Flexible leadership

Very often I hear leaders say, you know, my leadership style is X, my leadership style is W. And that's a problem.

Because your leadership style needs to change based on the person or the people you're dealing with. And based on the situation.

I find that as a coach is that there are times when my leadership teams that I work with don't need a cheerleader, they need a kick in the ass.

I was recently working with a company that was just growing so fast, that the wheels were starting to come off, they were chasing shiny objects, and growing, but not in a healthy way. And what they needed for me and what I provided was not a cheerleader to say go do it, you can make anything happen, what they needed from me that day, was to be the naysayer. What they needed from me that day was for me to say, Man, I'm not sure you can do this, you better prove it to me. How are you going to make sure when you grow, you keep that culture. How are you going to make sure, when you grow, that the wheels aren't going to fall off in this other part of the business. Man, I'm not sure you can do it. And they stepped up to the challenge. And they plan to the level they wouldn't have planned before.

Another company that had introduced a number of new products that had each failed over the last two years. Three different product failures over two years. They were about to introduce another product and make some of the same mistakes all over again. They didn't need a cheerleader, they needed a little kick in the ass from their coach.

By that same token, I was just working with a client that had a really tough year. And they were really down. And I can tell the fire was starting to burn out and that desire to grow and in their confidence that they could grow. So they didn't need a naysayer, they didn't need me to kick them in the ass. What they needed was me to cheer them on a little bit. Remind them of all the successes they've had, in the past, remind them of the opportunity they had to grow moving forward.

I had to change my coaching style, to help them get where they needed to go.

So if you think you've got one leadership style, you need to change your mindset. You need to change your outlook, you need to take on a more situational leadership approach. You need to be flexible enough to lead people the way they need to be led in that situation.

What kind of leadership does your team need right now?
What kind of leadership does each individual on that team need right now?

That's the tough part of being a leader. We can't do it in one way. We've got to get to know our people. We've got to know what's going on in here. We got to know what's going on out there for all of them and lead them based on the situation. Where do you need to be more flexible today and how you're leading your team.