I was asked this week for my thoughts on leadership styles and how to get the best out of a team. Given the challenging times in which we live, I thought I would share some of the guiding principles and lessons I have learned over many years of developing high-performance product and marketing teams. Being a good manager is challenging, particularly in product management when there are so many diverse personalities and skills. In summary, I have used situational leadership coupled with Dan Pink’s autonomy, mastery and purpose framework as my guiding principles.
Situational leadership
A key responsibility you have as a manager is to develop and nurture the talent in your team, and this is often broadly labelled as coaching. There are, however, four different leadership styles: directing, coaching, supporting and delegating. These are described in more detail in this article by Becky Leighton, which includes this informative graphic.
When helping a team member develop a new skill, the first leadership style may be directing, because they do not yet have the necessary skills and you need to provide guidance and direction. As they build up knowledge and expertise, you can apply a coaching style that still involves directive behaviour but also highly supportive behaviour as they take on many aspects themselves. The more capable they become the more you can shift your style to supporting, with little directive behaviour but still progress checking and reporting to make sure the team member is doing the right things. Ultimately, you move to delegating when you are able to delegate the task in full, with little or no direction or support needed.
A key point here, which is missed by Becky Leighton, is that you should not think of your leadership style in the context of an individual. Instead, you need to think about it in the context of the skill the individual is trying to develop. Team members are at different levels of competency for many different skills, and so you need to vary your style of leadership depending on the skill, not depending on the individual. The same individual needs a different style for different situations, and this changes over time as they develop.
An important aspect here is self-awareness, for both you and your team member. Everyone should be prepared to have an open dialogue about skill levels, and this applies to both managers and team members. In some ways, this is summed up nicely by a mantra I have on a postcard on my desk, which says “Grammar: The difference between knowing your shit and knowing you’re shit”.
Don’t try and use a directing style to a team member that already has the skills, and equally, don’t delegate something to someone who doesn’t have the skills. Having an open conversation about skill levels and how to develop these is a very healthy way to improve performance and motivate your team.
The science of motivation
Talking about motivation, I love the 11 minute RSA animate version of Dan Pink’s TED talk on the science of motivation. Dan Pink talks about how there are three factors that the science shows lead to better performance: autonomy, mastery and purpose. I’ve interpreted this as recognition, challenge and vision: give people recognition for their self-directed achievements, give them challenges to help them master new skills, and give them purpose through a common vision.
Motivational leadership
For me, the real power comes in the combination of situational leadership and the science of motivation. As your team members develop from knowing they’re shit to knowing their shit, through your informed transition of leadership styles from directing through coaching to supporting and then delegating, you’ll be giving them challenging tasks from which they can learn, and recognition for their achievements. If this is all aligned with a common vision, you’ll have motivated team members who deliver better performance with high degrees of personal satisfaction.
Recognition, challenge and vision
While it is (relatively) easy to write about techniques such as these in a blog, it is a lot harder to actually apply these consistently in the workplace with your team and colleagues. I believe I have successfully used these techniques to motivate and develop high-performance product and marketing teams… maybe people who have worked for me in the past might comment on how successful I have been!
Let me leave you with a great example of motivational leadership, which illustrates really well the power of recognition, and maybe to a lesser extent, challenge and vision. It is a very entertaining 5 minutes of James Corden talking about team selection at his school: enjoy!
Terry Lawlor 