Volunteering is a great way to develop your leadership skills and make a positive impact on your community. But how do you communicate effectively with different people, situations, and goals? In this article, you will learn how to adjust your leadership style to suit different contexts and needs.
Your leadership style is the way you interact with others, influence their behavior, and motivate them to achieve a common purpose. It affects how you communicate your vision, delegate tasks, provide feedback, and resolve conflicts. Your leadership style can also influence how others perceive you, trust you, and follow you. Therefore, it is important to be aware of your own strengths and weaknesses as a leader, and how they affect your communication.
In my opinion, a true leader masters different leadership styles to accommodate to different scenarios. Inspiring teams, and individuals to achieve a common goal can be challenging sometimes. A strategy that appeals to different personalities, and diverse mindsets can bring the best in people. Make sure you take the time to listen, learn, and understand those you lead so you create a system that motivates them to utilise their strengths and work on their weaknesses.
Leadership is about walking side by side with others while providing supports and resources to does who depend on you. However, in order to do this, we as leaders need to know our own leadership style and engage in conversations with our team to set the right expectations and ways of working. By knowing our leadership style, we can articulate it to other so they can also understand it and work more efficiently.
There are many models and frameworks that describe different leadership styles, such as the situational, transformational, transactional, or servant leadership. However, a simple way to start is to reflect on two dimensions: your task orientation and your people orientation. Task orientation involves focusing on goals, procedures, and outcomes of work; people orientation involves considering relationships, feelings, and needs of team members. Based on these dimensions, you can identify your dominant leadership style as one of the following: directive, supportive, participative, or delegative. A directive leader is highly task-oriented and low on people orientation; they communicate in a direct and assertive manner and expect compliance and efficiency from others. A supportive leader is highly people-oriented and low on task orientation; they communicate in a friendly and cooperative way and expect loyalty and commitment from others. A participative leader is high on both task and people orientation; they involve team members in decision making and communicate in a collaborative manner while expecting creativity and contribution from them. Finally, a delegative leader is low on both task and people orientation; they give team members autonomy while communicating in a brief manner and expecting initiative and accountability from them.
You can identify your leadership style by reflecting on your daily interactions with those who depend on you. Another way to determine your leadership style is to think about past leaders that had an impact on you and what made them special and resonate with you so that you can also begin to demonstrate the same characteristics.
Leadership styles can vary based on the urgency, scope, and nature of a goal. Prioritise situation assessment to determine what qualities you need to bring in. From seasonal projects and startups to medium and large businesses, the qualities needed in your leadership style change. Also, building a strategy for new teams is very different from catering a strategy for an existing team.
Having a dominant leadership style is natural and normal, but it may not be the most effective or appropriate for every situation. To communicate effectively with different people, tasks, and goals, you may need to adjust your leadership style. Factors to consider when adapting your leadership style include the readiness of your team members, the nature of the task, and the diversity of your team. Readiness refers to the ability and willingness of your team members to perform a specific task; if they are new or inexperienced, you may need to use a more directive style. The nature of the task refers to its complexity, urgency, and importance; if it is simple and routine, you may need to use a more transactional style. The diversity of your team refers to their backgrounds, perspectives, values, and preferences; if they are homogeneous and like-minded, you may need to use a more supportive style. Adapting your leadership style can help you communicate more effectively with different people, tasks, and goals.
Listening, understanding, and learning more about your team members help you adapt easily to different needs, scenarios, and backgrounds. Study transformational, transactional, and situational leadership styles to manage competitive and collaborative environments.
When working with a new team, it is extremely important to get to know each person individually but also look at the dynamics on how they work as a team, paying attention to the things that are not being said is also extremely important. What are the struggles, trends, concerns that come up often? - What are the team's strengths, what makes them different? - On a personal level, it will take some time to get to know each team member, but this is extremely important in order to develop a deep working relationship. From there, adjusting leadership style is crucial and it also depends on situations at hand. In any leadership style, setting your intention is key in order to make meaningful impact.
Adjusting your leadership style is not only about changing your behavior, but also about improving your communication skills. Communication skills are the abilities that enable you to convey information, ideas, emotions, and feedback effectively and appropriately. These include verbal, non-verbal, written, and listening skills. To become a better leader through improved communication, you should use clear and concise language with active voice and action verbs when speaking. Additionally, non-verbal communication should be used to reinforce your message and show interest. When writing, use proper grammar and spelling, as well as headings and bullets to organize your text. Finally, when listening to team members, pay attention to what they are saying and how they are saying it. Show empathy and curiosity without interrupting or judging. Ask clarifying questions and summarize what you hear. All of these tips can help you become a better leader through improved communication.
When dealing with large groups with different social backgrounds, professional and personal experiences. It is extremely important, to be able to convey messages in different ways so that everyone can understand. The use of technology is also important as we can now use more visuals like presentations, videos, graphics etc to convey messages. Whenever talking about important matters, it is always good practice to check with the other person or team to make sure they understood the information, so asking for feedback and to repeat the information can be very useful.
Communication is essential to the success of your leadership journey. From small to large teams, utilise digital tools to create a professional communication environment. Set clear boundaries but also make sure to be approachable. Create different channels of communication from and to every level in your team.
If you want to improve your leadership style and communication skills, getting feedback from others is one of the best ways to do it. Be proactive and ask for feedback regularly and sincerely. When receiving feedback, be attentive, respectful, and don't take it personally. Afterward, take some time to reflect on it and analyze it. Identify the strengths and weaknesses of your leadership style and communication skills. Make a plan to act on the feedback and set SMART goals for yourself. Monitor your progress and evaluate your results. Don't forget to seek more feedback to check your improvement and adjust your plan as needed.
Feedback can be asks anonymously, in the form of survey, pulse check etc.. Establishing a safe environment is also important for people to open up and share their experiences.
In my opinion, anonymity of feedback is the best practice. When performed frequently, you minimise the chances of dissatisfaction among your team members. Moreover, you get constructive feedback and notes that help you in your leadership journey.
Clarity is important. Strive for clarity in your messages. Use straightforward language, avoid jargon, and break down complex concepts into easily digestible points. Remember, the goal is to ensure your message is easily understood and leaves no room for confusion. Clarity promotes effective communication and fosters trust and engagement among your audience.