We all know that knowing your strengths and working from them is often a great thing. And it´s something we as coaches often advocate.
But – as much as working from your strengths is a great thing, too much of anything is too much.
A caring parent is a wonderful thing, but an overcaring parent can feel suffocating, even if the intention is the best in the world. A similar dynamic happens within leadership.
Picture: Leio McLaren, unsplash.com
Being an empathetic, open and supporting leader who encourages ownership can be really great, but being it too much of that can get in the way of great leadership and effective work.
Sometimes, as a leader, you do need to instruct, to micromanage, to give people direct and honest feedback, hold them accountable or to train or to guide with a lot of detail. Because, often the leader of a team or an organisation have more experience, sometimes also more motivation and dedication, and therefore taking more charge or sometimes taking decisions on behalf of others would make sense.
And this kind of dynamic happen with more or less all leadership traits.
On the other side of the continuum of open communication is being strategic, protecting information, being tactical and being smart.
On the other side of encouraging participation and ownership is getting shit done your self, taking more responsibility.
On the other side of being strongly purpose driven is being flexible, pragmatic and taking time to think things through before acting. Turning down passion can allow you to calm down, breath, think, and be smart, find the best timing, and increase the chance of your purpose coming to life one step at a time.
It’s not about either or though, it’s about knowing when to do and be what in which situation and with which people.
For myself I can say that I often have overemphasised participation, encouraging ownership and open communication. And that I´ve often focused too much shared decisions-making rather than taking decisions myself, for example in situations when I have been the team leader with the most experience and the strongest commitment. Often I´ve tried to be the perfect coaching leader, which then got in the way of great and effective leadership.
So rather than focusing coaching leadership or great leadership, it´s better to just be.
To analyse the situation objectively. What is the degree of commitment and experience with our staff. How much should decisions be shared and how much should they be done by me in this context and situation?
Realising this I have let myself be more selfish, more self-oriented, more direct and allowing myself to just being me and seeing things for whatever they are, and not trying to be a good or bad leader or anything else.
So now over to you. What are some of the strengths you might overemphasise? And which are some of your leadership traits you are avoiding too much? Giving direct feedback? Taking decisions on behalf of others? Cutting through when people are discussing too much?
As always – we really appreciate hearing your thoughts!
Did you like this blog post?
Check out our inspiration folder for many similar blog posts, articles, videos and book recommendations.