Leadership at the Crossroads

Chapter 5 What Not To Wear, Leading with Style Is Neither a Wardrobe, a Hairdo or Flip Flops

While in seminary, I was the Young Adult Coordinator at a rather large evangelical church. The people with whom I ministered were college students and young working adults. It was a fun and encouraging experience with many of our conversations drifting aimlessly to how a minister should work with congregations. These people were the early “clergy whisperers.” Since I was a young pup in terms of the ministry, the young adults loved the fact that they could have a part in training me for my future ministry. The seminary, with all of its term papers, was paper training me, while the young adults were teaching me how sit, speak and heal. We would often discuss well-known ministers and categorize them with metaphors, such as “the boy scout”, “the hood ornament”, or “the used car salesman”, etc. How I came across was clarified when I graduated from seminary and the young adults threw me a going away party. My gag gift was a large inflatable Oscar-Mayer wiener. A common definition of leadership states that leadership is directing people to achieve a common goal through relationships. No doubt, relationships are essential for leadership. However, how people feel comfortable relating to others varies greatly. We all have our own personal preferences on how we establish and maintain our relationships. As leaders, we carry those preferences with us into our leadership roles. This becomes a major facet of our leadership style. Moreover, as qualities and skills are often the means that people define leadership, leadership style explains how people prefer to apply those qualities and skills. For example, in giving directions and training others, what is your personal preference, to tell people what you mean, or show them what you want? Some say that leaders should lead by example, demonstrate what they want, walk the walk. Others are firmly convinced that those are nice platitudes, fit well on motivational posters and tee-shirts, but the major problems in groups and organizations are the lack of communication, the lack of clarity, vaguely defined expectations and immense assumptions that people will actually catch your intent and vision by osmosis, intuition, or Vulcan mind melds. Of course, being an example and verbal clarity are essential, and pitting them against each other is a false dichotomy. However, there may be some truth to the fact that those who love to only “lead by example” are often petrified by public speaking, and those who insist on being clear, over and over and over again, have a thespian hiding inside. Each individual has a leadership style, a preference on how he or she relates to others in a leader/follower dynamic. We are all different, and as genetics, environment, experiences and a whole variety of factors have molded us into valuing different qualities in our leaders, those same factors govern how we feel comfortable leading. People are different. Personalities are different. People respond differently to different things, and as leaders, we all have a preference in how we feel most comfortable and successful relating to others. Many people often love or hate leaders because of their leadership styles more than their abilities or qualifications. It is not so much what you do, but how you do it.

There Are a Number of Ways Experts Have Defined Leadership Styles.

A traditional method that some have used to identify leadership styles is the use of psychological typing. This method emphasizes individual personality. The most frequently utilized test is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. This test assesses individuals by evaluating where they fall on four continuums. This test then assigns a four letter designation for the person. This creates the possibility of sixteen distinct personality types. Studies have indicated the tendencies, behaviors, and general actions of each of these types. Some of the results can be quite informative. For some time this was “the” way of determining one’s leadership style. It certainly identifies how people feel comfortable relating with one another, but a key weakness in its relationship to leadership is that it focuses on managerial and transactional leadership, and the research often cited concerning Myers-Briggs concerning leadership emphasizes management. Another difficulty with psychological types as leadership styles is the impact of ignorance about leadership methodology for new leaders. It is amazing how many personalities undergo Jekyll and Hyde transformations when they are given leadership positions. Myers-Briggs is more directed to preferences about interaction with others and with the environment, rather than just to leadership. People often act differently with variations in their personalities in different contexts. The greatest benefits of this inventory are providing background on how people innately prefer to relate with others in a team context, and how they prefer to make decisions. The four issues it investigates are:

Myers-Briggs Types

Introversion..............Extroversion
iNtuitive..............Sensing
Thinking..............Feeling
Judging..............Perceiving

Another way some experts have delineated leadership styles is by isolating key issues in leadership and testing people on those specific issues. The classic example is the “X”/”Y”, task/people, continuum. One issue that every leadership guru will pay some form of homage to is the task-relationship continuum. Either leaders are task oriented, or they are people oriented. At one extreme, the leadership perspective is that the task is the most important priority, and getting the task accomplished in a timely manner is the key to judging leadership success. If people’s toes must be stepped on and their feelings hurt to get the job done, so be it. On the other extreme, the leadership perspective is that one leads people not projects. If one leads projects, then one is a project manager. To get the job done, not only this time, but in future projects, one must build teamwork and working relationships. If the way the task is accomplished hurts people, then the method or the task must be modified.