Leadership behaviour...learn how to manage it!

As a manager, trainer or coach we all have to be leaders of people and we often forget how our behaviour impacts on other people…we need to learn how to manage our behaviour and recognise that sometimes we just don’t get it right!

If you go and look up leadership behaviour on a search engine or dare I say it, in a book, you will find many references to leadership theory dating back over 50 years.  As a trainer who delivers accredited training I have to share a lot of this theory with managers at all stages of their career and it is interesting to see when people have that ‘light bulb’ moment.

Most recently this has been around changing your behviour to different members of the team, for the theorists amongst you, this is situational or contingency theory.  Fundamentally it is about you recognising when a member of your team/group needs you to tell them what to do and when they need you to back off, so that they can get on with the job.

Different behaviour can be categorised into two key areas: directive behaviour where you tell the person what to do and supportive behaviour where you discuss with the person what they are going to do.  This categorisation forms part of Hersey & Blanchard’s Situational Leadership Theory, which gives much more detail, I am barely scratching the surface here, just making a key point for you to think about.

Take a new recruit, for example, in the first few days & weeks they will need more directive behaviour from you but as they learn the job you need to pull back and give them more support to allow them to do the job on their own. I often use the analogy of swimming: when you are teaching someone to swim you are in the water telling them what to do; once they can do the basics you are still in the pool but you are encouraging them.  When they can swim a length or two you might be on the side of the pool still encouraging but eventually all you will have to do is take them to the pool.  That is where you want to get to with all your team eventually

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So often I meet team members who wish that their manager would give them space to do the job, they do not want to be micro managed.  We, therefore have to look at our own behaviour and recognise when it is appropriate to be directive, which will not be all the time, and when it is important to be supportive of your team.

Thanks for your time, Suzanne Unsworth

http://www.rubusassociates.co.uk