Leadership strategies vary in nature and are very dependent on the situations. Leaders need to adopt different strategies for different tasks by taking their contexts into consideration. Sometimes, you can be a free spirit and ask your team members to be open to their creative spirit and achieve the best! But that might not work in all situations where team members yield for strict and vivid directions to complete their task. Here are five killer leadership strategies that might work better for you with different teams:
Strategy of non-interference
According to
Boise Motivational Speaker , this strategy is based on the premise that a team can manage their task on their own and a manager’s interference is hardly required. The problem with this strategy is that your non-interference approach might be construed as your weakness and you are shying away from your responsibilities or passing the buck on to another leader. If you are adopting this strategy simply because you are short of time, or you don’t want to lead the project, or you don’t like it – or the team, then it’s an ineffective strategy.
If on the other hand, you are trying to develop leadership or testing the leadership skills of someone in your team it can work well. However, in this strategy, you have to lead from behind and extend support to your “trainee leader” letting them excel on their own. You will have to show your leadership through delegation.
Benevolent leadership
Some leaders love democratic, quiet and peaceful life for everyone to generate better results. This is based on the premise that a happy team is a productive team. In reality, although people do love non-interfering approach and peaceful environment it can also lead to an unmanaged and unorganized team where little gets achieved. The fun environment at work place is fine, but a leader needs to control the situation in a way that fun leads to the realization of the goals and objectives of the organization. This strategy may work better on small projects, rather than time-bound serious ones where there is a lot at stake.
Autocratic leadership
It is just the opposite of benevolent strategy. This presents leaders as hard task masters who believe in using a stick rather than a carrot. This strategy dictates terms and says to people, “You’re here to do a job, not to have fun; do it as I say and we’ll all be happy.” This strategy can get the job done but might result in rubbing people the wrong way causing resentment among your team. It may work on time-bound important projects where a high degree of accuracy is required and where your experience, knowledge, and supervision are vital.
Coaching approach
In today’s competitive age, coaching has assumed significant importance to get desired results. Coaches are expected to be subject matter experts so this approach might yield dividends. This approach is based on the premise that “We’re all equal stake holders, let’s all take ownership and support each other for better results.” It emphasizes on a collaborative outcome and accords equal importance to both the people involved and the task at hand. Coaching is believed to be the most effective leadership strategy in the day-to-day operation of your business.
Develop leadership qualities in your managers
You will need more leaders to ease your work pressure as your team and company grow. Developing leadership qualities in your managers will pay you dividends in the long run.
Delegate your authority to managers who have the ability to create, plan and execute programs in a better manner. Grant them autonomy (within reasonable levels) and allow them to solve problems in their own way.
You need to always remind yourself that ‘problem solving’ is the core of leadership. The best leaders are the best problem solvers. A problem must never be viewed as a distraction, but rather as an opportunity for improvement.
Whatever may be the style, you can alter it to suit the project you work on to get the desired results.
