, building accountability and helping them to problem solve. In his book The Coaching Habit, Michael Bungay Stanier discusses the importance of listening and asking open questions to help people find their own answers. As coaches, we can sometimes fall into the trap of being ‘the Advice Monster’, which doesn’t actually create a solution, we just think it does! Consider the old saying “Give a person a fish and they are fed for a day. Teach them to fish and they are fed for a life time.” – are we effectively developing our people or are we taking away their autonomy under the guise of service?

One of the best ways to develop people is avoid giving advice all together, even avoid questions alluding to what we think the answer is! We need to engage our curiosity and only ask questions based on what has been said, in order to understand and summarise their answers. This enables others to reflect and find their own way, developing their resourcefulness and problem solving skills.

Pro tip:

Get curious. Ask questions and make a conscious decision to listen. Think about the words they are and aren’t using. How is it being said? Is what we can hear congruent with their body language? When starting from scratch, consider a SWOT analysis tool.

4) Encourages empathy

“Men grow taller when those who lead them empathize and when they are accepted for what they are, even though their performance may be judged critically in terms of what they are capable of doing. Leaders who empathize and who fully accept those who go with them on this basis are more likely to be trusted.”

– Greenleaf , The Servant as Leader on Empathy and Acceptance.

Greenleaf expects the Servant Leader to always empathise and accept the Follower whilst at the same time refusing to accept someone’s work when it is below the expected standard. This is an important balance as if we are 100% empathetic and do not set expectations, we are likely to get walked over and have an underperforming team. Go the other way and we may irreparably damage our relationship with our Followers alongside their morale. Similar to coaching, empathy encourages us to be curious and understand what’s happening with our Follower instead of jumping to conclusions. This in turn will build rapport, as our team begin to trust that we are there to support them.

By merging empathy with setting expectations on performance, our approach will be seen as fair, consistent and based on supporting your team. This will build on our credibility and our teams level of engagement.

Pro tip:

We need to make a conscious decision to be curious and a conscious effort to understand our teams. In his book The Five Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey said “Seek first to understand, then to be understood.” – as difficult as it can be, if we tell our mind that we don’t know the answer, that our beliefs and assumptions may be wrong and that in order to lead a person, we need to first understand them – then we realise that what this person has to say is valuable. When we listen and stay out of judgement, our ability to engage and develop people grows.

5) Leaders become seekers

“One does not awake each morning with the compulsion to reinvent the wheel. But if one is servant, either leader or follower, one is always searching, listening, expecting that a better wheel for these times is in the making.”

As a Servant Leader, we must constantly search for ways to help our people and the organisation to gain an edge. Researching into ways that may help with efficiency, engagement and improvements from an individual level to an organisational one – is one of the principles that makes a Servant Leader effective. The fact that you are here, gives a good indication that you are already on the path!

Like in most things, ego needs to take a backseat here. We don’t have to be the one to create something or come up with a new product or process. There is real power in listening to others, raising their ideas up and collaborating. We don’t have to reinvent the wheel, whilst it’s great if you do! Seeking isn’t about recognition, its about thinking how we can best serve our Followers and our organisation. As Leaders, we need to pass on the recognition for others and take real pride in our actions – self-worth comes from within.

Pro Tip:

Mindset is key. Carl Jung said “Everyone you meet knows something you don’t know but need to know. Learn from them.” – There is a phenomenal amount of resources available in the world, get creative and engage others in the process. Involve people across your organisation, get coached and mentored yourself and attend events where subject matter experts are speaking. There is always something to learn.

6) Engaged and Empowered

“The servant always accepts and empathizes, never rejects. The servant as leader always empathizes, always accepts the person but sometimes refuses to accept some of the person’s effort or performance as good enough.”

Lets break this down into three different Leadership styles. The first one, not described in the quote above but seen within Leadership environments is one that doesn’t accept or empathise with the person and rejects the work shown to them.

How is that Follower feeling?

  • Demotivated
  • Unsupported
  • Unengaged
  • Frustrated

The likely outcome of this is that the Followers morale becomes so low that their work will suffer further and they may even leave (and bring others with them) creating a costly exercise in regards to hiring, training and reputation management.

Looking at the Servant part of the quote, this leader is always empathetic and accepting of their Followers but never challenges unacceptable results.

Take a moment to consider how the Follower is feeling now.

They will likely be feeling:

  • Supported
  • Unchallenged
  • Bored

The likely outcome here is that whilst they may feel supported, they wont be challenged or stretched to their potential. This can lead to disengagement, boredom and taking advantage of their situation.

Greenleaf said that the Servant Leader would be empathetic, accepting but still expect high standards of work and ensure that their Follwers understood that.

Take a moment to consider how the Follower is feeling now.

