Leaders are born. Agreed! At the same time, research has shown – beyond doubt – that leaders are also made. If this is true, then it presupposes a skill-set that could be adopted by the aspirants to become leaders and also by the current leaders to enhance their effectiveness. What is leadership and who are the leaders? In our parlance, we ascribe it only to the politicians, which is indicative of its narrow understanding. If your influence motivates, directs and then results in others’ success or the collective success of your team, you are a leader. You could be a business tycoon, a tennis coach, head of a family or even a friend who’s always approached for guidance. You could also be a political leader. For anybody to be a leader in any sphere of life, you need to:
a) Have a desire to lead b) Commitment to the mission and vision of the organization/movement/party and, c) Integrity. As Dwight D. Eisenhower (America’s 34th President) once said that the supreme quality for a leader is “unquestionable integrity”. While the first quality is self-explanatory, the commitment to the vision of your cause should define you. It’s your exuding passion that keeps your team up and running. In the corporate setup, it does not matter what title you hold. Even if you are a Managing Director, CEO, CFO, CMO- you name it, you could well be a careerist, who’s incredible at managing businesses, and yet not a leader. How do we then differentiate the manager from a leader? Managers manage tasks while the leaders lead people. According to Sean Mcpheat, a manager thinks short term while the leaders think long term, a manager thinks tactics and a leader makes strategies, a manager plans when and how while the leader asks what and why, a manager knows the day-to-day business and the leader knows the customer/target people, a manager gains authority by his/her position but a leader gains authority by his/her behavior and mindset and finally a manager supervises but a leader influences. Although this contrast shows leadership at a higher pedestal, it does not mean you always have to wear the leadership hat. There are times when you have to manage as well. Usually, it’s either the founders of the organization who have come up with its Vision statement or those employees who find themselves authentically aligned with the founder’s vision, who can lead; others are mere employees waiting for the paycheck.
This brings us to various leadership styles that people exhibit or a leader may switch from one mode to the other, as per the situation. By & large, your style will predominantly be based on your personality type. You might have encountered all such leaders in your life (MTD trainings). The four major styles are Autocratic leadership style, Democratic leadership style, Bureaucratic leadership style, and Charismatic leadership style.
Autocratic Leadership Style: There is little delegation. The decision-making power is with the leader. The decisions can be fairly quick, since there’s no conslutation process. At the same time, the loyalty factor is quite low, since your followers/employees do not feel invested into the project. Such a style is old-fashioned but is still effective at specific circumstances. For instance, if there are tight deadlines to be met or if there are monotonous tasks to be done by low-skilled employees. This requires you to be present all the time. In your absence, the productivity is bound to nose-dive. This style is growing increasingly unpopular in the current times. It should, however, be in your arsenal to be used in limits, as & when required.
Democratic Leadership Style: This style mandates you to work as a team. You take your employees into consideration, whenever decisions are to be made. The employees have a sense of ownership that Sky-rockets the loyalty factor. This is how you get the best out of your workforce since they would stay overtime on their own. It’s the credit-share that satisfies them. This mode of leadership is suitable when the projects are big and requires innovations and creativity from all the departments.You should remember though that the decision-making is going to be a lengthy process. You’d have to switch to autocratic style at such instances.
Bureaucratic Leadership Style: This style is prevalent in our government machinery. Actually, this was popular during the industrial era in which humans were seen as machines expected to do the same mechanical work over & over again. The whole basis of this style is on following rules, regulations & the protocol. The large factories had a made-up template where there was no need for creativity or brainstorming. In fact, the managers of different departments saw each other as rivals, not colleagues. This is precisely why, even today, you are asked to get signatures from various officers in the public sector for no apparent reason. Simple things that could be executed in a day take months. The clerks who you beseech tell you the same diktat they’ve heard from their bosses- although its fairly simple but then we have to follow ‘rules and regulations’. Unfortunately, that gives them the ‘kick’ of being an important office. In fact, this is the only style our society can think of. That’s why even our private sector tries to imitate it when they want to show that they are into serious business. Their message is Ít’s not easy, it’s serious’. So follow rules for the heck of it. In reality, this should have been limited to factories or production units of pharmaceuticals and other such industries. No further than that. Alas! our whole government & society thinks this is the definition of leadership and officialdom. If you still can’t remember having encountered this style, just think of the notes written by the Babus in secretariats or your principal at school/college mentioning unnecessary details- ‘with reference to, vide no’ etc. & that unnecessary barrage of paper-work. Their gibberish is the manifestation of their industrial-era mind-set bequeathed from their own seniors. This needs to go today.
Charismatic Leadership Style: This style is all about the person who leads. The emphasis is on the personality of the leader who can influence other people without necessarily following any of the aforementioned styles. Charisma can be extremely powerful. If you work for a venture started by a celebrity from any field, his/her presence alone is inspiring and then his way of communication with employees will also determine the levek of his charisma. This definitely does not mean you have a to be a film star or a sports star but even a teacher in the high school can be charismatic enough to have that magnetic personality and empathetic demeanor that without being able to explain the reasons, all you want to do is to be like him/her.
There’s a way to build charisma, and all these leadership styles. People from Entry-level employees upto the C-suite executives take training modules to constantly enhance these skills. This article can simply inform, not train. The trainings happen through workshops and courses.
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