Is Your Leadership Style a Motivator or Morale Destroyer?

Is your leadership style a motivator or morale destroyer

There is no right or wrong leadership style. Every leader has their own unique voice and their own individual approach to people and projects. However, it is important to realize that different styles may work best at different times, and to achieve different purposes.

While being genuine is an essential part of leadership, you must learn to adapt your leadership style as the business environment, team members and goals change around you. Any leader, even a highly collaborative one, uses a range of different styles at different times – even, perhaps, in the course of a single day.

The different leadership styles fall into five basic categories:

1. Authoritative Leadership

Authoritative, or autocratic, leadership works best when a team needs strong direction. This type of leadership identifies the challenges ahead and focuses the team on a common goal, yet allows individuals to decide how their efforts will get the desired end result. Authoritative leadership doesn’t work if the team members are more expert than the leader because you can’t be authoritative on a subject where you lack deep knowledge and experience.

In an era marked by rapid change and uncertainty, authoritative leadership can be particularly effective in driving swift, decisive action when navigating crises or pivoting business strategies. However, with the increasing value placed on collaboration and innovation, leaders must balance authoritative decisions with opportunities for team input, ensuring that employees remain engaged and motivated despite top-down directives.

2. Coaching Leadership

This style of leadership is most effective when employees are receptive to change and learn. The coach does just what the name implies: Helps employees grow and learn. This leadership style focuses on long-term personal development as well as job-related skills. Coaching is least effective when an employee is defiant or if the leader lacks proficiency in what they’re trying to teach.

Coaching leadership is best applied when performance or results need improvement. When using this style, your goals should be to help others to advance their skills, build bench strength and provide a lot of guidance. This can be especially helpful when faced with challenges around reskilling and upskilling, like when a team needs to adapt to new technological advancements.

3. Coercive Leadership

Coercive leadership is also called transactional leadership and is the most directive of the leadership styles. Think of it as the “do what I tell you right now” style. Coercive leadership should be used sparingly because it stifles creativity and enthusiasm. However, this style works well if the building is on fire, a teammate is out of control, or the organization requires an immediate overhaul.

Coercive leadership is best applied during a crisis or during a period of significant change.  A manager might also employ this style when a business unit is not operating profitably due to wasteful practices. However, as organizations increasingly prioritize innovation and employee engagement, over-reliance on coercive tactics can hinder creativity and morale. Leaders must know when to deploy this style to stabilize situations without stifling the organization’s culture.

4. Democratic Leadership

It’s easy to understand what democratic leaders do: They let their team have input in decisions and share their ideas. Democratic leadership works when the team needs to feel ownership in the plan or goal.  Everyone is given a seat at the table, and discussion is relatively free-flowing. This leader will synthesize all the available information into the best possible decision. Since this style is time-consuming, it should be avoided if a deadline is imminent or employees don’t have the expertise or experience to offer helpful advice.

Democratic leadership is best applied when situations change frequently. This style offers a great deal of flexibility to adapt to better ways of doing things, but it can be somewhat time-consuming to make a decision in this structure. With the rise of remote and hybrid work environments, democratic leadership has gained prominence as it encourages team involvement and fosters a sense of ownership, even from a distance.

5. Pacesetting Leadership

Think of this style as lead-by-example leadership. Pacesetting leaders set high expectations and demand quick results. It works if the team is already motivated and skilled at their jobs. Used too much, pacesetting leaders risk burning out their team and depressing innovation. It also doesn’t work when training or coaching is needed.

Pacesetter leadership is best applied when a business or department needs quick results from a group that is already highly motivated and competent.  There is no time to learn on the job or teach someone a skill with this leadership style. However, with the increasing awareness of the importance of mental health and employee well-being, leaders must be cautious not to push their teams too hard.

How to Choose a Leadership Style

To determine which leadership style fits a given situation, you must first know what your team needs for the task at hand. Analyze your team’s and your strengths and the needed results, then flex your leadership style to fit the end goal. For that reason, being conscious of both your own style as a leader and those of others you hire can be crucial to keeping your organization on the right track.

