Evolving Leadership

Meeting with a client yesterday and we were talking about how leadership continues to change and evolve. 

She is the Organisational Development manager; she's keen to see how else she can help develop the capability of the whole business. 

So the 'leadership is evolving' conversation went like this:

• Leadership used to be directive : 'you... do this'.
• It's evolved to being consultative : 'would you like to do this?'
• And continues to evolve to more facilitative : 'whats your view on what needs to be done? How will we go about doing it?'

Of course the questions will differ depending on the team, situation and needs of the business, but the shift and change is clear. 

From strong, directive statements, to questions about the work to be done, to a more facilitative, eliciting style of leadership. 

I think we can fear the facilitation style of leadership, thinking that it's going to take too long. "Who's got time to ask all those questions!?" Even the consultative style of leadership can be perceived as being a lengthy approach to achieving an outcome. "It's just quicker for me to tell them what to do."

Yeah? How much do you like being told what to do?

Our TELL bank accounts have a small balance in them. I think you need to save your directive approaches and telling for when they're really needed.

We need to use consultative approaches more, and realise they won't take longer... in the long run. If you're getting impatient or it feels like you're not getting anywhere, you'll likely save time later by getting buy-in, connection and engagement now, and to leverage that all along the process of leading the team. 

Plus, facilitative styles of leadership put more responsibility on the individuals and the team. The leader has less of the answers, which means less telling, less direction. This helps boost collaboration, trust, engagement, interest, freedom. 

Yes you'll still need to 'lead', to manage performance and to handle the tricky stuff when it comes up.

Notice how leadership continues to evolve; and so must we, if we are to engage and inspire new generations, diverse cultures, and thriving individuals who all want to make a mark on the world.