How To Build A Responsibility-Driven Culture

By Emmett C. Murphy, Written for Leadership Expert.

In 2003 Lego lost $238 million due to overly complex designs, failed forays into new markets, and costly licensing ventures.  In 2004 they took previously untried steps to restore integrity and profits.  Lego engaged a group of devoted fans to help them redesign a lagging product—Mindstorms, the company’s customizable robotics kit.  This move broke with the creative team’s history of privacy and exclusiveness.  The “Mindstorms User Panel” wanted to be paid in Lego blocks.  They purchased their own tickets to Denmark for meetings.  They routinely replied to single-line queries from the company with multi-page emails.  They enabled the creation of wildly new and unconventional robots, such as toilet scrubber robots and bulldog robots.  After experiencing the pitfalls of insularity, Lego’s decision to partner with the customer was an act of humility.  It was also an act of responsibility.  Leaders who admit they have a lot to learn, that they make mistakes, and that they can’t run the company alone earn respect and engender responsible attitudes in others.  Three key practices of good leadership stem from humility—and inspire responsibility.

Partner with the Customer—Achieve a Shared Vision

Before Lego partnered with its customers, it was at risk of alienating them. Users had begun losing interest in products they considered too complex.  Leaders who do not believe in the partnership model often act out a predatory model, subordinating the customer’s interests; Lego was heading in that direction.  Instead Lego executives traveled to the world outside the organization to guide the customer to the center of organizational life.  This act overtly recognized the organization’s dependence on the outside world and helped build a stronger ethical relationship between customer and organization.  By “traveling outside” to gain new knowledge, Lego executives created a dynamic organizational model that embraced the “constant” of change and the need for continual adaptation.  By working in close back-and-forth contact with their customers, the leaders at Lego also found that partnering with customers meant achieving a consensus.  Rather than compromising or seeking to win, the customer-partner model describes a synergy that comes from achieving a shared vision.

Connect with the Frontlines—Learn From Those Who Know

Leaders who act with humility aim to achieve a shared vision with everyone in the organization.  They want to understand the perspectives of those at the frontlines and adapt to accommodate those perspectives.  Recently Brian Dunn, the chief executive of Best Buy, expressed his faith in following the frontlines—he had been a frontliner himself once.  As a teenager working at a grocery store he had interacted with customers on a daily basis.  His manager regularly asked him what he thought of new policies—for example, the store’s policy of having customers load their own groceries.  “I know it seems simple,” Dunn said in a recent interview with The New York Times, “but just that notion of learning from people who are actually doing the work, and the encouragement he gave me to tell him exactly what I thought really stayed with me.”  Leaders motivated by fear or arrogance remain aloof, removed from their employees.  Those motivated by humility remain physically present and personally connected; they fear ignorance more than they fear confronting mistakes or problems.  Humility drives responsibility:  when leaders focus on customer needs, they train others at the frontlines and elsewhere to move beyond self-interest too.

Understand Work Roles—Don’t Place Blame

Strong leaders respect the careers of others as much as they respect their own. Rather than assuming they know what’s going on in the workplace, leaders driven by humility make a practice of asking questions to understand what others do and what they need.  They practice active listening and seek out quiet environments to interact with others without distractions.  They empathize with their associates and ultimately empower them by reinforcing strengths and resources.  When problems arise, worksheets and scripts can help a leader chart an individual’s work life in a pragmatic and open-minded way.  The work-life map then serves as a tool for learning what changes need to be made.  When a leader finds misalignment in an individual’s work-life map, he or she practices humility by avoiding blame.  The goal of assessments is to transform problems into opportunities and to encourage others to take responsibility for their work, not to engage in a blaming game.

The most responsible leaders don’t let pride get in the way of progress.  They seek a purpose for leadership beyond self-interest, which helps them create partnerships—with customers, frontliners, and associates.  You might say that when Lego solicited its staunchest fans to help with product development, it pioneered one of its best designs yet.

Emmett Murphy, Ph.D., is Founder and President of Murphy Leadership (www.murphyleadership.com), a global leadership consultancy.  Murphy is the author of several books including Talent IQ.   He is currently at work on his new book, Entrepreneurial IQ.

The 4 Essentials Of Strategic Thinking

Is your organization spending too much time seemingly rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic? Are the senior decision makers consistently voicing the need to make substantial change in the face of a complex and dynamic environment yet no real change takes place? Is the organization spending a great deal of time planning strategically but the answers to the questions keep coming out the same? Perhaps the problem is not with the answers, but with the questions. Perhaps strategic planning, a management process, is inappropriate for finding the path to change. Instead what is required is a leadership process, such as strategic thinking, that calls into question all the questions being asked.

