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Leadership styles: Which is best? | Kan & Company

One day, a budget was put forward to a board for approval by the CEO.  The sales forecast was discussed and the board asked for the Sales and Marketing Manager to give a presentation on how it was developed and to discuss the assumptions he used.

During the discussion, the manager was unable to answer the board’s questions and in the end he admitted that he had had no hand in developing the forecast.  The CEO was embarrassed and angry with his manager.  Wow, awkward.

I believe that no one leadership style fits every situation.

Different styles are often categorized in many ways but ultimately they are variations of just two:  the Autocratic and Participative styles.

The Autocratic Style of Leadership

In my experience, the Autocratic style works best in situations where there is little time for consultation and the leader is of unusual ability.

The greater the ability of autocratic leaders, the more inclined those leaders are to rely on their own judgement.

The downsides are numerous:  often those leaders over-estimate their own abilities; or they often do not nurture new leadership underneath them and so when they move on, they leave a significant succession problem for those who are left behind.

Autocrats can and often are, successful

An unusually charismatic autocratic leader can be exceptional in their ability to make an organisation perform.  They may be able to achieve it for several years, even decades.

Nonetheless they create significant risks for their organisations.  They can’t avoid the succession problem.  No one can avoid the risk of departing for a bigger better appointment or even death.

Nor can they avoid the leadership vacuum they create underneath them.  Anyone of ability will not stand for being repressed for too long.  Their spirit is either snuffed out or they leave.

The Participative Style of Leadership

A participative style of leadership is difficult to achieve.  It requires individuals of not just unusual ability but also unusual maturity.

Participative leaders need to have unusual maturity because they are comfortable with the idea that not all good ideas must come from them.

They are willing to hire staff that have greater ability than them, yet they are directive and forthright enough to sense when discussion has run its course and its time to synthesise a plan.

The participative style recognizes a long game

Yet the participative style recognizes that there is a long game.  A long game that involves nurturing staff to become leaders of their respective areas of responsibility.  The style involves giving team members the confidence to exercise initiative, express their opinions and to become leaders that nurture another layer of leadership under them.

The long game is often overlooked because so many people subscribe to the view that broad experience is what must be sought, so up and coming executives are unwisely advised to move on every 2-3 years.

Such thinking promotes short term thinking.  It creates acute pressure to get quick results, so that another proverbial notch can be quickly added to one’s belt,  strengthening a CV or resume for the next job application.

Participation creates engagement

The participative style of leadership encourages engagement, rewards creating a safe environment where team members can not only perform but thrive.  It isn’t for everyone.  It takes time to learn how to nurture rather than just pull rank.

It takes time to learn how to give people confidence that their opinions matter and will be respected, even if those opinions are mistaken.

It takes patience to tolerate mistakes while yet being committed to effective performance management.  It takes time to learn to be patient and to really listen.

Participation and indecision

Sometimes detractors of the participative style mistake consultation with indecision and weakness.  Some team members can’t handle being given the opportunity to speak because they are too used to being told what to do.

Being given the opportunity to offer their opinions makes them feel pressured, they may even think the opportunity to speak is a trap to embarrass them in case they don’t come up with the “right answer.”

Attempting a participative style of leadership will therefore require some perseverence and specific actions to nurture confidence amongst such team members.

The Participative Style is not Democracy

Don’t mistake the participative style with democracy.  You could try it that way, but business shouldn’t be politics.  Decisions should be based on the merits of each business case.

Democracy leads to popularity contests.  I can’t imagine a more nightmarish scenario.

Respect comes not from enlisting support but from respecting individual input from team members, efficiently forming a way forward and being decisive.

However, poor leaders sometimes do hide behind a participative style because they lack the courage to make a decision.  If you can see that in yourself, start working on overcoming this weakness straight away.

Indecision has to be one of the most prominent reasons for business failure.  The cost of indecision is high.   If you don’t make decisions, someone else, probably a competitor, will make them for you.

The Autocratic Style or the Participative Style?

