In the intricate landscape of leadership, understanding and applying various leadership styles is essential for achieving effective and impactful results. This episode dives deep into the leadership style spectrum, shedding light on the key types of leadership styles, their practical uses, and the contexts in which they are most effective. By navigating through the spectrum—from authoritarian to transformational approaches—leaders can cultivate a versatile leadership toolkit that enhances their adaptability and effectiveness in diverse situations. Grasping these nuances is pivotal for emerging leaders and seasoned professionals alike, aiming to transition from being mere bosses to inspiring and influential leaders.

Timestamped Overview

During this solo episode, I cover the following topics dealing with the leadership style spectrum:

  • [00:00:00] Introduction to Leadership Styles and the Common Queries New Leaders Have

  • [00:01:12] Mission of Moving Forward Leadership

  • [00:02:14] Announcement: Power Goals Program Launch

  • [00:04:20] Critique of “New” Leadership Concepts and Approaches

  • [00:06:37] Effective Marketing of Leadership Strategies

  • [00:08:08] Timeless Nature of Leadership Concepts

  • [00:09:54] Introduction to the Leadership Style Spectrum

  • [00:11:35] Authoritarian vs. Laissez-Faire Endpoints of the Spectrum

  • [00:12:56] Authoritarian and Transformational Leadership Groupings

  • [00:15:32] Situational Use of Authoritarian and Laissez-Faire Leadership

  • [00:18:01] Pitfalls of Extreme Style Adherence

  • [00:20:03] Personal Experiences with Authoritarian and Laissez-Faire Leaders

  • [00:23:39] Optimal Balance: Sliding along the Leadership Spectrum

  • [00:25:17] Effective Leadership Across Different Situations

Related Articles and Podcasts

Join Our Elite Mastermind Community

Join Scott and our dynamic Mastermind Community! 🚀

 

Unlock the power of growth-focused leadership with a group of like-minded individuals who are passionate about taking their leadership skills to the next level. 🌟

 

Ready to transform your leadership journey? Click here for more information! 👉📈

Leave an iTunes Review

Get a FREE membership!

If you’re enjoying the show, leave us a review on your favorite podcast appIf your review is chosen as the Review-of-the Week, we’ll get a free month to the Leader Growth Mastermind!

What do: Write a review, send an email to scott@movingforwardleadership.com with a screen capture of the review, and wait to hear it read out on the show! 

Thanks for the amazing support!  

 

Write your review or rating here:

Unlock Your Peak Leadership Potential with Personalized 1-to-1 Coaching

Elevate your leadership to its highest potential with personalized 1-to-1 coaching from Scott. Discover the path to peak performance and achieve unparalleled success in your leadership journey. Ready to unlock your leadership’s full potential?

Subscribe to the Peak Performance Leadership Podcast

Join thousands of leaders worldwide who are transforming their leadership skills with the Peak Performance Leadership podcast. Unleash your full potential and stay at the forefront of leadership trends. Subscribe now and embark on your leadership journey of excellence!

Follow us on Your Favorite Social Media

Share now!


Transcript

The following is an AI generated transcript which should be used for reference purposes only. It has not been verified or edited to reflect what was actually said in the podcast episode. 


 

Scott McCarthy [00:00:00]:
I often receive the questions of, what are the different leadership styles? Or, what is the best leadership style? How do I know what style to use during a particular incident? These questions are common for all new leaders or those who lack experience in a wide range of situations. Often, people become bosses because they stick to one particular style, which is authoritarian in its base, and that leads to a negative perception. Today, I go over the leadership style spectrum, covering topics such as new leadership styles and ideologies, the different types of leadership styles along the spectrum, the uses of the various styles, and then finally, the best leadership style. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Moon for Leadership podcast, episode 74 of Leadership Style Spectrum. Hey, everybody. Welcome 1. Welcome all to the Boon Ford Leadership Podcast. It’s your host and founder, Scott McCarthy.

Scott McCarthy [00:01:12]:
And thanks for coming out. Thanks for listening. And most importantly, thanks for being a part of this epically growing community revolving around getting people to stop bossing and start leading. And doesn’t matter if you’re a brand new leader, if you’re someone who is looking at joining the leadership roles, or you’re a seasoned leader, we can all learn something. Right? And you know what? There are just way too many bosses out there in the world, and our mission here at Moving Forward Leadership is to day by day, one boss at a time, turn them into actual leaders. So thanks for coming out. Before we dive into today’s solo episode, so I’m gonna meet by myself, which happens from time to time, depending on, guest schedules and my schedule, but I want to dive into something exciting. I want to dive into an announcement for you all out there.

