Do You End Up With The Opposite Of What You Want Sometimes?

My message recently about people not getting to their children’s sports days because of work generated more interest than anything else I have ever written, with 10,300 views on LinkedIn so far.

This shows how important it is to us to find a way of working that gives us a better balance between work and our personal lives, especially for leaders who are often under huge pressure.

The strange thing is, that despite the fact leaders want to hand more over and people want more responsibility, it doesn’t happen.

So why don’t we get what we want, if we all want it and it’s so important to us?

I think one of the reasons is because leaders are encouraged to adopt a more democratic style of leadership, where the business is more open and everyone is given the opportunity to share ideas and to critique what the business does.

The problem with this democratic style of leadership is that it doesn’t automatically transfer accountability for the implementation of ideas and change.

The outcome? The same viscous circle and the same frustrations. Accountability and an increased workload sit with the leader.

The report is left frustrated, under-utilised and working below their pay scale.

All of which creates an environment for stagnation, disengagement and an underperforming business.

Using a more transformational style of leadership reduces this problem because transformational leaders give their people responsibility for highlighting improvements AND then develop them to implement their ideas and solutions.

They take a much more proactive approach by focussing on the things below that can be lacking in with a democratic style.

• 1. They are brilliant at articulating what the business wants to achieve and why
• 2. They are results focussed rather than effort focussed
• 3. They set high standards for themselves and others
• 4. They hold people to account

When that happens, leaders have more time to deliver success and their people solve problems such as how to get more of their teams to more events with their kids.

I was at sports day yesterday where I won the Mum’s race. But despite my small victory it’s fair to say that on this occasion I was wishing I could be elsewhere because I was literally shaking like a leaf at the thought of coming last or falling over because Isaac had warned me that only a win would do.

If you’d like training for your senior people on how to become a transformational leader give me a call, that’s what we do at The Leader Centre.