They will likely be feeling:

  • Supported
  • Appropriately Challenged
  • Motivated
  • Engaged

We talk about engagement all the time here at Develop The Edge, so we wont get into the statistics on why you want your teams to be engaged, we will say however, there isn’t a downside.

Pro tip:

Consider a Followers needs more than their feelings. If you accept substandard work, the only thing you’re serving is your organisation, on a plate to your competitors. Feedback, when it comes from an honest, factual and empathetic place is key to helping people grow. When our teams truly believe our feedback comes from a place of support, they are more likely to be onboard with it. Be tactful with feedback, ensure it’s coming from a supportive place instead of an accusatory one.

7) Long-term vision

 

“The very essence of leadership, going out ahead to show the way, derives from more than usual openness to inspiration. Why would anybody accept the leadership of another except that the other sees more clearly where it is best to go?”

Servant Leaders are required to develop foresight if they are going to serve their Followers, organisation and customers. By developing motivating mission statements and strategic goals, we can help to secure the success of the organisation by giving our Followers an inspiring goal to achieve.

Detachment and foresight are essential leadership traits to work on, use tools such as ORAPAPA to ensure you have considered all aspects, risks and opportunities when making decisions. Our experiences will build on our foresight abilities but tools can help where we have had limited experience.

 

“Foresight is the “lead” that the leader has. Once he loses this lead and events start to force his hand, he is leader in name only. He is not leading; he is reacting to immediate events and he probably will not long be a leader.”

 

Pro tip:

Use Scenario planning to see what the future could look like. In their book ‘The Strategy Workout’, Bernard Ross and Clare Segal discuss the differences between Conventional Planning and Scenario Planning as:

 

8) Ego Eliminator

 

“Servant-leadership is not about a personal quest for power, prestige, or material rewards. Instead, from this perspective, leadership begins with a true motivation to serve others.” – Dr. Ann McGee-Cooper and Duane Trammell.

 

The first person the Ego Eliminator impacts is the Leader. To be effective with this Leadership style, we need to put our thirst for praise, power and promotions to the side. We may in fact still obtain all of the above, specifically because we have put them to the side…but that isn’t the focus point of Servant Leadership. We have to legitimately want to serve others and help them succeed, to put the mission above our own needs. People will know if you are in it for yourself.

The second group to be impacted by the Ego Eliminator are the Followers themselves. When we have a reputation of being a Servant Leader, those around we know that everything we say and do will be to either develop people or secure the success of the organisation. Once we have built this reputation and relationship with our Followers, the feedback will typically be well received as our Followers egos will not be as easily on the defensive. Consider knowing beyond question that someone wants the best for you, then that person offers you constructive feedback on your work, are you more or less likely to have a bruised ego than someone giving you the feedback that isnt invested in your development and that has a reputation for being out for themselves?

Pro Tip:

Be honest, open and consistent with our approach. Take ownership of our teams failures in order to prevent them in the future and pass on praise to lift others up.

“Servant leaders encourage skill and moral development in followers. They are sensitive to the needs of organizational stakeholders and hold themselves accountable for their actions (Graham, 1991).”

 

Conclusion:

In this article we have reviewed 8 great reasons to celebrate Servant Leadership:

  1. Decisions are made for the organisation
  2. Saying ‘No’ is easier and fair
  3. Team Development
  4. Encourages Empathy
  5. Leaders become Seekers
  6. Engaged and Empowered
  7. Long-Term Vision
  8. Ego Eliminator

Do you think we missed anything? Join in the conversation @DevelopTheEdge or @Engage_Leaders

 

Resources for Servant Leadership are available below this article.

We are keen to hear what value has this article added to your day?

RESOURCES:

  • One page guide

Situational Leadership – Shortfalls and Limitations

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If we don’t know the limitations of a Leadership style, how can we be effective within it? How can we prepare for and overcome the barriers  if we are blind to them? This article looks to armour ourselves against some of the main shortfalls and limitations of this widely used and popular Leadership model. If you want to learn more about Situational Leadership before we cover its shortfalls and limitations, we have 6 other articles about it below that cover each style in more detail and the positive aspects to the model:

 

07/09/2021 – Situational Leadership Summary

10/10/2021 – Telling Leadership Article

21/11/2021 – Selling Leadership Article

19/12/2021 – Participating Leadership Article

13/02/2022 – Delegating Leadership Article

13/03/2022 – Pros of Situational Leadership

 

Let’s get stuck in and review the 4 main Shortfalls and Limitations of this model: Consistency, Short-term focus, individuality and evaluation. 

 

Consistency

One of the main concerns with the Situational Leadership model is that it lacks consistency. Imagine one day your leader was supportive and facilitated your teams decision making process. This likely made you feel empowered, trusted, capable, skilled and engaged.

