What are the most important leadership styles for executives?

Steve Jobs once said, "If you are working on something exciting that you really care about, you don't have to be pushed. The vision pulls you." This encapsulates the essence of visionary leadership. To cultivate a visionary leadership style, consider: Clear Vision: Craft a compelling, clear vision that excites and motivates your team. Open Communication: Share your vision often, making sure it's understood and embraced by all. Empower Others: Enable your team to take ownership and contribute towards achieving the vision. Be Adaptable: Stay open to new ideas and be ready to adapt your vision when necessary. Celebrate Progress: Acknowledge and celebrate the milestones towards your vision, keeping the enthusiasm alive.

The most important leadership styles for executives are situational. Being adaptable is key. Transformational leadership can inspire teams to achieve a shared vision. Servant leadership focuses on serving others to empower the team. In times of crisis, authoritative leadership can provide clear direction. Collaborative leadership fosters innovation. Ultimately, a blend of these styles, tailored to the situation, is often the most effective approach for executives.

Patience, agility, nuanced perspective and analysis - always poking under the hood and asking questions from a place of curiosity and examining a problem or question in a way that has been ignored, which means rejecting many (most!) social media buzz words. And LISTENING. Deep, thoughtful listening. That's the secret sauce!

In my 20 years of experience in Public health, I have learned that effective leadership styles for executives can vary depending on the organization, its culture, and the specific challenges it faces. However, one of the leadership styles and qualities that I consider important for executives is Servant Leadership. Servant leaders prioritize the needs of their team members and aim to empower and support them. They focus on serving the team, helping them grow, and creating a positive work environment.

It can be lonely being a visionary leader; I speak from experience. This has been referred to as "The Visionary's Curse". Kim Fowley once said: ""The loneliness of a visionary is that you might be the only one in the universe at that time who recognizes magic. I'm a magical person, and so I recognize other magical people". Other "magical people", could be other visionary leaders; they could be champions or advocates in the business, they could be friends or family, mentors, coaches, or just those in history that are inspiring or achieved significant milestones in the face of adversity. Nurturing a village of magical people is essential both to advance the leader's vision, but also to support the leader. Without it, nothing material happens.

In it's simplest form; Management is defined as "Getting things done through others." I have learned that Leadership is more realistically defined as " Getting things done WITH others."

Democratic leadership often leads to development of new talent, diverse ideas & solutions from a 360 degree perspective! In such forms of leadership, a leader develops more leaders due to freedom in decision making, providing authority and sense of responsibility for action taken is a key skill into democratic leadership and hence it’s an opinion that it would lead to more success of teams.

Human leadership is most critical quality/style of leadership and which encompasses practice and qualities that make leader effective in guiding and inspiring team through effective communication, empathy. adaptability. Human leaders foster a positive work culture, promote teamwork for driving success.

Democratic leadership is most successful when there is real transparency and trust, an environment that demonstrates diverse perspectives are welcome and no hidden agendas. Establishing agreed guardrails however is key to drive meaningful conversations and timely outcomes.

Conflicts and differences of opinion are common. Leaders need strong conflict resolution skills to navigate these situations.

As a leader we will have to be an unpaid mentor to our employees. Be it personal and professional, your actions should inspire them to walk the walk and talk the talk. Only by this, you build trust and then we make them deliver the execution by making them exercise and execute.

You don't want to be the one with all the answers. You want to be the one who leads your employees toward finding their own best answers. This means, instead of micromanaging and only letting your own ideas go ahead. You need to create a space where you employees feel supported to be at their best, so that their unique skills, talents, and ideas can flourish. That's what gives your whole organisation an edge that can't be copied and pasted.

There are three types of employees, and understanding which category your team members fall into is crucial to leading them toward success. Climbers are people driven by what their actions unlock (opening doors, promotions, raises, bigger teams). Hikers are people driven by the challenge of doing something new and different. Runners are people who know what they like and want to keep getting better at it. Managing these three personas requires different approaches from a leader. In my experience, it's critical to understand an employee's motivations early on to ensure that they're satisfied with their work and continually thriving to reach a goal that makes sense for them.

I've always found Coaching or Servant leadership styles to be a bit more successful with teams that are inexperienced or just not quite mature within their field. This style is all about finding out what drives that person career wise and helping them create a plan where your company or even the role they are currently in evolves to a career path that works for them. This is how you develop high performing teams. I always ask my teams, what are their long term goals, I'm also always hiring climbers who want to even have my job. I'd love to teach them exactly how to do it, since I plan on climbing and not doing my role forever as well. Why not coach your predecessor instead of seeing them as competition to take your job.

