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Management: Leadership Style

Dec 19, 2021

I sometimes find myself in situations where the concept of a leadership style is brought up. While, this discussion progresses, it usually ends up with a conclusion that leaders have different appoaches, and every leader has a style. For me, a leader should be:

Honest

I have committed to practice transparency with my team as transparency builds trust.

Humble

I have committed to FIRST listen and solicit feedback before I express my opinions.

Human

I have committed to show empathy and treat team members as humans first.

Embracing the three Hs above gives me a good foundation to make decisions, but I would also have to add a few more items that provide a bit more clarity of what concrete actions I should take. The following points are very well expressed by shrm:

  1. Create certainty for my teams: there have definitely been challenging times in my career when there was a lot of uncertainty around a team existence due to company’s shifting prioritieas, or there is some sort of internal company dynamic and battling egos. It is extremely important in these cases when the ground is continuously shifting underneath to reduce the feeling of threat by restating your vision, goals, impact that you are making, and reaafirm your own commitmment.
  2. Solicit anonymous feedback: I would send out anonymous feedback requests twice a year; it is a great way to get honest opinions on where the team is at in terms of capacity, morale, and job satisfaction. Even with well-intentioned managers, things can get off course.
  3. Enable autonomy: once team alignment is in place, provide flexibility by how, when and where team members complete their work.
  4. Encourage questioning the status quo: I myself have fallen into the trap of trying to make a change only to be shut down which caused me to keep quiet, declined my morale, and increased my burnout. This is something I would hate if my teammates experience, and I am not able to self-correct.
  5. Shield your team by ruthless prioritization and clear decision making criteria: teams need dedicated blocks of time to push work. Constant interruptions and shifts are an easy way to bring down morale.
  6. Be in it together: pair program, celebrate birthdays and anniversaries, or have fun together.

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