November 2023CIOAPPLICATIONS.COM9will be held accountable to. If they see themselves as an inspiring coach, they might respond with a locker-room half-time speech. If they see themselves as someone who develops people, they might respond with targeted skills development. What's missing in all these approaches? The employee.Any of these approaches might work if they align with what the employee actually needs. If you think back on your career, how often did you get situations like this right by chance? A great leader gets it right by design. A great leader understands this fundamental truth: It's not about them. It doesn't matter what kind of leader they want to be. All that matters is what the staff needs. Do you take the time to know your people and offer some measure of personal connection? Do you pause and consider a thoughtful course of action that's based on what they need, as opposed to what you are comfortable doing? Do you even know what they need?You have to practice all the leadership styles to the point of being pretty good at them. If you don't like being a micro-manager, are you going to set your employee up to fail when that is what they need? Or are you going to step up and start micro-managing things? If you aren't an emotional person, are you going to set your staff up to fail when they need inspiration?Are you worried you might be bad at it? Consider this: We are all bad at things we haven't practiced. No one is born knowing how to do this stuff. Leaders have to learn how to lead, same as anyone else. The key is to listen for when you get it wrong. If you are authentic and you allow a rapport to develop for staff that wants that, your staff will tell you when you get it wrong. Are you strong enough to hear that your locker room speech sucked? Or are you defensive? Hopefully, it's the former. That's how you learn. You'll gain that much more experience with that uncomfortable style for the next time it's needed.A great leader doesn't have just one narrow vision of what leadership is. An expansive vision is needed to be comfortable with any leadership style, to be pretty good at knowing which one is needed, and to admit it when you get it wrong. An expansive vision is needed to be comfortable with any leadership style, to be pretty good at knowing which one is needed, and to admit it when you get it wrong
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