And, while it’s easy to say you should change your leadership style to fit different teams, employees and situations, it’s not that easy to do. Spend some time thinking about what you think your default style is, and consult a trusted colleague or mentor to ask if they agree.

Questions to ask yourself: How do I behave under stress? Do you find yourself asking others for opinions or do you tell everyone what to do? Which leadership style seems most comfortable to you?

From there, it will take more time to discover what best motivates your people in which circumstances.

Eventually, you will create your own leadership style, one that is authentic, balanced, adaptable, visionary and best leverages your employees so that you all achieve great things.

Source: Lisa Jasper, Insperity

“You don’t have to hold a position in order to be a leader.”
– Henry Ford

Did you know this about disc?

DiSC is an assessment that aids with effective communication

Group map

The main feature is the Group map. Similar to the group map and poster available through the Group Culture and Group Facilitator reports, the map shows everyone’s dot location and their icon from Catalyst. This tab also shows the group members and their priorities and this list can be filtered by primary DiSC style. The “more info” link will take you to the “Your colleagues” comparison page with that person.

Groups Video

 

 

Mastering Productive Team Conflict

Mastering productive team conflict

All great, lasting relationships will encounter conflict. While conflict often carries a negative connotation, especially in the workplace, it can lead to growth when handled productively. Far from being a sign of team dysfunction, healthy conflict within teams can be a catalyst for innovation leading to stronger relationships.

To foster productive conflict within a team, trust must be established. When there is trust, conflict becomes nothing but the pursuit of truth, an attempt to find the best possible answer. By productive conflict, we mean debate that’s focused on concepts and ideas but avoids mean-spirited, personal attacks.

1. Encouraging Constructive Conflict

When we acknowledge that conflict can be a force for good, we open ourselves up to new ideas and perspectives. By speaking up for our beliefs, considering the thoughts of others, and confronting issues, we can push ourselves to reach new heights of success. Developing the habits mentioned here will further help contribute to productive debates within teams.

What Productive Conflict Looks Like on a Team:

  • Voicing opinions
  • Seeking out teammates opinions
  • Confronting important issues
  • Exploring everyones ideas

However, having productive conflict on a team can be challenging due to fears and concerns that may hold us back. It’s crucial to be aware of these fears so we can start to overcome them. For example, some team members may be afraid that conflict could damage their relationships with their colleagues, so they may avoid challenging the status quo altogether. Recognizing and addressing these common fears is essential for getting to the best ideas possible.

Fears That Can Hold a Team Back:

  • Damaging relationships
  • Appearing overly critical
  • Anticipating negative feedback
  • Disrupting the status quo

2. Taking Action to Build Productive Conflict

Productive conflict doesn’t just happen overnight. It requires active listening, respect for differing viewpoints, and a shared commitment to common goals. Team leaders play a pivotal role in cultivating an environment where team members feel empowered to express their opinions. By promoting open communication leaders can help their teams harness the power of conflict for better decision-making. Certain habits significantly aid in establishing productive conflict practices. For example, glossing over differences can lead to future problems. When all opinions aren’t expressed, teams may lack full commitment and buy-in to decisions.

Top Ways to Develop Productive Conflict:

  • Solicit the views of more reserved teammates
  • Keep the focus on ideas
  • Resist the urge to sweep things under the rug
  • Collect emotions before responding

By engaging in productive conflict and tapping into a variety of perspectives and opinions, team members can confidently commit to a decision knowing that they have benefited from everyone’s ideas. Remember, productive conflict isn’t about personal attacks or animosity. It’s about robustly discussing concepts and ideas, pushing boundaries, and ultimately creating stronger teams. When productive conflict is treated as a crucial aspect of team culture, it drives the group towards achieving greater success and fulfillment in their endeavors. So, let’s encourage healthy debates and harness their power!

Source: Five Behaviors

“Leaders do not avoid, repress, or deny conflict, but rather see it as an opportunity”  
– Warren Bennis

Did you know this about disc?

DiSC is an assessment that aids with effective communication

Everything DiSC Productive Conflict

Everything DiSC® Productive Conflict increases learners’ self-awareness around conflict behaviors, helping them effectively respond to uncomfortable and unavoidable challenges of workplace conflict. 