Scott McCarthy [00:02:14]:
Okay. And that is the preparation for the launch of my first program. That’s right. My first program revolving around you, the individual. You the leader. You the person. Okay? If you’re having troubles achieving your goals, if you’re not sure how to go about achieving something that you’ve tried so many times. If you know you want to make yourself better, but you don’t know in what areas or how to go about doing it, Then this is going to be for you ladies and gentlemen.

Scott McCarthy [00:03:00]:
That’s right. The power goals program is coming to you. It’s currently in its final polishing stage right now, But if you’re interested in learning more about how to go about finding out what goals are proper for you, you the individual, how you can go about achieving those goals, how you go about organizing your life to achieve those goals, and how you go about adjusting along the course of the journey in your goal achievement to ensure success, then you should go to movingforwardleadership.comforward/power. And there, what you’re going to find is a mailing list for the Power Goals program for all the information relating to its launch. Be sure to check it out. And, hey, you know what? It’s not gonna cost you anything to sign up for the mailing list. It’s completely free. Again, that’s movingforwardleadership.comforward/power.

Scott McCarthy [00:04:20]:
Alright, folks. That’s enough of the marketing, right? You’re not here for that. You’re here for the leadership goods. You’re here to learn hopefully something new and something most importantly pertinent to you. So there’s a lot of talk out there right now. Right? A lot of talk on leadership styles and whether that’s directly saying leadership style or indirectly saying it through various publications and books. And yes, I’m going to get a little bit pointy here, and it’s not to be critical. Okay.

Scott McCarthy [00:04:57]:
But the one thing that absolutely drives me nuts is when all these gurus come out and say I have the newest and latest and greatest thing in the leadership space. Check out the best style modeled after my experience based off of all the different successes I’ve had yada yada okay these things absolutely drive me bonkers and I’ll explain to you why And ironically, I’m gonna start with Start With Why from Simon Sinek. You see absolutely nothing wrong with what Simon goes about in his book, and in his videos, and in every all of his speeches, and and and talks, etcetera. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with it whatsoever. But the one thing which it is not, it is that it is not new. Starting with why has been around my leadership journey since the beginning. It was something that was ingrained in me, basically, from day 1. And why? So that your people have a greater understanding of the task at hand, what you want them to achieve, the reasoning behind it because they will be more likely to go the extra distance for you, to work harder for you, to have a better understanding of what’s to be achieved, and potentially bring up other solutions that may be more effective, more efficient, easier to implement, etcetera.

Scott McCarthy [00:06:37]:
So why is start with why such as success is due to the marketing around the message. Right? It’s about how it’s been packaged up and presented to you, the consumer. And again, I’m not being critical of this, Simon. You know, kudos to him. He is super successful in the spirit, a leader in the leadership sphere. And I have nothing respect for him. And he’s taken something which is not new and turned it into a publication and gear that publication towards the consumer in a way which obviously is resonated with you. Therefore people are buying it and understanding it and implementing it, which is awesome.

Scott McCarthy [00:07:28]:
Absolutely awesome. Exactly what I am doing here moving forward leadership. No different. But one thing you’ll never hear me say is this is new stuff folks because it’s not. We people have been on the planet for tens of thousands if not longer years. And we’re doing 2 things since the beginning of time, since humans have existed. We’ve been leading people, and unfortunately, we’ve been finding ways to inflict pain on people. A little bit more on the second one, but truth has to be told, right? So let’s go back to the first one.

Scott McCarthy [00:08:08]:
For tens of thousands of years, we’ve been leading people. Why? Because there are always leaders and there are always followers. I think we figured out this thing. I think we’ve gone ahead and taken out all the core concepts, all the core ideologies, all the lessons learned, and have since applied them, studied them, implemented them, etcetera. So again, I go back to there is nothing new out there. Skipping over to the different styles, and you’ll hear people coming out now. And again, it’s much along the lines of start with why. It’s that they’re, you know, preaching their style of leadership or the leadership style that really resonated with them, with their team, and have since wrote a book about it, are preaching about it, doing a TED talk, etcetera, and again saying this is the best thing since sliced bread.

Scott McCarthy [00:09:16]:
But again, I go back to this is not new. There is no leadership style, which is new. We’ve been doing this for tens of 1000 of years. Okay. It’s again just how it’s being marketed, how it’s being packaged, how it’s being presented to you so that hopefully it resonates with you. And what I’m trying to do is, you know, cut away the black tape, demystify this whole leadership thing for you so that hopefully you don’t become a boss. Or if you feel like you are a boss right now, you make that transition from boss to leader. So to sum up quickly, there is no such thing as a new leadership style.