The difference between the Autocratic Style and the Participative Style is in how you get to that decision.  But both must result in a decision.

I used to play field hockey.  I once played in a test between Australian Universities and New Zealand Universities.  The Australian side was loaded with players from their national side.  Our wiley coach realized that, and even though we aspired to play a style that required high skill levels, he knew this side was of a standard few of us will have encountered before.

We usually played a 5-3-2 formation; 5 forwards, 3 mid-fielders and 2-full backs.  In the changing rooms before the game, our coach knelt on the floor, pulled out a set of checkers and explained a new formation to us.

The forwards would become mid-fielders and would spend the entire game man-on-man marking their Australian counterparts.  The three conventional mid-fielders would become our forwards.  The full backs would remain in their usual positions.

The Australian forwards immediately began trying lose their markers.  They ran all over the field and it was frenetic chaos.  I could hear people trying to figure out what formation each team was using because the only sense was that we followed our mark no matter what.

It totally disrupted the Australians as they focused on losing their markers rather than playing hockey.  And despite the odds we won 4-3.

Our coach was wise enough to change his game based on the abilities of his team.  In choosing between the Participative or Autocratic leadership styles, realistically assess the abilities of your team.

You may have inherited it from an Autocrat and so your team’s communication skills and the mindsets of your team aren’t up to performing within a participative style of leadership.

You may have to work out a plan on how to get them into the shape you need to work within a participative leadership style.  Some may never be able to change and you will have to decide whether to keep them.

It’s not easy to change styles.  It’s probably easier to move from a participative style to an autocratic one.  Each has their strengths but whatever style you adopt, be aware of its weaknesses.

The participative style relies on an inherent belief:  That all organisations are greater than the sum of their individual parts.

 

Autocratic Style Participative Style
Strength

  • Prominent figurehead
  • Allows leaders with exceptional ability to shine unhindered
  • Great where decisions must be made in haste
  • Doesn’t require a leader with exceptional people skills or maturity
  • Can be effective in a crisis
  • Useful where the leader has more knowledge and expertise about the problem in hand
 Strength

  • Nurtures new leaders, reducing the severity of a succession problem
  • Creates a greater sense of inclusion, trust and loyalty
  • Establishes buy-in as part of the decision making process
  • Brings out more rounded solutions as diverse perspectives are taken into consideration
  • Develops, over time, better communication skills across the team
Weakness

  • Creates succession problems
  • Less likely to result in well-rounded solutions
  • Relies heavily on the judgement of one person to succeed
  • Advancement through the organisation might reward obsequious managers
 Weakness

  • May take longer to reach a decision
  • Managers that lack leadership qualities may hide behind a participative process and use it to avoid responsibility
  • Not all team members respond to a participative style, they prefer “being told what to do”, they might find discussion threatening
  • Requires leaders with well developed communication skills and unusual maturity

 

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How are you different? 4 steps to standing out from your competitors, in a good way. | Kan & Company

9 minutes to read

“We’re all the same”

The other day I was discussing how the competitors in a particular industry differentiated themselves from one another.

One of the participants nodded knowingly and said “We’re all saying the same things, we’ve got basically the same feature set.  No one is different from anyone else.  We’re all chasing the same thing.”

Really?

In many mature markets, whether its soft drinks like coca-cola or lemonade through to televisions, or even sophisticated products like electronic cameras, smartphones, IT systems or airport baggage conveyor belts, you could say that each of the competitors are roughly the same. But you’d be wrong.

Actually, you’re not

In fact, despite the fact that the competitors feel they are in an intense arm wrestle with little differentiation between each other, customer perceptions could be and often are, quite different.

The challenge for each competitor is to get inside the head of your clients. What are they saying about the various competitors? What characteristics of your product and service bundle do they rate everyone on?

Are you more reliable? Do you perform better? Are you more responsive? Do you instill more confidence?  What comes to mind when they think about You?

When the features of all the competitors are relatively the same, the differences between the more subtle characteristics of each competitor become more amplified in customers’ minds.