Looking for the Right Questions

Simply stated, if an organization does not do strategic thinking before it does strategic planning, it is the same as rearranging those deck chairs. Why? Because in the end no one really cares where the deck chairs are positioned on the lounge deck if there is a great big hole in the boat, i.e., the big hole in the boat presents a much more pressing problem.

Strategic planning is about finding the right “answers” to questions. In strategic planning the questions already exist, they have been decided. On the other hand, strategic thinking is an imaginative process designed to assure that key decision makers are asking themselves the right questions. Strategic thinking does not start with a set of questions. It starts with the proverbial clean sheet of paper. Decision makers form no preconceived questions, disregard any ideas of what works and what does not, making no assumptions about the organization. Optimally, the process includes a healthy vertical and horizontal cross section of the organization. Why? Because you never know where the most valuable information might come from.

But more than that, strategic thinking is an effort to develop industry foresight. As Gary Hamel and CK Prahalad write in their book Competing for the Future, industry foresight often starts with what could be, and then works back to what must happen for that future to come about. Questions are the root of all knowledge, and crafting the right questions provides senior decision makers the ability to imagine the future in the context of present and future risks and threats.

An Overview of a Strategic Thinking Process

Threats or Risks-start with that clean sheet of paper. The process begins with assessing the threats or risks, both internal and external, to the organization. Said another way, it is vital for the senior decision makers to know the internal and external forces impacting their future. Emerging trends in technology, new competitors, customer service, and succession planning could all pose different types of risks or threats. The idea is to get everything on the table so that it is in full view of the decision makers.

Strengths-R&D investment, financial structure, timely distribution, active web and Blog presence and developing people may very well be strengths of the organization. Strengths provide leverage that can be used to gain specific industry advantages or buffer weaknesses. For example, the organization may have a robust web and Blog presence on the Internet having cultivated a large loyal fan base. These relationships are a substantial strength that can be used to assess and develop new products and services.

Weaknesses-What is it that the organization is not doing so well, that needs improvement or is having a negative systemic effect on the rest of the organizations operations or administration? Seeking weaknesses is not an exercise in seeking blame. Inappropriate organization structure, human capital retention, lack of leadership development programs may well be some of the issues that emerge as weaknesses.

Gaps-Identifying the gaps between the strengths and weaknesses as they relate to the real and perceived risks require some type of response and become the grist for the strategic planning mill. Now strategic and tactical strategies can be created, resources and assets assigned and prioritized and the day-to-day job of creating the future and closing the gaps is turned from imagination into reality.

Conclusion

In our rapidly changing, complex world filled with more information than one might have imagined just a few years ago, sorting through the facts, the hype and emerging issues and challenges drives the need to continually rework the organization’s collective foresight. To do otherwise, may result in a small leak turning into a big hole leaving the crew and passengers scampering for the lifeboats saying to themselves, “But I thought we were unsinkable!”

Author: www.leadsimm.com

Leadership Development

Leadership-Expert™ is dedicated to helping you develop your skills as a leader. Over the past 3 years I have helped nearly half a million people worldwide to access powerful, transformational leadership resources and learning opportunities. Much of the information on this site is free. There is also a comprehensive range of leadership training and leadership coaching solutions for new line managers, right the way through to Executive leadership courses. I have trawled the 30 million leadership pages of the internet and have brought the very best leadership solutions to you to save you the time and energy we all waste looking elsewhere. How many times did you start by seeking some information from a website and leaving after only 2 minutes, because you didn’t have the time to read everything; but before you know it a couple of hours have passed you by, because you are still searching. I have done all that for you, so there is no need to look elsewhere.

Leadership development is something we all seek at some point in our career. It inevitably begins when we are first thrust into a management role.

We are left asking the questions like ‘What is good leadership?’ and ‘How can I become a good leader?’

I love these questions. I get asked by so many people at different levels in different organisations. What they scream out to me is just how many people positively yearn to be great leaders. They want to reach into peoples hearts and minds to help them grow and thrive. They want to build trust, earn respect and unleash their teams energy to win. One of my readers recently emailed me saying his goal is to be remembered by his team as the very best boss they ever had.

While some leaders are born, they can also be made. You can learn to become a leader. And that’s where leadership development fits in.

Leadership development can take varying forms, depending on what your preferred learning style is and how long you have to develop yourself.

The table below outlines some of the certificated leadership development opportunities that are open to you. Some of these learning methods include a qualification, where-as other don’t. Some people need the theoretical and academic achievement for career progression and others are more interested in practical, workable, ‘on-the-ground’ solutions that give immediate results. These programmes cater for every need. So to find the best way for you to learn to become an authentic and accomplished leader, see what’s available in the table below based on your current role, or the one you aspire to and then click on the relevant links below:

Learning resources	New manager/ newly promoted	Middle management	Senior management	Executive/ CEO/Talent	Entrepreneur
Leadership books	X	X	X	X	X
Leadership toolkit	X	X	X	X	X
Leadership videos	X	X	X		X
Leadership news and articles	X	X	X	X	X
Leadership courses	X	X	X		X
Executive courses				X
Leadership coach	X	X	X	X	X
Leadership qualifications	X	X	X	X	X
Bespoke leadership training			X	X	X

 

Clicking in each area will take you through the dedicated programmes which you can access directly through Leadership-Expert or with the companies I recommend.