Scott McCarthy [00:09:54]:
There’s no such thing as a new leadership concept. It is how we go about implementing the leadership lessons which have been around for tens of thousands of years. Okay. There’s my rant for today. So let’s talk about the spectrum, shall we? The leadership style spectrum. I need you to visualize for me for a minute. Okay? Visualize a line. So a spectrum, you know, it’s a line.

Scott McCarthy [00:10:24]:
It goes left to right. Draw a line in the middle that’s going vertical in the middle of this horizontal line. On the far left, you’re going to have essentially the dictator, right? This is your ultimate authoritarian style of leadership, which is pretty well giving taking 100% control of the power within the organization and allowing no one else to have. If you go to the far right, you will have the laissez faire style. And the laissez faire is the one who gives up everything, who if you’re in this zone, sometimes you don’t even know if they’re alive or not. They may just simply not care. You may see them in the morning when they show up to work. They will walk in their office, close the door, and you won’t see them again until they leave at the end of the day.

Scott McCarthy [00:11:35]:
And you may not even have any contact with this leader who is the laissez faire type. Now people out there will say that those 2 are to be avoided at all costs. I would say that is not necessarily true. I would say that between authoritarian and laissez faire, there is a use for every single style between those 2 and including those 2 along the whole spectrum. So remember that vertical line I told you that separates the spectrum in half? What you want to picture now is on the left side is authoritarian styles, and then on the right side is transformational styles. And these are the 2 big groups. Your authoritarian style are more of the direct styles of leadership. They’re the ones that are going to give you your job, your tasks, your resources, and basically tell you how they want to get it done.

Scott McCarthy [00:12:56]:
And that will vary as you get closer to that either that central line or that far left endpoint of full authoritarian. The transformational style on the right or the transformational group, I should say those styles are more along the lines of empowering your people, giving them the tasks, telling them what the mission is, telling them the why behind the mission, but letting them go ahead and figuring out how to achieve it on their own. Now I could go and talk to you about every single quote unquote style along this whole spectrum, such as delegative, persuasive, servant, directive, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. But what you’re going to turn around and say to me someday is, well, so and so mentioned this style of leadership, which you didn’t cover on your spectrum. Why not? Because everybody has, again, their spin on leadership and leadership styles. And I may go ahead and say, okay, I have these 4 different types of transformational styles. I have these 4 different types of Authoritarian styles, But someone may group 2 of them together or pieces of 2 of them together and create a new style of leadership. Again, it’s not new.

Scott McCarthy [00:14:42]:
It’s just a different way of looking at it. So what I’m going to focus in on is the groupings. And you would have a hard time convincing me that there’s anything but these 2 different types of groups, I. E. The authoritarian group and the transformational group. Now let’s go back to the endpoints of the groups, the full authoritarian and the laissez faire, shall we? You see, these still have their places and their times to be used. You just have to know when to effectively use these styles of leadership. The laissez faire style is great when you want a group of people to brainstorm, to come up with new ideas.

Scott McCarthy [00:15:32]:
Think outside the box. Throw them in the room, put it with a whiteboard on the wall, throw some markers down on the table, tell them you know, give them some arcs, and walk out. That is laissez faire’s type of leadership. You come back and you listen to what they have to say. Full authoritarian is useful for when you got to fire somebody. Remove them from their job. There is no back and forth conversation here when you’re firing someone, removing them from their job. It is a one way conversation.

Scott McCarthy [00:16:18]:
You, my friend, sorry, but you’re not a good fit for us. You’re gonna have to leave. Please pack up your things and go. There is no control given to that individual. There is no back and forth conversation. It is simply, thank you. I wish you all the best. However, your time here is done.

Scott McCarthy [00:16:41]:
And you may go, oh my god. That’s not a great leadership style, Scott. That’s not needed. You just fired somebody. Yeah. But if you’ve done everything in the background, if you tried to train them, if you tried to correct their deficiencies, if you tried to find a place for them to fit in the team, and all those things fail, if there’s still the horrible employee that simply does not work for you. It’s your job as the leader to remedy that situation. And in this case, you need to use that full authoritarian style of leadership and dismiss that individual.

Scott McCarthy [00:17:23]:
Case in point, done. The problem that leaders face within these two extreme styles is that they spend too much time in them. That someone is either completely laissez faire all the time, which turns around and shows to or gives the impression, I should say, to their team, to the organization. They don’t care. They’re simply there to collect the paycheck. They don’t give a crap about the numbers or productivity or outcomes. They don’t care about their people. They just simply are there.