Take cars…

Take sedan cars. A car, is a car, is a car, right? No. Think about it. Most cars have four wheels, a steering wheel, an engine, a body and a load carrying capability. These days most are pretty reliable, their comfort levels, sound proofing and accessories are all pretty good.

Yet most people will see cars from different manufacturers, as being radically different.

Most people will perceive different manufacturers through the lens created by their brands. Some cars will be seen as more masculine, more sophisticated, more sporty, more feminine… Others are considered geeky, boring, goofy, qwerky…

Customers will want to be identified with a particular brand, because they see it as a natural extension of themselves.  And that’s how they want to project themselves to others, but without words.

So loyal Ford, Toyota, Honda, GM, and Chrysler owners will see a world of difference between each other’s cars.

The same is true of industrial products too. All the customer’s tangible interactions with your product and service, build toward the “brand” persona of your company. No matter how commoditized you may feel your product category might be, your customers will still associate different values to your “brand.”

Or Coca-cola vs Pepsi

Take Coca-Cola and Pepsi. Time and again, blind taste testers are fooled into thinking that Coca-Cola is in fact Pepsi, and the other way around. Yet, the Coca-Cola fan drinkers would never knowingly buy a Pepsi; and the Pepsi drinkers would choke if they knew they were drinking a coke. Why?

But back to B2B: I once knew a salesperson for Swagelok, a manufacturer of gas and fluid systems components, such as tube fittings, valves, tubing, and gauges. When he came to give a demonstration of his product, it was presented inside a case, with a felt lined, form fitting interior.

Before he brought it out he would lay out a felt cloth down on the meeting table before unclasping the case and bringing out the shiny industrial valve for the client to see.

Just by unboxing the valve in front of the potential client, well before he began saying anything in his presentation, he had put the potential client through quite an experience and the client had had a foretaste about what this company was about.

By now, you might have guessed that I think of “Product” in a very broad way.  To me, “Product” is everything to do with the physical product and/or service your customer is likely to experience through interacting with the actual product or service itself, as well as your company, its staff, its agents, its advertisements, its publications and any after sales interactions the client might have.

3 steps to differentiation

Step 1:  Don’t fall into the trap of thinking there is no way you can differentiate your product from your competitors.

Whether it’s better reliability, responsiveness, assurance, presentation, attitude, or empathy for your clients’ needs, whether it’s a set of values, a persona, identification with some idea that captures the imagination of your customers, whatever it might be, trust that your customers already think of you as being different than your competitors.

Step 2:  Find out how you’re different and whether it’s in a good way or bad way.

Read reviews of your products and services.  Talk to existing and potential customers.  Take out consultants that advise your customers for a cup of coffee. You might be pleasantly surprised how much they are all willing to tell you.

Step 3: And if it’s in a bad way, take it by the horns, and channel your customers’ perceptions toward something they think is important. It most likely won’t change by accident. Left alone, it might even get worse.

Focus on something your clients rate highly and make sure you’re better than the rest of your competition on it.  Line up everything to support this competitive strength.  This is the essence of strategy and product positioning.

“Product” differentiation can happen organically and accidentally but then you don’t know whether its a strength or a weakness. Product differentiation can still be organic, but do make it an intentional process.

Intrigued?  Want to talk about it?  Click the button and we’ll get back to you.

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Sales doesn’t work in isolation… | Kan & Company

2 minutes to read

Sometimes when the sales pipeline is looking lean, the Sales team quite rightly comes under scrutiny.

Their lead generation methods, their pitches, feedback from prospects and their activity levels, among other things, will be reviewed.

While Sales is under the magnifying glass, its easy to fall into the trap of looking at it in isolation.

Sales doesn’t operate in isolation or a vacuum.  In fact, Sales works in conjunction with a number of other factors, such as brand awareness, reputation, and customer service experience.

I recently took part in a discussion about a new product launch. We were discussing the sales process of an OEM product to other technology firms.  During the discussion, he quite rightly pointed out that he was reliant on the technical team to develop manuals and specification documents that allowed potential customers to see how the new product would be integrated into their own systems, what software had been written that provided APIs for them to use and what after sales support would be available.