Rather than focusing on a step-by-step process for conflict resolution, this learning experience combines the personalized insights of DiSC® with the proven science of cognitive behavioral theory to help participants recognize and transform their destructive habits into more productive responses.

Productive Conflict Video

5 Steps To Develop More Discipline

5 steps to DEVELOP more discipline

You might be surprised to learn that it’s simply focusing on a result you really want. In this sense, the key to discipline is goal setting.

Whether you’re naturally a disciplined person or not, goal setting is a skill you can develop using these five steps:

Step 1: Determine Your Goal

The key is in knowing what you really want. If you are going to succeed in whatever’s important to you, you first need to know where you’re going. You must be specific, and you need to be able to see it. Write it down, and, while you are at it, add a “by when” date.

Here’s an example: I will lose 10 pounds by December 31. 

Step 2: List Your Reasons

This is often the missing piece in both goal setting and discipline. You have to ask, Why is this goal important? What is at stake in my achieving it? You can list both the positive reasons and the negative.

Examples:

  • I want more energy.
  • I want to lower my cholesterol.
  • I don’t want to put myself at risk for heart disease.
  • I want to look more trim, especially on video.

Step 3: Identify Likely Obstacles

As soon as you start swimming against the current, you will start feeling resistance. It’s as if the universe is testing you to see how serious you are about succeeding. That’s why you have to anticipate these obstacles and build strategies to overcome them.

Examples:

  • Obstacle: Mindlessly eating what I always eat for lunch.
    Strategy: Plan my lunch before I leave the house—where and what I will eat.
  • Obstacle: Inability to work out on the road.
    Strategy: Make sure the hotel has a workout room before I book it. Also, pack my workout clothes and shoes.
  • Obstacle: Eating more calories than I intend.
    Strategy: Record everything I eat. What gets measured improves.

Researchers call these strategies implementation intentions. And they work.

Step 4: Develop New Behaviors

This is where you should focus. What are the positive, new behaviors you want to develop to replace the old, negative behaviors? It’s not enough to decide not to eat junk food, for example. You’re going to want to snack on something. So what are you going to do about it?

Examples:

  • Drink 2.5 liters of water a day to stay hydrated.
  • Eat healthy snacks, like raw almonds, celery, carrots, and so on.

Step 5: Stay Focused

Read your goals daily, review your reasons why, anticipate obstacles, and work on your new behaviors. If you get off track, don’t beat yourself up. Sometimes it’s three steps forward and two steps back. The trick is to shake it off and re-lock on your goal.

You might also consider changing your strategy to get there. 

Examples:

  • If I injure my ankle and can’t run, I could switch to swimming.
  • If I can’t get traction on my own, I’ll research and hire a personal trainer.

Discipline is not really about willpower so much as focusing on what you really want. If you get clear on that, it suddenly becomes much easier.

Source: Michael Hyatt, Full Focus

“Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment”. 
– Jim Rohn

Did you know this about disc?

DiSC is an assessment that aids with effective communication

Agile EQ Edition

Everything DiSC Agile EQ doesn’t just measure a person’s EQ. It provides a foundation for improving EQ by focusing on observable behaviors that are measured by DiSC.
Agile EQ helps learners understand their emotional responses by using both the language of DiSC and a new concept called Mindsets. The Agile EQ Mindset map helps learners recognize what behaviors are associated with the different mindsets(below).

6 Things to Consider Before You Delegate Work

6 things to consider before you delegate work 

The best leaders are masters at delegation. Why? They know how to empower their teams to get work done. But it’s not only about getting work done or knowing how to share tasks in the best way. It’s also about creating an environment where employees are proud of their work and can call it their own. These are the critical pieces to learning how to delegate work effectively.

What Is Delegating?

In short, delegating is allocating the right work to the right people. Delegating work is about sharing a task and decision-making responsibilities to increase others’ commitment, accelerate results, and build capability.

The delegating leadership style, one of the four leadership styles covered in the situational leadership model, is about managers sharing authority and responsibility with their employees.

The Cost of Not Delegating

The reluctance of leaders to delegate carries a steep cost. As leaders take on more work, they get overwhelmed and stressed. They may even burn out completely and quit. 70% of leaders surveyed under the age of 35 report feeling used up at the end of every day, with rates even higher among women and minorities.