Scott McCarthy [00:18:01]:
And that’s not a great style of leadership to have day in, day out because you lose your team. And then finally, when you try to go ahead and influence them, try to get them to do something above and beyond, They just don’t care. Because why should I care if you haven’t cared for all this time? All of a sudden now you want something out of me? No. No. No. Sorry, boss. I’m out of here. And then you go through the full authoritarian side, and if you’re in that style for too long, then people start losing trust in you.

Scott McCarthy [00:18:41]:
They stop listening to what you have to say. They simply are there because they’re too scared to do anything else. The only reason why you’re getting outcomes out of them is because you are basically strong arming them into providing an outcome, providing productivity. It’s not because they want to. It’s because they’re too scared to not to. And the negative impacts of that style is that you’re gonna get a higher turnover rate. People are just gonna simply quit because they can’t deal with you anymore. You’re not gonna hear the ground truth.

Scott McCarthy [00:19:20]:
Instead, you’re going to hear what people think you want to hear because they want to deal with your backlash. I’ve worked for leaders in both these styles, and I can tell you point blank, it sucks. It is absolutely horrible working for bosses. That’s right. They’re bosses in those two styles. You never know what you’re gonna get from 1. And the other, You don’t ever know if they care or what you’re providing them is what they’re looking for. And simply matter of fact, those are some of the worst years I can remember working.

Scott McCarthy [00:20:03]:
And some of the worst bosses. No. They are the worst bosses I have ever had. And they are on the both ends of the spectrum. So my point to all of that is that the extremities is not the place where you want to stay. Where you want to stay, in my mind, is in that transformational zone. Again, the transformational leadership zone is the leadership is a leadership style where you’re being influential, where you’re being inspirational, where you’re developing your people to take over from you one day. You’re giving them more skill sets.

Scott McCarthy [00:20:40]:
You’re empowering them to make decisions. To me, that is where you want to spend the bulk of your time. Somewhere in that group. And again, I could go over every single style within the spectrum, but what’s gonna happen is you’re gonna hear of a different style that isn’t going to jive what I’m talking about. So I’m just keeping it simple. Okay, ladies and gentlemen? I’m keeping to transformational group and authoritarian group. Transformational leadership is this is the group where you want, like I said, you want to spend the bulk of your time. Authoritarian, you need to go in there from time to time.

Scott McCarthy [00:21:16]:
When you need results fast is often when you’ll go into an authoritarian style. So for example, if you look at I’m a huge fan of the show Chicago Fire. And the fire chief there, he’s the leader. He’s the man. He’s the boss. And what you’ll see from him is that he’ll often, despite his demeanor, despite the look on his face, he’ll often be in that transformational group day in, day out while he and his his team are just relaxing at the Firehouse. But when the entire Firehouse gets on the call, and they’re at a fire zone, you see him going into the authoritarian side very quickly. And why is that? Well, 1, he’s the person on charge.

Scott McCarthy [00:22:05]:
2, the scene is very dangerous. He wants to make sure that what he’s telling people, they’re following. And why is he telling them that? Because he’s the one with the most experience. Now you may immediately think, well, he’s being dictator ish as a negative way to look at it. But the reality is there’s positive out of this. Why is he taking this very directive approach to his leadership style at that moment? Because he doesn’t want to give the burden of making the wrong decision to one of his people. So if he said, hey, what do you guys think we should do? Should we send in squad or should we just, you know, hose it down? And when his lieutenant says, we’ll send in squad, and he goes, okay. Sure.

Scott McCarthy [00:22:56]:
And all of a sudden, a guy or 2 from squad gets killed. That lieutenant is gonna carry that with him for the rest of his life. However, if the captain is the only one making the call, he’s shouldering that burden. He’s actually taking the control in a positive manner and holding it for himself because that highly dangerous situation, he’s the one that has to make the call. And in the end, the burden falls on him and no one else. So that’s a good time, you see, when you want to use that authoritative side. So I’ve talked about transformational leadership. I talked about authoritarian style group of leadership.

Scott McCarthy [00:23:39]:
I’ve talked about the extremes. And I’ve kind of glanced over the different styles, and I won’t go into them. But the one question I’ll go over right now, ladies and gentlemen, is what is the best style? You’ve heard me many podcasters preach about delegation and the power of delegation. And I’ll continue to do so. Why? Because that is the style that has resonated the best with me. Empowering my people to go ahead and take action is what’s worked best for me. Therefore, I am doing exactly what I said other people are doing, taking that message and pushing it out. Nothing wrong with that.

