Part Two: The Power of Emotional Intelligence
Continued
In
part one we talked about the emotional intelligence domains and the associated
competencies that are a prerequisite to good leadership. Now we’re going to
move onto the different leadership styles. The direct leadership styles
discussed in Primal Leadership are:
1. Visionary. 2. Coaching. 3. Affiliative. 4. Democratic. These first four are
good for building a resonance leadership that drives positive emotions and
feelings that was discussed earlier. The last two of: 5. Pacesetting, and 6.
Commanding can also be effective leadership styles, but must be used sparingly
because they can cause dissonance, or negative feelings and emotions.
A visionary leader gets buy-in from others because this
leader helps people understand their “why”. This kind of leader is inspiring,
and is empathic. A smart company realizes that vision offers a company its
unique ‘brand’ or a way to distinguish itself from other companies in the same
field or industry. Smart companies use this vision as a standard for
performance and performance feedback. It helps employees see how they
contribute to the big picture.
The coaching style doesn’t scream bottom-line results,
but in a surprisingly indirect way it gets results through the leaders really
getting to know their people, establishing rapport and trust, and successfully
linking their daily work to their long-term goals. Coaches are really good at
keeping people motivated. And motivated people tend to improve the bottom-line.
Affiliative leaders nurture personal relationships. They
value downtime because it builds up emotional capital that can be drawn from
when times get tough. They focus on the emotional needs of their people over
goals and are good at healing rifts and bringing a team back together. They are
good at solving conflict and creating harmony. These leaders also have some
vision. Joe Torre, manager of the famed New York Yankees baseball team was a
good example of an affiliative leader.
Democratic leaders are great at listening to others. They
truly hear what people say. They are great communicators. Democrat leadership
style works great when leaders aren’t certain which direction to go. They’re
great at getting buy-in. They’re also great at implementing the vision that
others haven’t been successful in doing. Democratic leaders actually execute
the vision and tend to get fresh ideas all along the way from their workers on
how to implement the vision even better.
Now, onto the last two leadership styles. Pacesetting
works great when one already has a team that is highly motivated and needs very
little direction, and are competent. Since very few of us are leading the UConn
Husky girls’ basketball team, we need to use the pacesetting leadership style
sparingly. Coach Geno Auriemma probably doesn’t. This style can be misleading
because in the beginning one can get results. However, pacesetting in the wrong
environment usually turns our vision into just pure survival. It poisons the
climate. And that’s bad for everyone.
Of all the leadership styles, the commanding style, which
is really the coercive approach, doesn’t just poison the climate, but it can
destroy it! It destroys the morale of the workforce as people walk around on
egg shells afraid to do anything. They spend a good amount of their energy, not
being the creative genius that they were meant to be, but rather just trying to
stay off the radar. Now, to be fair, there are still some commanding leaders
left over in the military and medical fields, for example, who are still
getting good results. But, unfortunately, many of these gains aren’t real or
lasting.
Their gains are usually short-term gains with an
extremely high cost, especially to personal and human capital. When these
commanding leaders are finally pushed out the door, that’s when what they
really did comes unraveled and then it comes all crashing down, taking years to
rebound; if ever able to rebound from the former wrecking ball. This is when it
probably makes sense to find a good affiliative leader who can come in and heal
the rifts and damaged relationships that the last leader left in his or her
wake.
Dan Blanchard is an award-winning author, speaker and educator. To
learn more about Dan please visit his website at: www.DanBlanchard.net. Thanks.