He’s going to be pushing it uphill if these things aren’t in place beforehand.

On another occasion, a business owner suggested to me that all he had to do was to add another sales person to his sales team.  After a short discussion, it became clear that the business had not developed an idea that captured the imagination of its market.  An idea that made it stand out from its competitors.  An idea that would form a theme for its sales pitches.  An idea around which all its marketing efforts could rally.

If Sales are flat lining, sure, scrutinize your sales operations to make sure your i’s are dotted and t’s are crossed but I suggest you also look at your key messages, your advertising, your website marketing, your case studies and customer experience processes.

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You have to know right from wrong, up from down | Kan & Company

4 minutes to read

Many years ago, I had the pleasure of travelling through Africa for several months.

A continent that is resource rich and fertile.  Theoretically it should be prospering and even thriving.

But it isn’t.

After I returned, I had much time to reflect on the experience and decided the difference between New Zealand and Africa was what resided in our heads.

Over there, you couldn’t rely on the rule of law, and self (by that I mean personal) governance.  Corruption, laziness, and a lack of integrity were endemic.  Their moral compass had been skewed.

In recent times, I have witnessed first hand when business owners and managers have lost their moral compass.

If staff, suppliers and contractors can’t rely on their managers and owners to create a safe environment for them then a fundamental trust is broken.

Without trust, a key cornerstone of what makes a group of individuals into a successful team or organisation is lost.

Without trust, a sense of inclusion, commitment, loyalty and pride are all undermined.

A safe environment, is an environment where leaders can be relied upon to have a universal sense of what is right and wrong, what is good and evil.

Staff ought to be able to rely on their leaders to expect and enforce an environment where universal values are upheld.  When they aren’t the reputation and performance of the organisation and business, are respectively, damaged and impeded.

Values are often gradually eroded.  Few set out to become evil.  But one small thing gets added to another.  Years pass and things originally unacceptable have become part of the furniture.

Products being mislabelled as being a better quality than they actually are.  Inflated hours being billed that were never worked because “the customer thinks the amount is reasonable”, or mis-classifying personal expenses as business ones.  Some would say these are little things, but they mount up.

Because they creep up on us, its useful to take stock once in a while.  Are we honest?  Can we be described as being as pure as the driven snow?  Why not?  What message are we sending to one another if we tolerate it.  How much does this kind of thing hold us back?

Sometimes our moral compass can be so eroded that we’ve unknowingly lost objectivity.  When you take stock look for signs that things aren’t right.  Are there things we’d rather hide from customers, staff, our spouses or the authorities?  Do we say things like, what they don’t know won’t hurt them?

I believe even though we think we might be successful, there might be even more success if we could avoid the temptation to cut corners.  It’s never too late to change course.

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The theory of constraints | Kan & Company

2 minutes to read

Sometimes, an idea or tool comes along that is so powerful, that you find yourself going back to it over and over.

The theory of constraints is one such idea.  According to this theory, every system has a constraint or bottleneck, if you like, which when cleared will result in the entire system advancing in throughput.

One of the corollaries to the idea is that wherever there is a constraint, it will most likely be working at 100% capacity.

For example, say there is a software development business.  Sales have plateaued and the sales pipeline looks lean.

On the other hand, the developers are working at full capacity and team leaders are also expected to carry out pre-sales activity such as carry out quotations, engage with prospects for pre-sales meetings, and write proposals.

Sales revenue swings from feast to famine as the pipeline work is fulfilled and the developers scramble to service prospects and write proposals, then once some sales success is achieved they go back to development activity, neglecting pre-sales work again.

Management, who are the developers, is disappointed with Sales because the gaps in the sales pipeline keep appearing.  Sales is frustrated with Management because they are unable to respond quickly when they are needed to provide technical input for pre-sales, quotations and proposals.

Can you spot the constraint or bottleneck?

Bottlenecks can come in all sorts of shapes and forms.  It can be any operational area of the business.

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