All of a sudden a new project hits and your leader now has had a complete attitude change and uses a highly Directive approach with the team, dictating actions step by step. How are you feeling now?

The lack of consistency in this approach will likely cause confusion, frustration, self doubt and cause motivation to plummet. The leader may look weak or fickle, for not being able to make up their mind and control their emotions. Which is why its should be explained to the team before changing your style to discuss what is happening (see part one for examples on how to do this).

Consistency amongst Followers may also cause conflict. Imagine one of your team mates was consistently given projects where the leader was very flexible with how the project was completed but also ensured that they were available for support. For you however, the leader directed you every step of the way and gave you no creative control of the project. Your ego would likely be bristling right now, thinking the leader has favourites and that this isn’t fair for you. If you are using this style as a Leader and you are treating Followers differently consider these questions:

  1. Have I spoken to the team about this?
  2.  Am I using the right Leadership styles based on Follower Readiness?
  3. How much am I letting my personal feelings impact the Leadership style?

Block and Kennedy (1986) found that most Followers preferred a consistently Participative Leader than a flexible one. So if you are in it for your Followers, consider how you could be more of a Participating and Facilitative leader. On the other side, Heilman, Hornstein, Cage, and Herschlag (1984) found that most superiors of the Leader being evaluated preferred them to have a flexible style instead of a consistent one. 

The key here, is to explain why you are changing your approach, ensure your followers know it’s a purposeful change and not an emotional reaction.

 

Short Term Focus

Situational Leadership looks at the present. It doesn’t have the long term vision that inspires Followers to action. The argument here is that we are treating our Followers based on their skill and mentality now instead of where we want them to be. When we are constantly Leading in the moment, what happens to our long-term vision? If we are Directing our Follower, are we really preparing them for Selling, Participating or Delegating Leadership? 

If your focus is always on the development level of your Followers and their task urgency, you may not be able to detach mentally from the situation in order to check on the variables that are just out of your sight line. What is the use of being present in the moment if you lose sight of the long term strategic goal? Is the situation you’re dealing with now adding value to your team and mission or is there a better way to achieve your objectives?

 

Some questions to consider:

  1. Am I developing my Follower with this approach?
  2. How does this approach get us towards our long-term objectives?
  3. Am I reacting more than planning?

 

Everyone is different (…and the same)

Situational Leadership was built for teams in America, it doesn’t take into consideration differences in cultures, gender, generation or just in general, people. Situational Leadership expects the model to work for everyone at the correct development level.

Realistically, two new Starters may not benefit from the same Directive style. The approach may be well received or ill received based on the persons disposition, values and perceived development level. Some people with high skill in the role may want coaching whilst others just want to know how to quickly fix an issue.

We are all different but we are all also the same. Psychologically speaking, humans tend to react in similar ways, take onboard feedback in similar ways and learn in similar ways. It’s important to acknowledge differences as they arise and adjust our methods accordingly but ego plays a big part in the Leader and Follower relationships which is why transparency is key.

 

Some questions to consider:

  1. Is this approach right for my Followers?
  2. How has each Follower reacted to the styles I’ve used?
  3. What tweaks could I make for this to be more effective?
  4. What other communication techniques can I use alongside this style?
  5. How can I understand what my Followers like and dislike about this style?

 

Evaluating Development Levels

The models success depends on the Leaders ability to correctly identifying the Development level of their follower and the situation at hand. Needless to say this is a very reflective exercise and requires time, skill and patience from the Leader to do accurately. Should a Leader read this wrong, they could miss the mark with their style, becoming ineffective and damaging relationships with their Followers.

Based on the critiques from Block and Kennedy above and Blake and Mouton’s arguments for a consistent leadership style, the Leader could save time and energy by focusing on both people and production, seeing the long term vision instead of having to constantly evaluate which style to use. How mentally taxing would it be for you as a Leader to consistently review your Followers readiness level? How effective would it be for you to evaluate each situation as it arises in order to choose the correct style? 

 

Questions to consider:

  1. How will I know if I have correctly identified my Followers readiness level?
  2. How often will I need to evaluate this?
  3. What criteria will I assess it by?
  4. Would my Followers benefit from a value based leadership style instead?

 

Conclusion

 

As we can see, there are some shortfalls to the model including consistency, the lack of long term vision, it doesn’t take individuals into account and that it takes a skilled and reflective Leader to correctly identify Development levels. of their Followers. Situational Leadership has some great advantages but where it doesn’t fit in with your Leadership approach, consider looking at Blake and Mouton’s Managerial Grid, which favours a much more consistent approach to leadership or a behaviour driven style such as Servant Leadership. What do you think about the Situational Leadership model?

Do the benefits outweigh the shortfalls?