Coaching and Development, in my opinion, is both Intrinsic and Organic. Intrinsic in identifying individuals that have interest and desire for professional growth. And Organic, in the fact that the process of learning is constantly changing and growing itself. The only constant in effective leadership...is you.

Authoritative leadership is a must-have executive skill and must be exercised where - There is a need to drive business-critical timelines. - Compliance and integrity-related decisions. - Decisions comprising finance and legal matters. - Organization image and market/customer impacting situations.

If authoritative leadership is narcissistically-oriented, it will provide short term clarity to the teams but will likely have muddier long term vision for the organization.

In the African context, authoritative leadership is rooted in cultural norms. The "why" is the need for structure and guidance in diverse and often complex environments. However, it's vital to evolve this style to be more inclusive and participatory while respecting tradition. The "how" is to combine the best of both worlds by incorporating elements of authoritative leadership into a more modern, adaptive framework.

Authoritative leadership provides clarity, direction, and a swift decision-making framework. Yet, in a world marked by diverse generations, the "command and control" approach must be applied judiciously to maintain its effectiveness and adapt to evolving dynamics.

This style is sometimes referred to as "the pacesetting style". A leader who sets high standards and exemplifies them himself has a positive impact on employees who are self-motivated and highly competent. But other employees may feel overwhelmed.

Transformational Leaders come in a variety “flavors.” Some are Physical leaders who lead by example. Think: Mel Gibson in the film “We Were Soldiers.” “I’ll be the 1st on the battlefield and the last one off.” We’re in this together! Others are Intellectual. They compel their followers by stimulating their minds. Like Steve Jobs. Emotional leaders often garner irrational loyalty from their followers by tapping into their core values at a gut level. Consider Donald Trump … you may, or may not, like or agree with the sentiments he stimulates, but he’s the epitome of an emotional leader. People follow Spiritual leaders because of the cause they stand for or the Truth they put before themselves. Thank you, Nelson Mandela! Which are you?

I love this one! Motivation, innovation, and a clear vision is what makes the followers work together with the leader. Apart from big changes and initiatives, a transformational leader plays an important role in company leadership. Sometimes, more operational-oriented people can't follow and commit right away, but it takes time for every process.

In my experience, leading successful transformations requires addressing both the rational and emotional aspects of change. People often prioritize their emotions over logic and use rationalization to support their feelings. Once the groundwork is laid, the transform can commence. As a transformational leader, the key is to educate and enable those driving change. To do so effectively, one must employ scalable and relatable methods. Furthermore, a leader must establish mechanisms to maintain and expand the transformation aligned with the envisioned scale. This can involve initiatives such as forming CoPs and other crowd-sourcing models to create network effects that encourage contributions and broaden the scope of adoption.

a leader must multiskill and good listener some time newcomers have good ideas which will not come up... gather knowledge from various sources and put stronge innovative concepts that the leader...Protagonist..

I truly believe in this one. I feel transformational leadership is a game changer and more than just guiding people. It's not just telling them what to do, but also helping them grow and be creative. Trying to make everyone feel like they're part of something important, and encourage them to come up with new ideas. This approach makes work more exciting and helps us all do a great job together.

The more styles a leader masters, the better. Specifically, switching among authoritative, affiliative, democratic, and coaching styles as conditions dictate is very effective.

I personally believe that Situational Leadership is key - based on the changing needs of the team, organization, or the project at hand, one needs to adjust their leadership style - be it transformational, visionary, democratic etc. This will help the teams involved to deliver their best given ongoing circumstances. Irrespective of the leadership style, a leader needs to practice what they preach, and walk the talk…

A report by the Corporate Leadership Council indicated that employees with high levels of self-leadership are 20% more productive. Leaders who foster self-leadership within their teams cultivate an environment where team members take initiative and responsibility for their actions. By encouraging self-awareness, decision-making, and proactive problem-solving, executives empower their teams to act autonomously, resulting in increased efficiency, innovation, and alignment with organizational goals.

I believe there is no fixed style or approach when it comes to leading your team. Your leadership style must be dynamic, as per the requirement of the business situation & also the specific team member. I have had a diverse range of employees reporting to me from freshers to senior citizens nearing retirement, and also from diverse educational backgrounds, etc. Further, different situations require different styles. Hence, as a leader, you will see yourself using all the styles to be effective - visionary, democratic, coaching, authoritative & transformational, in different situations & circumstances! I definitely believe that you should always strive to be the leader that you yourself would like to have in your life!

As the saying goes: "Be like water". By being aware that there are different leadership styles, you might be better equipped to deal with different situations when able to tap-in to different leadership stances and adapt along the way to react to different external (or internal) forces. Be adaptative, be prepared, and be authentic. The rest will follow.