Leadership Books:

Leadership Toolkit:

Leadership Videos:

Leadership news and articles – click here to subscribe for free, if you are not already a member of our growing leadership community and I will send you the weekly leadership updates.

Leadership Courses:

Executive Courses:

Leadership Coaching programmes:

Leadership qualifications:

Bespoke Leadership Training:

Click here to find out what others say about the leadership development programmes. TESTIMONIALS

In terms of your own leadership development, the real question is what do I need to learn and how will I know when I am a great leader? The fact is, being a leader changes everything. Before you became a leader, success was all about growing yourself. It was about your achievement, your performance. It was all about you. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others. It’s about making the people who now work for you, smarter and bolder, unlocking and releasing their full potential. So the dichotomy is this – I’m not sure that you will ever find out if you are a great leader or not – it’s almost a posthumous title. Andrew Carnegie, one of the most successful and wealthy leaders of his day has on his tombstone. ‘Here lies a man who knew how to get around him, people who were cleverer than he.’

*Leadership-Expert™ Courses are designed by Simon Teague LLP, a UK Government registered training provider (UKRPN: 10035854). Simon Teague is a UK National Training Award winning coach and fully qualified teacher/trainer. He is a fellow if the International School of Finance, Associate of Institute for Learning and a fully qualified Best Year Yet Coach.

If you would like a quote for bespoke leadership training and coaching please email us directly at simon@simonteague.com

I’m not an organisation. I’m an individual. How can I improve my leadership skills?

Like many things in life – if you look in the right places, you’ll always be able to find a great resource for a bargain. Leadership development is completely intertwined with the idea of self-investment. All excellent leaders regularly invest in themselves – sometimes to great expense. But if you follow my guidance, you’ll be able to build your skills for the minimum cost.

See other links:

Leadership Development Training : What is leadership training? How much does it Cost?

Leadership Development Programme : What is a leadership programme? How to build a successful one.

Leadership development assessment: Companies like Leadership Connections can undertake comprehensive assessment to help you select, identify, develop and retain your leaders and improve leadership in your organisation.

Leadership Classes : Are leadership classes an effective way to boost your leadership ability?

Leadership Training : Is formalised training always the answer?

Leadership Courses : The trend towards personal study is increasing.

Leadership Coaching : Is one-on-one coaching the solution to the leadership problems of large companies?

If you would like to discuss how Leadership-Expert might be able to help you develop your leadership skills with the range of leadership development training and coaching programmes we have available or can access through our research of the best leadership training programmes on the market, please email simon@simonteague.com and we will respond to you within 24 hours.

 

Examples Of Poor Leadership

History has presented us with plenty of examples of poor leadership. Some notable recent examples of poor leadership:

1. Richard Fuld – Allowed excessive risk taking and poor governance drive Lehman Brothers neatly into the ground.

2. Sir Allen Stanford – Showed a blatant disregard for integrity and commited fraud on a vast scale via his corporation Standford Financial Group. The SEC has recently described the scandal as a ‘Ponzi Scheme’

3. Rick Wagoner – Displayed a lack of strategic oversight while CEO at General Motors. The period of time he was at the helm – GM’s stock price plummeted by 90%. His strategies were simply not forward looking – and GM fell behind competition vastly in terms of cost cutting and product innovation. Rick was forced to stand down as CEO in return for receiving government aid in 2009.

Examples Of Poor Leadership Traits

Impatience. Leaders who don’t fully appreciate that good strategy takes time to implement, and that iniatives need room to develop and mature, invariably will frustrate and increase the stress of those beneath them. Constantly unrealistic demands will demoralise and sap away loyalty.

Aggression. There is no place for fear in the boardroom, and yet it still persists in badly led companies across the world. Women as well as men are perfectly capable of being aggressive torwards their collegues, and let me assure you that there is little else you could do that would cause a such a rapid loss of respect.

Insincerity. Insincerity is the underminer of all policy, all intiative, all strategy and all success in leadership. A word you speak without conviction might as well have not been spoken at all and may even cause damage. A leader might be able to bluff for a few months, but once they’re found out – the stack of cards will fall and your ‘greatest asset’ will be grabbing their pitck forks before you can say ‘lynch’.

Incompetence. Using the steel magnate Andrew Carnegie as an example – you do not have to be expert in your companies field to be able to lead a company brilliantly. Andrew famously praised his management team as knowing more about steel than he did – and this honest admission not only motivated his team, but reflected his own culture of respect.

