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LEADERSHIP
Style and Leadership Skill
Conflict Management & Dealing With
Difficult People
One of
the toughest challenges facing an manager whether in a business or as part of an
organization is determining the appropriate
leadership style and leadership
skill to apply when working with a team member. The starting point for
understanding which leadership style is to observe the individual when they
interact with you.
If you
take the time to study people you will learn more about them then they could
ever explain. How they move, their gestures and what they say add up to a
formula for your giving being able to give instructions and direction.
For
example, in one of my sales groups there was an older salesman who had been with
the company for more than 30 years and swore that he knew everything and no one
could tell him different. Noticing his posture and aggressive tone, I
decide to "turn him" slowly toward the direction I wanted to go in. Given his
self-invested ego, I knew going toe-to-toe (i.e., demanding he do it my way)
with him would simply not work.
My first
step was to take him to the side for a cup of coffee and begin to "ask" for his
opinion on how he thought things should be done. During the course of him
throwing up his opinions all over me, I asked him tough questions on why
he believed his way was better. Now mind you, I wasn't challenging him.
I took the, "help me understand" approach with opened the door to more extensive
dialogue with him. This is often known as the Socratic line of questioning
after the philosopher Socrates who always answered a question with a question.
His approach was to keep asking until he got to the basic premise of the
argument.
Now,
during the conversation I kept in mind one thing; my objective was not to be
right, but to learn as much as I could about his point of view. In other
words, as he was talking and explaining his position, I in no way tried to adapt
it to my way of thinking or contort it to my advantage. No, the dialogue
was just that, a dialogue.
By the
end of lunch I had learned quite a bit about his way of thinking, but more
importantly he gave me a lot of 'food for thought' before I decided on my course
of action.
I then
did what most leaders will not do...admit that you learned something.
I thanked
the sales sincerely for sharing his viewpoint and opening my eyes to things I
had frankly not given any thought to. This admission of gratitude caught
him off guard. Instead of facing someone who was his boss, he was having a
conversation with someone who was trying to do what was in the best interest of
all concern. Once he knew my concern was genuine, his stubborn attitude
turned into an accommodating posture to try something new.
I learned
early on that people who work for you just want to be heard. They want
their voice to count. This is even more true when you have a person with
tenure.
I want to point out two
things here:
Your leadership style and
leadership skill should be malleable because you don't have all the answers.
(see article on "The Fatal Conceit
Redux")
Second, you have to learn to
trust yourself to trust others. (see article on
Leadership and Trust)
Victor
Ps
Please email me (victor@thelogicofsuccess.com)
so we can discuss your event and what it is you’re looking for in a speaker.
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