At the same time, their team is likely also frustrated. They don’t feel like they’re contributing enough, nor do they have the authority to do their work as they see fit. They’ll likely end up disengaged or start polishing up their resumes for another role.

What to Consider Before You Delegate Work

Delegation has to go beyond simply assigning a task. It has to be done thoughtfully, with the right balance of direction from the leader.

Here’s what to consider before you delegate work:

  1. What’s the desired output? What will the completed task look like? How will you judge whether it is completed well or not?
  2. What’s the importance of the task? How important is this assigned task to the team? How important is this assigned task to the company?
  3. Are you delegating authority appropriately? What key decisions will need to be made during the project? Will the person or team have the authority to make critical decisions?
  4. To whom should you delegate the work? Who has the skills to complete this work? Who has the motivation? Is there anyone who might be interested in the work that you haven’t considered before? What are the benefits to the person completing this delegated task?
  5. What’s the method of sharing work? Will you have a meeting to generate ideas or to define the task further with the person? What is the delegation process? Have clear expectations been given?
  6. How will you assess the results of the tasks you’ve delegated? How will you give feedback along the way? How will you ensure that the criteria is clear for what success looks like?

If the leader is struggling to answer these questions, then they should re-evaluate if the task should actually be delegated.

Source: DDI, 2023

“Delegation is not about micromanaging, its about trusting others to do their best work”. 
– Unknown

Did you know this about disc?

DiSC is an assessment that aids with effective communication

Your Group

This fun, interactive feature helps teams work better together. By combining DiSC with actionable group insights, teams build cohesion while adapting their behaviors for optimal performance. Learners can create multiple groups, plot members on a DiSC map, and shed light on team dynamics that influence results.

10 Characteristics of a Good Leader

10 Characteristics of a good leader 

No matter how much or how quickly the world changes — how automated or disrupted work and life become — one fact remains: outstanding leaders create a positive path forward for us all. But what does good leadership really look like?


Based upon our decades of research and experience in the field, we’ve found that good leaders consistently possess certain essential qualities. Read on to learn what they are, and how to begin cultivating these 10 characteristics of a good leader within yourself, on your team, and at your organization.

  1. Integrity

Integrity is an essential leadership trait for the individual and the organization. It’s especially important for top-level executives who are charting the organization’s course and making countless other significant decisions. Our research shows that integrity may actually be a potential blind spot for organizations. Make sure your organization reinforces the importance of honesty and integrity to leaders at various levels.

  1. Delegation

Delegating is one of the core responsibilities of a leader, but it can be tricky to delegate effectively. The goal isn’t just to free yourself up — it’s also to enable your direct reports to grow, facilitate teamwork, provide autonomy, and lead to better decision-making. The best leaders build trust on their teams through effective delegation.

  1. Communication

The best leaders are skilled communicators who are able to communicate in a variety of ways, from transmitting information to inspiring others to coaching direct reports. And you must be able to listen to, and communicate with, a wide range of people across roles, geographies, social identities, and more.

  1. Self awareness

While this is a more inwardly focused trait, self-awareness and humility are paramount for leadership. The better you understand yourself and recognize your own strengths and weaknesses, increasing your self-awareness, the more effective you can be as a leader.

  1. Gratitude

Being thankful can lead to higher self-esteem, reduced depression and anxiety, and better sleep. Gratitude can even make you a better leader. Yet few people regularly say “thank you” in work settings, even though most people say they’d be willing to work harder for an appreciative boss. The best leaders know how to demonstrate sincere gratitude in the workplace.

  1. Learning agility

Learning agility is the ability to know what to do when you don’t know what to do.
If you’re a “quick study” or are able to excel in unfamiliar circumstances, you might already be learning agile. But anybody can foster learning agility through practice, experience, and effort.

  1. Influence

For some people, “influence” feels like a dirty word. But being able to convince people through logical, emotional, or cooperative appeals is an important trait of inspiring, effective leaders. Influence is quite different from manipulation, and it needs to be done authentically.

