A personal leadership style is like a personality mark showing in form of leadership actions. Like with most of our habits we get along better with others if we go through the trouble of becoming aware and to start choosing our actions. As children we are raised by grownups around us, as adults we have the chance to keep raising ourselves to become the person we want to be. In this article I will share three of the main reasons why you should spend time consciously managing your leadership style instead of just accepting raw version of it.
Why managing it will make you a better leader
1. Awareness of how you affect others.
In working to understand and choose your actions as a leader you will also gain a higher insight on how you actually affect people around you. Every person has an effect when being together with others. As a leader one of the things you notice is that your impact on the group increases, good or bad. Learning the skills to help you form this impact is essential to leadership. Some will come naturally to you, others may not. Common skills worked on in coaching are motivation of others, pursuing consequences when agreements are not held, clarity in communication, skills that in your day to day work will affect the result of your team.
The way you as a leader show up and the way you express yourself is a strong part of how your team is built. Your personal leadership style affects the way you show up and what skills come easy to you, thus affecting your team. When building it on your core values and aligning with them your presence grows stronger. Learning through practicing with a professional coach can help you see and reflect on how you are affecting others and how to change what is not working.
2. Higher resilience
When we are aware of our personal leadership style and have the tools to manage it we are also aware of our strengths and weaknesses and how to handle them. Managing your personal leadership style increases your resilience. It helps you keep self-confidence when going gest tough and to adapt to situation without loosing your core values. Working out of your core values is expressed in your leadership style and learning how to manage it in different contexts makes you able to be a good leader in any team. Relying on unconscious leadership skills makes you vulnerable to having a context in line with your leadership style or you will fail. Choosing to regularly work on your ability to manage your leadership style is a powerful way of building resilience that can keep you out of burnout and distress.
3. Increased efficiency
When your personal leadership style is aligned with your team, your company goals and your context you become powerful as a leader. That feeling of everything aligned is what I look for in leadership coaching because in those moments you are highly efficient and at the same time working in a flow. Having a habit of managing your leadership style which is actually the one thing in this equation you can effectively change yourself is giving yourself the tools to influence the other factors and create this alignment over and over again. Everybody wants an effective team. The way you manage your team will of course affect their performance but underlying that is the fact that the way you manage yourself as a leader will profoundly affect the way you manage your team.
How to manage your personal leadership style
If you want to be truly powerful as a leader, being able to create the results you want, working on managing your personal leadership style is an effective starting point. Self-reflection and change of perspectives are useful tools. Partnering up with someone who can help you see and challenge your blind spots will give you the opportunity to learn and grow. Managing your personal leadership style makes the difference between active action and pure luck. Don’t miss it.