Helping a manager understand his or her leadership style options
How a manager behaves in any specific situation
depends on many factors, including how much preparation time they have, but the
two most significant factors are their general style preference and the range
of options they have within their preference. The role of a coach or mentor is
to help them become more aware of their preferences and options, so that they
can widen the range of responses and select those most appropriate and
effective for each situation.
John Heron’sSix Categories of Intervention
dates from 1975 and is a practical way to match intuitively the style and the
approach to the situation and the individual within it.
He identifies two main styles of
manager intervention: Facilitative and Authoritative,
each with three sub-styles.
Authoritative style, as the name
suggests, describes people, who like to take charge. The three choices they
have are:
- Prescriptive
– defining for the employee what needs to be done and how (though not
necessarily why)
- Informative
– drawing on personal experience to show the employee what to do and what to watch
out for
- Confronting
– challenging their thinking, sometimes aggressively, to help them think
independently
Facilitative style starts from
the assumption that direct reports know what they have to do and how. The three
optional approaches are:
- Cathartic
– intervening when they are stuck or frustrated, giving them the emotional
support to work through their emotional blockers and finding a solution
together
- Catalytic
– helping the direct report discover and reflect upon their strengths and
weaknesses, using this knowledge to find ways forward
- Supportive
– helping the direct report build their confidence, self-esteem and sense of
contribution to the team’s work.
The coach or mentor can help by:
- Encouraging the manager to reflect upon their beliefs and their experience of how people react to different styles in different situations
- Asking “What does this direct report need from you right now to perform at their best?”
- Asking: “What might you learn by trying out a different style or different options?”
- Reviewing with the manager his or her experience with these experiments – including feedback from the employee
© David Clutterbuck,
2019
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