  1. Empathy

If you show more inclusive leadership and empathetic behaviors towards your direct reports, our research shows you’re more likely to be viewed as a better performer by your boss. Plus, empathy and inclusion are imperatives for improving workplace conditions for those around you.

  1. Courage

It can be hard to speak up at work, whether you want to voice a new idea, provide feedback to a direct report, or flag a concern for someone above you. That’s part of the reason courage is a key trait of good leaders. Rather than avoiding problems or allowing conflicts to fester, courage enables truth-telling so leaders can step up and move things in the right direction.

  1. Respect

Treating people with respect on a daily basis is one of the most important things a leader can do. It will ease tensions and conflict, create trust, and improve effectiveness. Respect is about more than the absence of disrespect, and it can be shown in many different ways, but often starts with being a good listener.

Source: Center for creative leadership

“Leadership is the capacity to translate vision into reality”. 
– Warren Bennis

Did you know this about disc?

DiSC is an assessment that aids with effective communication

DiSC Quadrants

Although the DiSC dimensions form four distinct styles, it is probably more useful to think of the DiSC circle in continuous terms. Consider that each of the four styles blend into their neighboring styles much the same way that colors blend into one another on the color wheel. Red and yellow are distinct colors, but they both blend to form a new color, orange. In the same way, the D and i styles are distinct, but the space between them on the circle represents an equally distinct set of traits. 

Managers are Spending 4hrs a Week Dealing with Conflict

managers spend 4hrs a week dealing with conflict 

A new report by Meyers-Briggs, Conflict at Work, reveals that managers spend an average of four hours each week dealing with employee conflict. The research investigates how people in the workplace see conflict today and what we can do to manage it better.

Conflict is what happens when there is a difference of opinion. Change and disruption bring difference, which helps to explain why managing conflict is so valuable in the workplace right now. Our working environment is constantly changing.

John Hackston, Head of Thought Leadership at The Myers-Briggs Company and who carried out the study says “This research sheds light on how people in the workplace see conflict and shows how individuals can use knowledge of their own conflict-handling style and personality type to navigate conflict more effectively.”

The Conflict at Work research includes insights such as:

  • Poor communication is the number one cause of conflict.
  • Nearly 1 in 4 people think their managers handle conflict poorly or very poorly.
  • The more time that an individual spent dealing with conflict at work, the lower their job satisfaction and the less included they felt.

Compared to the company’s 2008 study, workplace conflict is becoming more common. Over a third (36%) of people now report dealing with conflict often, very often, or all the time, compared to 29% previously.

The top cause of conflict was poor communication, though conflict looked different for in-office, hybrid, and remote workers. In-office workers were more likely to say that poor communication caused conflict at work compared to hybrid or fully remote workers; but those working hybrid schedules were more likely to say a lack of transparency caused the most conflict.

In an open-ended question, survey respondents were asked, “Whose responsibility is it to ensure that conflict in the workplace is managed effectively?” 241 individuals responded, and their answers were categorized into themes:

 

Line Supervisor/Manager 45%
Everyone 42%
Me/People Directly Involved 20%
Middle/Senior Management 20%
HR 8%
Everyone 3%

 

With only 8% looking to HR to help resolve conflict, it’s important to train all employees on how to properly manage conflict. Conflict is inevitable, and if handled properly, can lead to improved relationships, new processes, and new ideas.

The greatest positive benefits of conflict were seen as building relationships, collaboration, and co-operation.

  • Women were more likely than men to mention outcomes around building relationships, collaboration, and co-operation.
  • Respondents who mentioned outcomes around building relationships, collaboration, and co-operation tended to spend a greater proportion of their time working remotely compared with those who did not.
  • They also gave a higher rating to the importance of conflict handling as a leadership or management skill.
  • Those who mentioned outcomes around achieving a better solution tended to rate their ability to manage conflict more positively.
  • Those who mentioned outcomes around change, innovation, or new ideas were more likely to mention changes in policies, products etc., and a lack of transparency as causes of conflict.

 

Source: Meyers Briggs, 2022

“It you have learned to disagree without being disagreeable, then you have discovered the secret of getting along-whether it be business, family relations, or life itself”. 
– Bernard Meltzer