"What Leaders really do"

Following on from my last blog about the need for real consultation and engagement in the public sector cuts, I was interested to see in the July edition of People Management an article focussing on the need for a "boost in capability" in public sector leadership. 

The CIPD chief economist, John Philpott, comments that the politicians may not have fully considered the "enormous management challenges" that measures to reduce the budget deficit will create in a workforce that will be increasingly demoralised.  He warns that the public sector is "numerically overmanaged" and "qualitatively undermanaged".  The editorial points out that whilst there are some capable leaders, there are not sufficient to deal with the degree of transformation required.

Whilst I reflected on this, John Kotter's classic Harvard Business Review article "what leaders really do" sprang to mind, in which he says that "they don't make plans;they don't solve problems; they don't even organise people.  What leaders really do is prepare organisations for change and help them to cope as they struggle through it".

So, how to lead this change?

There are many leadership models, and one of my particular favourites is Daniel Goleman's Six Leadership styles, as it is so well researched.  His model identifies successful leaders as those who "use one or more of 6 distinct leadership approaches and skilfully switch dependent on the situation".  So here they are:

• Visionary: they inspire and explain how efforts contribute to the 'dream'.  Through empathy and clarity they move people towards the shared goal.
• Affiliative: creates harmony that boosts morale and solves conflict.  A useful style for healing rifts or motivating during stressful times.
• Participative: a superb listener, a team worker, collaborator, influencer.  By valuing people's input they get commitment through participation.
• Coaching: by listening and helping people identify their own strengths and weaknesses, they encourage, delegate and improve performance by building long-term capabilities.
• Pacesetting: a strong drive to achieve, high personal standards and initiative, pacesetters get results from a competent team.  But too much and employees feel stifled and have less room to grow.
• Directive: this style demands compliance, and is more effective in a crisis situation.  It is least effective when used with capable and self-motivated employees.

So having read the leadership styles, which ones would you say you use effectively, under-use and maybe over-use?

Hopefully this has given you a little 'food for thought' in managing through tricky times!  I would love to hear from you, on how you are implementing changes.