Scott McCarthy [00:24:21]:
It’s just how it is. But I don’t believe delegation is the best style of leadership. And you’re probably shaking your head going, what? I don’t believe that support of style of leadership is the best style of leadership. I don’t believe persuasive is the best, or directive is the best, or authoritarian or laissez faire. I don’t believe any style of leadership is the best. What I believe is the best leaders able to move along the spectrum seamlessly as the situation requires. You see, to me, the best leaders, the ones that can go from authoritative to delegated to facilitative and over to laissez faire and back to supportive In a matter of hours, minutes, day, days, all depends on the situation. So let me give you example.

Scott McCarthy [00:25:17]:
You have 3 meetings in the morning. You have a firing. You have brainstorming, and then finally, you have an award ceremony. If you’re a fully authoritarian, the firing wouldn’t be a big issue. Person walk in, you tell them, yep. You’re fired. You’re out. You walk down to the brainstorming, and and you’d give them everything.

Scott McCarthy [00:25:38]:
You tell them exactly. You would leave them no room to actually brainstorm, to think of new ideas, to look at a problem in a different way. So you’d get the exact same old results that you’ve been getting for so long now. And then you would go to the award ceremony, and you would say, yep. Congratulations. Here’s your award. Now get back to work. Let’s go to the transformational side.

Scott McCarthy [00:26:04]:
If you were a transformational leader, you go to the firing, and you would actually try to coach the individual. Again, you would try to get them to fix the mistakes that you’ve been trying to get them to fix for months now. That’s not really effective firing, is it? You go to the brainstorming session. You get you let them know what your what you want out of it, and then you drop down the the markers and tell them how that the whiteboard, and you’ll be back after the awards presentation. You go to the awards presentation, but you wouldn’t just give one award to somebody. You’d be like Oprah Winfrey going, you get an award, you get an award, you get an award. Everybody gets awards. And what happens when everybody gets something? The value of that thing just diminishes.

Scott McCarthy [00:26:46]:
Right? It’s the problem that we’re seeing now with participation awards in young kids. It doesn’t mean anything. They’re getting something for nothing. Therefore, are they are you actually reinforcing the behavior that you’re hoping to get out of the individuals? No. You’re not. In fact, you’re reinforcing the opposite behavior because there’s gonna be people in that group that are gonna be like, oh, sweet. I got this award for doing nothing. What’s the best way to go about doing this? And again, like I’ve said, the best leaders are ones who slide from style to style depending on the situation.

Scott McCarthy [00:27:27]:
So they go into the firing, they fire the governors. Boom. Done. Thank you. You know what? Best of luck. However, you just weren’t a good fit here. On the complete authoritarian side, you go into the brainstorming session, just like the transformational leader. You drop the markers on the table.

Scott McCarthy [00:27:46]:
You give them some quick boundaries, some arcs, however you want to call it. And you say, alright. I’ll be back after the reward ceremony. You go down to the reward ceremony. You present the 1 or 2 people who were deserving of the rewards. You pump up the rest of the team and using them as examples of how everybody is on track to become like that. But you know what? You have to recognize some of the key people in the organization. You see I just went from 2 extremes to back in the mid.

Scott McCarthy [00:28:13]:
And that, folks, can literally take 30 minutes max. And that’s what I mean by the best type of leadership. So that’s it for today, ladies and gentlemen. I hope that this was beneficial to you. I hope that you’re gonna get a lot out of it. I I’m sure you will. And, again, keep in mind, if you’re ready to learn how to start betting yourself, movingforwardleadership.com/power. It’s free to sign up for the newsletter when I push out more information.

Scott McCarthy [00:28:44]:
The program, we’re less than a month away from launch, and I couldn’t be more excited. Can’t be more excited for the things that are going to come for you. Okay, ladies and gentlemen? As always, keep in mind, R squared, s squared. Right? Read a show so that, you know what, I can help people. I can help more people become better leaders. That’s all I’m here for, and that’s all I care about. S, subscribe is if you’re not subscribed to this podcast, then what are you waiting for? Just go moving for leadership.comforward/subscribe and hit the button with type of podcast player that suits you best from Apple Podcasts to Android, whatever app you like to use, the Google Play Music, to even good old RSS feeds. And then finally, share.

Scott McCarthy [00:29:34]:
Share this episode. Share this with someone who you think it may resonate with, someone who could use this in their leadership journey. And hopefully, they’ll stop bossing and start leading. Alright, ladies and gentlemen, until next time. Remember, stop bossing, start leading. Take care now.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *