Ch. 12: Versatile Leadership

Leadership doesn't have a one size fits all conception. If you ask one person to list five great leaders, past or present, each of those individuals listed will have various leadership styles. Even the four men listed in the text, Niccolò Machiavelli, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Napoleon Bonaparte each have unique and versatile leadership styles (Gulati, Mayo, Nohria, 2016). This blog post will discuss why versatility in leadership is so important and how to help develop more versatility as a leader. 

Photo found at Unsplash @markusspiske, quote added by me

According to Robert Kaiser, in a Harvard Business Review article, two big challenges characterize leadership today and those are paradoxical demands (do more with less, more innovation with lower costs, etc) and the unprecedented pace of "disruptive change," which speeds up the interaction of the demands and increases the pressure on organizations to adapt. It is these challenges that have amplified the need for versatile leaders who have the ability to cope and deal with the variety of challenges and changes within an organization (Kaiser, 2020). Different styles can often be the difference of an organization getting out of a rut and flexibility is what's needed to crack the monotony. An article in Martin Roll gives a good example of this in comparing the charismatic transformational leadership style are the inspiration to achieve higher goals, while the transactional leaders may encourage excellence via compliance and efficiency (Versatility is the Key, 2017). And there are other leadership styles that fit someone in the middle of these that are also very useful, depending on the situation. These various leadership styles can often complement each other as well, as you can see below in the visual Robert Kaiser discussed in the Harvard Business Review. 

As you can see all traits and styles bring out different results in individuals and can provide organizations with different directions that might need to be appropriated to the vision of the company. Despite individuals having differing character and personality traits, it is not impossible for a leader to broaden their leadership style. Self-awareness is needed to be able to increase versatility. Leaders generally need to be aware of their shortcomings and weaknesses as well as the areas they put in a lot of effort and are their strengths. Moderation may be required towards areas leaders are domineering and on the counter to that it is necessary to strengthen the areas of weakness, which may require a great deal of effort (Kaplan & Kaiser, 2003). All leadership skills can be improved upon if the leader puts in the effort to learn more and develop those skills. 

Photo found at unsplash @cowomen

Hopefully, this post was educational and informative on the importance of having versatile leadership styles, as well as how we as leaders can develop and increase our versatility in our leadership. A growth mind set is key when developing into the best leaders we can be. And it is not uncommon for that growth to be influenced by our own stagnant styles. 

References

• CoWomen. (2019, April 02). Photo by CoWomen on Unsplash. Retrieved July 22, 2020, from https://unsplash.com/photos/pd5FVvQ9-aY
• Gulati, R., Mayo, A. J., & Nohria, N. (2016). Management: An integrated approach. Australia: Cengage Learning.
• Kaiser, R. B. (2020, July 14). The Best Leaders Are Versatile Ones. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/2020/03/the-best-leaders-are-versatile-ones
• Kaplan, R. E., & Kaiser, R. B. (2003, July 15). Developing Versatile Leadership. MIT Sloan Management Review. https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/developing-versatile-leadership/#:%7E:text=The%20Versatile%20Leader,for%20the%20circumstances%20at%20hand.
• Spiske, M. (2019, January 16). Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash. Retrieved July 22, 2020, from https://unsplash.com/photos/IiEFmIXZWSw
• Versatility Is The key To Effective Leadership. (2017, May 31). Martin Roll. https://martinroll.com/resources/articles/leadership/versatility-key-effective-leadership/