At contrast to this however, is pretending to be an industry expert when you still have much to learn from the ‘Dumbies Guide to your industry’. Your secret will likely be discovered at the companies most critical time, and your employment prospects won’t look too peachy thereafter.

Simon Oates – Leadership Expert

Why Does Leadership Training Fail To Produce Leaders?

Great leadership is one of the keys to long-term organisational success; so how come there seems to be such a shortage? In the corridors of political power, and in the boardrooms of large and small organisations, we regularly hear the questions: “Where is the inspired leadership we crave?”, “Where is our next generation of leaders coming from?”, “Where is the flair and inspiration we need to take us to the next level?”

If asked, you could probably say what ‘leadership’ is. Like everyone else, you’ve read the books and seen the leadership competency frameworks. You could clearly describe how it feels to be well and poorly led – you ‘know it when you see it’. But how many current great world leaders can you name off the top of your head? How many great leaders are there in your organisation now?

Why do so many people, knowing what good leadership is, fail to demonstrate it themselves? The first place to look is in the learning environment where leaders are usually developed.

What They Didn’t Teach You about Leadership

1. There is an imbalance in leadership training. There is not enough emphasis on the skills, central to great leadership, of inspiring others with beliefs, vision, values and attitude; and too much emphasis on the importance of systems, planning, measurement, budgets, controls and procedures – in short, on management! Does any great leader ever manage people into following him? No, he inspires them, motivates them, keeps them in touch with the bigger vision – he leads them.

2. As a business leader, you have probably been well trained in logic and analysis. But a key leadership skill is the application of ‘emotional intelligence’ – the ability to know when things are ‘true’ or when they are ‘off’, when people are truly inspired, or just paying lip service. As a leader you need emotional intelligence to manage your own and others’ emotions, and you need skills appropriate to this task. Trying to do it by analysis and logic is about as effective as trying to drive a car by studying from a manual how the engine works.

3. People, especially in the business world, tend to avoid emotion – expressing it, dealing with it, looking at where it came from and its role in a situation. The rationale for not dealing with emotion, the very essence of leadership, is that all ‘this emotion stuff’ is ‘not professional’! Not so: it’s only ‘unprofessional’ to suppress emotion or express it inappropriately. When all ‘this emotion stuff’ is not explored and resolved in leadership groups, it always produces long-term tensions and political battles. These cause acute stress in individuals and cripple organisational effectiveness and efficiency. At the same time, they also destroy satisfaction, joy, fun, friendship, health, trust and a good night’s sleep!

4. Leadership skills like vision, inspiration and emotional intelligence can be trained on training courses – but it takes a different kind of course. In most leadership training programmes you will see models of leadership discussed, followed by practical exercises that analyse logically what went right and wrong in a ‘leadership game’. It’s all familiar and fun, but what’s being taught are the elements that underpin leadership, not the essence of leadership.

How Can You Learn to ‘Do’ Great Leadership?

There are two effective routes to successful leadership, depending on your budget. If you are a large company, then a leadership coach is certainly your best option. A good coach can help you develop skills appropriate to your working situation, and hence help you build competencies that you know will improve your performance.

Adapted from an article written by – http://www.shineconsulting.co.uk

The Pursuit Of Something Better – Review

If you’re looking for a review of “The Pursuit Of Something Better” then you’ve come to the right place. I’m currently reading an advance copy, and will be publishing Leadership Expert’s official review within a week, so stay tuned!

Introduction

‘The Pursuit Of Something Better’ follows the story of  US Cellular – a regional telecoms company, through its journey to becoming home to one of the most vibrant and motivated cultures in the USA. As an underdog in the telecoms industry – US Cellular has to fight to survive in the modern world, but the employees fight for it, due to their extreme loyalty and pride.

On one day every year, the managers from across the organisation leave their positions to attend a conference that announces the results of something very dear to them – the annual employee satisfaction questionnaire. Grass-root staff rise to the challenge and the company ticks over just fine without them. The atmosphere at the conference is likened to that of a concert – not an annual review. What on earth has happened at this company to drive such enthusiasm?

Well, you’ll have to buy the book yourself to find out!

Review

Review is coming soon!

Purchase

This title was released on the 15th of August 2009.

You can pre-order this book on Amazon UK here

If you’d like to read a review of this book on other blogs, you can visit here and here.

Managing Generation Y

‘Generation Y’ is the affectionate name given to the demographic cohort that was born between 1980 – 1995, although specific definitions do vary. This group hence forms today’s teenagers and twenty-somethings – a group highly sought after by large recruiters, and whom form the solid base of employees for many multinationals. The problem of how to lead this generation is a hot topic.

What Are Businesses Doing To Attract Generation Y?

