Leadership
Leadership can be considered the ability to influence and provide direction or guidance for others in pursuit of a goal. While several ways of influencing and directing exist, leadership is effective by utilizing personal appeal and articulation to create interest and buy-in without necessarily relying on a job title or authoritative position.
This contrasts with other forms of influencing, which can include negative factors, like coercion, procedural endorsements, or implied consequences. Leadership earns influence by cultivating a respect for and belief in the leader, not fear.
Leadership is not a radical element in the world of authority, however, sometimes it takes being in a position of authority, or subordination, for leadership qualities to emerge. How people respond to responsibilities, challenges, issues, and the needs of the people around them will identify leaders.
Because of everyone’s inherent differences, there are multiple leadership styles based around personality types. In general, leaders have a deep understanding of their personalities, leveraging their strengths and working on their weaknesses to better themselves and others.
Basic leadership styles, derived from studying top leaders, help others develop their own approach. New leaders often learn by emulating role models whose styles align with their personality, avoiding those they find unappealing, even if effective.
However, it is essential to understand that individual leadership styles suit situations differently, and some are more effective in certain instances than others. This is why it is also necessary for a leader to learn other leadership styles and apply the different approaches as required.
Theories on Leadership Style
In the 1960s, an American management professor at MIT named Douglas McGregor wrote a book called The Human Side of Enterprise. In his book, McGregor theorizes there are two key leadership styles that managers will take in business:
- Autocratic (Theory X)
- Democratic (Theory Y)
Theory X managers believe workers will choose to do the least amount of work and be naturally unmotivated to reach company goals. As a result, team members must be handled with a certain harshness by instilling a firm reward and punishment system to encourage the desired results.
Theory Y managers, however, assume that workers care about doing well in their position and actively look for challenges and growth opportunities. As a result, managers hardly micro-manage, instead preferring to let team members be part of the decision-making process and claim more ownership over their areas.
Many modern-day leadership styles are a combination of these two theories, creating an endless combination of leadership elements which reflect ongoing studies and insights into the human psyche under varying conditions.
However, there are two core truths leaders must recognize when developing a personal leadership style:
- Every leader has their own inherent/ preferred style.
- Leaders who learn other styles and apply the correct hybrid to a situation are more likely to succeed than those who stick to their inherent/ preferred style.
Observation and Leadership
The influence to lead largely hinges on solving problems and developing opportunities to create value, not just by a title or position. Perception can also propel someone into leadership, but they must learn to live up to that perception. Otherwise, they may fall short and revert to unorthodox means to keep the position of authority, but not necessarily stay a leader.
For example, subtle changes, such as gradual equipment aging in a factory, can require changing the maintenance schedule from time-based to condition-based maintenance.
Understanding such a concept can make a technician a better leader in asset care over the office-based foreperson who may not understand that and may choose to ignore or make a different decision altogether. However, the technician who drove the condition-based implementation will potentially have more influence on the subject area. This is due to changes in maintenance strategy:
- Helping technicians deal with less complex breakdowns
- Helping machine operators improve available time and output
- Helping salespeople with stock availability
Multifaceted and Generalist Skills in Leadership
Following the previous maintenance example, in an ideal setup, the technician is probably on their way to climbing the leadership ladder if they remain solutions oriented.
However, this is subject to other variables crucial to leadership. The issue of multifaced skills and general appreciation of other areas comes into play. For example, resolving a mechanical problem is not the only aspect of running a business, a leader must also consider:
- The solution’s total cost
- Total time investment
- Potential safety risks
- How different team members need to work together to implement the solution
Additionally, only understanding how to solve a mechanical issue won’t help negotiate a packaging materials contract, secure funding from the bank to expand warehouse space, or improve the IT infrastructure to better support all divisions.
While a leader doesn’t need to know all of this, it gives an example of how they must optimize their solutions to demonstrate its potential sustainability, longevity, compliance, and horizontal integration. Additionally, this is not a solo project; a good leader will bring in other peers or team members to evaluate his ideas. This brings others onto the same train of thought – reducing the likelihood for misunderstandings – and allows the leader to leverage other perspectives to ensure they are arriving at the best solution.
Once a solution is clear, the leader must propose and disseminate the information to the entire facility, which presents an opportunity to practice additional leadership skills and learn more about those they are tasked with leading.
There are many ways to build and enhance the necessary skillsets of leaders. This includes:
- Attending meetings with various colleagues to improve interpersonal skills and expand their network.
- Attending technical vendor meetings to discuss new technologies and ideas while developing a better understanding of external stakeholder priorities and management tactics.
- Learning to coach their team with the right level of detail and varying approaches based on the issue and audience.
- Taking a variety of training courses.
- Seeking out mentorship, coaching, and career development opportunities.
While these will not make a leader an expert in everything, they will become more well-rounded and effective in their position.
Communication
Communication is one of the key soft skills that are the cornerstones of leadership. The internet and libraries are awash with information on the subject; however, the essence of communication is more important than just communication itself.
As a leader, an audience is mainly interested in:
- Simplicity
- Clarity
- Consistency
- Regularity/ Frequency
Simplicity
The message is simple. Do people understand what you are saying? This not only refers to different languages spoken across the world, but different forms of communication within an organization. This includes acronyms and jargon specific to that department. It's not uncommon for people in the same organization to have no clue what specific terms, let alone acronyms, mean. Sometimes, even in the same department.
Where things can not be simplified any further because they will either lose meaning or start getting complicated in a different dimension, seek to elevate the understanding. However, the net effect should be simplicity, whether you break things down or elevate understanding.
Clarity
Simplicity holds the potential to create incorrect interpretations; this is why providing strategic clarity is crucial. For example, wanting to be profitable is simple communication, but being 24% profitable provides clarity.
Unlike specificity, clarity can cater to both qualitative and quantitative contexts. In leadership, communication clarity is key to ensuring that all efforts are concerted to the same objective.
Consistency
Consistency is not saying the same thing the same way every time; instead, leaders should try to convey the same message in whatever form the recipient will receive it and understand it the most effectively. This also includes considering what each person is allowed to be informed about; not every level of team member will be privy of the same information, based on job requirements and seniority level.
For effective communication, leaders must be able to give sufficient context. Some framing and storytelling skills are required to keep classified information out of the discussion while giving adequate context to land the message consistently.
One thing that helps with consistency is acknowledging seemingly contentious points and addressing them together. For example, a leader can bring together the need for increased production output with the need for routine and safe maintenance to maximize output while emphasizing well planned maintenance activities.
A leader must constantly communicate to address all issues with a consistent goal. And it’s also okay to change what we are being consistent about and begin a new consistency.
Regularity/ Frequency
Communication must be regular or frequent for it to be effective. It is not that leaders must constantly helicopter their teams with endless reminders or updates. There must be some structure or trigger for regular communication; this reaffirms purpose and the teams while reducing room for speculation.
Individual, team, or facility-wide communications must have some defined time or condition-based frequency. It also helps with two-way communication because people will know what to prepare and what to trend in what periods or conditions, making the two-way nature more pronounced.
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