Daniel Goleman, Richard Boyatzis and Annie McKee, in their book The New Leaders, identify the range of leadership styles that leaders draw on and highlight those styles that create a climate for success. This is what they call “resonant leadership” and they contrast this with the use of styles which, if overused, create “dissonant leadership”. The key here is “if overused” – all the styles identified in the research have a role to play when used effectively.
Developing a repertoire of leadership styles and the capability to use them effectively is not easy. Many of us lack strong role models to emulate so that we just don’t know what “highly effective” looks like when it comes to leadership. Perhaps we will copy leaders (from our parents, teachers and other childhood figures to our managers at work) without even recognising the implications of their chosen approach. By copying poor role-models in this way we repeat the behaviours that were not effective first time round. Perhaps we will try hard to do anything but what they did. This carries a particular challenge: whilst we may know what we don’t want to do, how do we know what to do instead?
At the same time, making effective adjustments to our approach can yield benefits all round, as the testimonial below highlights. I’m grateful to Fabienne Luisetti, with whom I worked in coaching partnership during 2010, for sharing her experiences. If you’d like to know more about how I work with clients please follow this link for details of how to contact me to arrange a complimentary consultation.
Meantime, this is what Fabienne had to say about her experience of working with a coach:
There came a point where my reputation of being a fair but tough leader became an obstacle to both my career and my well-being. Whilst projects were completed and goals achieved, people were bruised along the way and, at times, I would be living with negative feelings in the evening from my interactions with others during the day. Having gone through all the leadership programmes available in our company, I decided I needed a more focused one-to-one coaching programme and this is when I started working with Dorothy.
Right from the start Dorothy was very professional in her approach and created the right environment of trust for me to express my feelings, thoughts and reactions. She challenged a few pain points and also helped me to distil feedback from others and my own work into key areas to focus on. Her willingness to share theory and to describe others’ experiences helped me to place my situation in perspective. I am delighted to provide this testimonial.
How has coaching worked for me? A 1:1 coaching program with set milestones was particularly motivational. At every meeting, I wanted to show progress. Therefore, in between two coaching sessions, I tried a few new strategies to be able to report upon. When I realised they were working well for me and the people around me, I was motivated to try further. This is the way I achieved my three personal coaching objectives; I am now engaging people and teams in a more collaborative manner; I can feel people contribute to my projects in a more spontaneous way not because they have to but because they want to. And I feel good about progressing projects, keeping within deadlines in a much softer way.
Fabienne Luisetti