As competition has increased among the large graduate recruiters to attract the best ‘Generation Y’ talent, they have been fighting among themselves to paint the best picture of their own workplace. Of course, promises have to be met, and so in painting their company in this brighter way, they have indirectly led to progressive changes in the workplace. These new changes to the working environment include:

1. More flexible working hours for a better work/life balance. (Example – ‘The Big Four‘)

2. Guaranteed acceptance onto management training programmes after preconditions have been met. (Example – Enterprise Rent a Car)

3. Extensive induction training.

4. The opportunity to rotate round departments and roles. (Example – Unilever, P&G and Johnson & Johnson)

5. Higher reliance upon internal promotions to fill vacancies.

It is clear that the recruiters believe that generation Y care less about salary and traditional benefits, and more about the pursuit of an interesting, fulfilling and and less stressful job than their parents. This trend definitely seems to be following the general shift away from Fordism factory workers, and towards independent, respected and empowered workers, that has been taking place in the last century.

What Are Businesses Are Doing To Lead Generation Y?

When it comes to leading ‘Generation Y’ – new leadership styles have evolved to compliment the new ‘people -orientated’ workplace. These have manifested into:

1. Annual reviews taking a more personal development focus, rather than productivity. Managers are trying to adopt more of a ‘coaching’ and ‘supportive’ role. Managers are told to encourage and train employees so that in the future they are able to take their place.

2. A more democratic and team-based way of working – where ‘on-the-job’ training is becoming more popular, and instructions on how to actually ‘get the work done’ is now coming from from experienced teammates more often than the manager.

Do These Methods Actually Work?

The evidence isn’t very clear on this issue. Despite all these new initiatives and opportunities that ‘Generation Y’s parents dreamed of, these young workers are extremely likely to leave a company they join after a short period of time (every 4-5 years on average), which is a far higher rate of turnover than their parents, the ‘baby boomers’.

I believe that this is happening for 2 main reasons. Firstly – only a fraction of companies are actually fulfilling the promises made to potential job candidates. The hype that recruiters drum up is unsustainable and almost impossible for companies to deliver on. This it doesn’t surprise me one bit to discover that graduates are continually drawn to the ‘greener’ grass on the other side of the hill.

Secondly, and this is linked with the first reason, managers are going about implementing these initiatives in a reluctant way and unsatisfactory way. Either managers are attaching too many ‘novelty’ initiatives to rudimentary and menial jobs – such that the employee feels like it’s all a show, or managers are only introducing leadership techniques as part of a ‘token’ effort.

For instance, I’m in disbelief at the number of times I’ve heard managers undermine their human resource counterparts with phrases such as “Now, I’ve been told by the people above to tell you that …”. This sort of attitude in implementing policies if effectively negating any positive effect they were supposed to bring.

Therefore I would argue that, while it appears that ‘Generation Y’ workers are extremely unappreciative of the benefits and perks that exist today – these so-called perks only exist in policy and paper and aren’t created or supported with sincere intention from managers. In fact – this move towards pseudo-policy is alienating our Gen Y workers, and this may be able to explain why they are constantly on the move.

My Recommendation

Changes that companies have made to their leadership and human resource strategies have been well thought out, and do add good value to the role a company could offer a graduate. However I believe that to be able to lead Generation Y effectively, the focus must then be on educating and training managers to sincerely back these new efforts.

Leadership Styles – Autocratic vs Democratic vs Bureaucratic

Research and investigation into different management leadership styles has been fragmented and inconsistent. The key to good leadership development is a good knowledgebase.  That’s why we bring you an in-depth look at 3 key leadership styles that will highlight the benefits and shortfalls commonly associated with each. These styles are autocratic, democratic and bureaucratic. But enough talking – lets get stuck in!

What is Autocratic Leadership?

Autocratic leadership is a classical leadership style with the following characteristics:

1. Manager seeks to make as many decisions as possible

2. Manager seeks to have the most authority and control in decision making

3. Manager seeks to retain responsibility rather than utilise complete delegation

4. Consultation with other colleagues in minimal and decision making becomes a solitary process

5. Managers are less concerned with investing their own leadership development, and prefer to simply work on the task at hand.

The autocratic leadership style is seen as an old fashioned technique. It has existed as long as managers have commanded subordinates, and is still employed by many leaders across the globe. The reason autocratic leadership survives, even if it is outdated, is because it is intuitive, carries instant benefits, and comes natural to many leaders. Many leaders who start pursuing leadership development are often trying to improve upon their organisations autocratic leadership style.

What Are The Benefits Of The Autocratic Leadership Style?

Despite having many critics, the autocratic leadership styles offer many advantages to managers who use them. These include:

Reduced stress due to increased control. Where the manager ultimately has significant legal and personal responsibility for a project, it will comfort them and reduce their stress levels to know that they have control over their fate.

A more productive group ‘while the leader is watching’. The oversight that an autocratic manager exerts over a team improves their working speed and makes them less likely to slack. This is ideal for poorly motivated employees who have little concern or interest in the quality or speed of work performed.

Improved logistics of operations. Having one leader with heavy involvement in many areas makes it more likely that problems are spotted in advance and deadlines met. This makes autocratic leadership ideal for one-off projects with tight deadlines, or complicated work environments where efficient cooperation is key to success.

Faster decision making. When only one person makes decisions with minimal consultation, decisions are made quicker, which will allow the management team to respond to changes in the business environment more quickly.

What Are The Disadvantages Of The Autocratic Leadership Style?

Short-termistic approach to management. While leading autocratically will enable faster decisions to be made in the short term, by robbing subordinates of the opportunity to gain experience and start on their own leadership development,  and learn from their mistakes, the manager is actually de-skilling their workforce which will lead to poorer decisions and productivity in the long run.

Manager perceived as having poor leadership skills. While the autocratic style has merits when used in certain environments (as highlighted below), autocratic leadership style is easy yet unpopular. Managers with poor leadership skills with often revert to this style by default.

Increased workload for the manager. By taking on as much responsibility and involvement as possible, an autocratic leader naturally works at their full capacity, which can lead to long term stress and health problems and could damage working relationships with colleagues. This hyper-focus on work comes at the expense of good leadership development.

People dislike being ordered around. They also dislike being shown very little trust and faith. As a result, the autocratic leadership style can result in a demotivated workforce. This results in the paradox that autocratic leadership styles are a good solution for demotivated workers, but in many cases, it is the leadership style alone that demotivates them in the first place. Generation Y employees particularly dislike this style.

Teams become dependent upon their leader. After becoming conditioned to receive orders and act upon them perfectly, workers lose initiative and the confidence to make decisions on their own. This results in teams of workers who become useless at running operations if they loose contact with their leader. This is the result of a lack of time dedicated to leadership development on the employees part.

When is the Autocratic Leadership Style Effective?

Following on from the merits and drawbacks listed above, the autocratic leadership style is useful in the following work situations:

1. Short term projects with a highly technical, complex or risky element.

2. Work environments where spans of control are wide and hence the manager has little time to devote to each employee.

3. Industries where employees need to perform low-skilled, monotonous and repetitive tasks and generally have low levels of motivation.

4. Projects where the work performed needs to be completed to exact specifications and/or with a tight deadline.

5. Companies that suffer from a high employee turnover, i.e. where time and resources devoted to leadership development would be largely wasted. Although one could argue that a lack of leadership development in the first place caused the high turnover.

What is Democratic Leadership?

Democratic Leadership is the leadership style that promotes the sharing of responsibility, the exercise of delegation and continual consultation. The style has the following characteristics: 1. Manager seeks consultation on all major issues and decisions. 2. Manager effectively delegate tasks to subordinates and give them full control and responsibility for those tasks. 3. Manager welcomes feedback on the results of intiatives and the work environment. 4. Manager encourages others to become leaders and be involved in leadership development.

What Are The Benefits Of The Democratic Leadership Style?

Positive work environment. A culture where junior employees are given fair amount of responsibility and are allowed to challenge themselves is one where employees are more enthused to work and enjoy what they do. Successful initiatives. The process of consultation and feedback naturally results in better decision making and more effective operations. Companies run under democratic leadership tend to run into fewer grave mistake and catastrophes. To put it simply – people tell a democratic leader when something is going badly wrong, while employees are encouraged to simply hide it from an autocrat. Creative thinking. The free flow of ideas and positive work environment is the perfect catalyst for creative thinking.  The benefits of this aren’t just relevant for creative industries, because creative thinking is required to solve problems in every single organisation, whatever it’s nature. Reduction of friction and office politics. By allowing subordinates to use their ideas and even more importantly – gain credit for them, you are neatly reducing the amount of tension employees generate with their manager. When autocratic leaders refuse to listen to their workers, or blatantly ignore their ideas, they are effectively asking for people to talk behind their back and attempt to undermine or supercede them. Reduced employee turnover. When employees feel empowered through leadership development, a company will experience lower rates of employee turnover which has numerous benefits. A company that invests in leadership development for its employees, is investing in their future, and this is appreciated by a large majority of the workforce.

What Are The Disadvantages Of The Democratic Leadership Style?

Lengthy and ‘boring’ decision making. Seeking consultation over every decision can lead to a process so slow that it can cause opportunities to be missed, or hazards avoided too late. Danger of pseudo participation. Many managers simply pretend to follow a democratic leadership style simply to score a point in the eyes of their subordinates. Employees are quick to realise when their ideas aren’t actually valued, and that the manager is merely following procedure in asking for suggestions, but never actually implementing them. In other words, they’re simply exerting autocratic leadership in disguise.

When Is The Democratic Leadership Style Effective?

Now you’ve heard about the benefits and drawbacks of this leadership style, let’s look at where its actually implemented in the business world. 1. Democratic leadership is applied to an extent in the manufacturing industry, to allow employees to give their ideas on how processes can become leaner and more efficient. While ‘Fordism’ is still applied in some factories across the country, truth is that production managers are now really starting to harness the motivational bonuses associated with not treating employees like robots anymore. 2. Democratic leadershp is effective in proffessional organisations where the emphasis is clearly on training, professional & leadership development and quality of work performed. Democratic procedures are simply just one cog in the effective leadership mechanisms firms like The Big Four have created over the years. 3. Non profit organisations also tremendously benefit from drawing upon the creative energies of all their staff to bring about cost cutting techniques or fund raising ideas. 4. As previously mentioned, creative industries such as advertising and television enjoy alot of benefits from the free flow of ideas that democratic leadership brings.

What Is Bureaucratic Leadership?

The bureaucratic leadership style is concerned with ensuring workers follow rules and procedures accurately and consistently. Bureaucratic leadership normally has the following characteristics: 1. Leaders expect a employees to display a formal, business-like attitude in the workplace and between each other. 2. Managers gain instant authority with their position, because rules demand that employees pay them certain priveledges, such as being able to sign off on all major decisions. As a result, leaders suffer from ‘position power’. Leadership development becomes pointless, because only titles and roles provide any real control or power. 3. Employees are rewarded for their ability to adhere to the rules and follow procedure perfectly. 4. Bureaucratic systems usually gradually develop over a long period of time, and hence are more commonly found in large & old businesses.

What Are The Benefits Of The Bureaucratic Leadership Style?

Increased safety. In dangerous workplaces where procedures save lives, a bureaucratic management style can help enforce health and safety rules. Quality work. Some tasks, such as completing proffessional work or medical examinations, need to be done in a meticulous fashion to be done correctly. Laziness can result in poor work, and hence one solution is to enforce the rules via the bureacratic leadership style. Ultimate control. An environment whereby employees are intrinsically motivated to follow rules in order to be promoted and succeed results in the tightest control management can ever assume over a company. This control can be used to cut costs or improve productivity.

What Are The Disadvantages Of The Bureaucratic Leadership Style?

Dehumanises the business. Bureacratic companies tend to remove as much potential for ‘human error’ out of the picture as possible. Unfortunately this also has the effect of removing all the enjoyment and reward that comes from deciding how to do a task and accomplishing it. Lack of self-fulfillment. The bureaucratic way of working hampers employees efforts to become successful and independent, because the system becomes too contraining. Parkinson’s Law. Cyril Northcote Parkinson made the scientific observation that the number of staff in bureaucracies increased by an average of 5%-7% per year “irrespective of any variation in the amount of work (if any) to be done.”". He explains this growth by two forces: (1) “An official wants to multiply subordinates, not rivals” and (2) “Officials make work for each other.” Parkinson’s findings suggest that bureaucratic leadership encourages inefficiency and waste of internal resources in the long run. ‘Position power’ obessession. After working in an environment that reinforces the idea that authority is created by rules which in turn support senior positions. Employees become attached to the idea that simply being in a job position creates authority. This can lead to intense office politics, arrogant leaders and little incentive to perform well once an employee has landed a top job. Lack of creativity. It goes without saying that a rule-based culture hinders creativity and encourages workers to simply perform puppet-like work rather than think independently. This may result in a lack of growth in the business due to employees simply not thinking out of the box or looking for new areas to develop. Poor communication. A common feature of a bureaucratic system is a complicated network of communication lines. Managers who don’t want to be ‘bothered’ by junior staff simply create procedures that allow them to avoid communicating with those below them. ‘Go through the formal process’, ‘Talk to my secretary’ and ‘My schedule is full’ are common rule-based excuses for blocked contact. Barriers to communication can hinder the success of any company. For example, the board may be charging ahead with a doomed product simply because their shop floor workers cannot pass on the message that customers are giving very negative feedback.

When Is The Bureaucratic Leadership Style Effective?

Bureaucratic leadership is found in extremely large corporations such as General Electric, Daimler and General Motors. However these cultures have evolved due to the age and size of these companies, and are generally blamed for the slow growth and recent failures at these companies. 1. Governmental bodies often have bureaucratic systems, and while these are often despised by the public, they ensure accountability to the tax payer and fair treatment for all. Excessive form-filling also serves the purpose of passing effort from the government authority (with a tight budget) onto the individual, helping to save costs. 2. Dangerous workplaces such as mines, oil rigs, construction sites and film sets all benefit from the tight control over health and safety that rules offer.

What Different Leadership Types Are There?

These 3 key management leadership styles are by no means a comprehensive list. Different leadership styles include laissez faire leadership, where the leader sets tasks and leaves workers up to their own devices to complete it.

To help you discover which leadership style you possess, try our new:

Leadership Style Questionnaire.

Leadership Development

Leadership development is a complicated area, and thus countless styles have been theorised and researched. Good leadership development often involves using resources such as Leadership Expert to be ‘sift’ through these different leadership development tips and ideas. Once you’ve been able to pull together a solid leadership development plan for yourself, you can start to really engage your employees – and maybe even set them off on their own leadership development quest!

Leadership Expert also has articles on another leadership style: charismatic leadership. You may also want to read our articles on leadership theories and common leadership traits.

 

Expert Guide To Leadership Classes

Are Leadership Classes for you?

Due to wide and varied nature of leadership, and a variety of different needs, leadership classes can take several different forms.

Personal Leadership Classes

A one-on-one leadership class is also known as leadership coaching, and can be really effective at improving leadership skills. Leadership coaches normally charge between £40-£100 per hour, but they’ll also spend time preparing for your meeting too. These sessions will help you set goals for your personal development, and your coach will ensure that you’re keeping up with your commitments to fulfill those goals. Your coach can also suggest practical techniques and actions for you to use during your work. Coaches normally have a wealth of experience, and so hopefully you can learn from their tips and previous mistakes and effectively apply the technique yourself.

In a different approach, smart people have often sought out useful leadership books and learning material that will help them along the path to happiness and leadership. These days, most tend to be rather disappointing, but one e-course that is still respected by leadership professionals such as myself is ‘The Ultimate Leadership Guide‘, which I consider an essential ‘crash course’ in the principles you need to know to further your leadership & career and even help find happiness in other areas of your life.

Group Leadership Classes

These types of leadership class usually involve 3-10 people and resemble group therapy classes. The ‘students’ are led by a teacher who seeks to engage and interact with every member as much as posssible. Less attention is paid to personal achievement, and the class becomes a platform to teach and share ideas and experiences concerning leadership styles and techniques. An example of a current leadership class is the Next Generation Leadership Programme from the Institute of Family Businesses.

Leadership Seminars/ Conferences

Leadership conferences are led by a highly paid motivational speaker who is capable of speaking confidently and energetically to crowds of thousands. I personally believe that these seminars are the least effective form of leadership class, but that is to be expected, as the cost per head is significantly lower than a personal leadership coach.

Charismatic Leadership

Charismatic leadership is all about a superhero act. In an article titled “What exactly is charisma?” published in Fortune on January 15, 1996, Patricia Sellers says, “Charisma is a tricky thing. Jack Kennedy oozed it – but so did Hitler and Charles Manson. Con artists, charlatans, and megalomaniacs can make it their instrument as effectively as the best CEO’s, entertainers, and Presidents. Used wisely, it’s a blessing; indulged, it can be a curse. Charismatic visionaries lead people ahead, and sometimes astray.”

Practitioners of charismatic leadership have a firm belief that they can lead followers by unleashing their personal charm and grace. You can recognize one by the way he or she interacts with others – making each person feel like the most special on the planet!

While charismatic leadership is most often employed in the political arena where a large number of people have to be influenced within a short time, using little or no personal contact, it can be applied equally in a business situation. The leader seeks a “fan following”, and a devotion among followers which is usually absent from other forms of leadership. You can think of at least a couple of U.S. Presidents who had an almost hypnotic effect.

Charismatic leadership involves a great deal of theatrical behavior. A charismatic leader is a persuasive speaker, and a master of body language. Charismatic leaders are great at reading the occasion, and will tailor their behavior to suit the mood. At the same time, they are willing to take personal risk and make sacrifices in order to build their own credibility and trustworthiness in the eyes of their followers. Once their leadership is established, they will try to carve a distinct identity for their group of followers, and build an image of superiority for it. At the same time, these leaders identify themselves so strongly with the group that the group and the leader become nearly synonymous.

Academics have identified the following four stages of charismatic leadership:

Creating a new vision: Charismatic leaders are able to assess unfulfilled needs and opportunities in their environment and project their vision for a future without any shortcomings.

Articulating the vision: The leader will be able to communicate his belief in the vision to his followers and convince them of its viability.

Building trust: The next phase of charismatic leadership involves engendering trust among group members and securing their commitment.

Achieving the vision: The leader will set a personal example and empower others in order to sustain motivation so that the vision can be realized.

It may sound strange, but charismatic leadership is not necessarily an inborn trait. It can be learned and perfected, usually by watching the actions of other charismatic leader role models and modifying behavior in certain ways.

It is important to note that charismatic leadership can be a double edged sword. It all boils down to the motives of the leader. Charismatic leaders can be a bit insincere, more concerned about themselves than their followers. Such a tendency towards narcissism can do a great deal of damage to organizations. On the other hand, if their heart is in the right place, charismatic leaders can work magic like no other.

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