How can you develop your own program management leadership style?

Embrace Accountability: Demonstrate accountability for your decisions and actions. When challenges arise, take responsibility and work with the team to find solutions. A leader who embraces accountability fosters trust within the team. Encourage Innovation and Creativity: Cultivate an environment that encourages innovation and creativity. Allow team members to explore new ideas and approaches. A leader who values creativity can inspire a culture of continuous improvement.

Build a culture of trust & accountability within your team. Do not always delve too much into the details of tasks for which you've assigned & accountable teammates; because guess what?, it makes you an annoying person to your team, and also fails you to perform your actual leadership role (i.e. key account management, strategic steering, etc.).

Self-Reflection: Start by reflecting on your own values, strengths, weaknesses, and leadership preferences. Consider your experiences in program management and the aspects that resonate with you. Identify the leadership qualities that you admire in others and would like to incorporate into your own style.

Believing in your intuition is one thing which will help you to make decsions in the most critical situations. Base your decisions on your value system. Reflect back on how the leaders you follow would decide on these situations and start incorporating them in your way of doing it. Not all success are right and no failure is wrong

It is an iterative process that involves self-reflection, continuous learning, and practical experience. Acknowledge and celebrate achievements, both big and small. Positive reinforcement boosts team morale and reinforces the values that define your leadership style.

Conduct thorough research on leadership styles, such as democratic, autocratic, coaching, and servant leadership. Familiarize yourself with the key elements of each style and identify aspects that resonate with your leadership philosophy. Seek inspiration from successful program managers and leaders you admire, observing their approaches and adapting relevant elements to your own context. Embrace experimentation and refinement in your leadership style, not fearing to try different approaches. Stay open to feedback and be adaptive as you gain experience, allowing for a dynamic and effective evolution of your program management approach that aligns with your unique leadership strengths and the needs of your team.

Learning is a life long attribute, and so is leadership development. World is ever so dynamic, and changing at a pace faster than anything. Mellanials working with Boomers and Gen Y and Z, its an absolute dogs-breakfast in some teams. Leaders need to be adaptive, and continuously be engaged with the 'NOW'. What is new and upcoming, and hone your skills into the latest. You could be lucky to have 40% of required skills and lead one group of professionals, but the next challenge may require you to engage the missing 60%. So keep on developing more skills and capailities.

The first step is to recognize that leading & the human side is the most important part of program management. Start reading up on leadership, watch youtube & listen to podcasts on leadership, if you can, get training by experienced leaders. Find out what resonates with you and discuss with peers. Your leadership will continuously improve - you will allways be a student of leadership.

Effectively communicating your leadership style involves leading by example, ensuring consistency in your behaviors Foster open communication by discussing your leadership approach with your team and stakeholders, elucidating decision-making processes, preferred communication channels, and expectations for collaboration. Provide constructive feedback and guidance, reinforcing your leadership approach through active support and mentorship. Encourage feedback from your team and stakeholders, enabling you to identify areas for improvement and ensuring alignment with their needs. Remember that developing your leadership style is an ongoing journey; be patient, experiment, and learn from experiences.

1. Program management leadership style definitely should be ruled by the situation a program manager faces at that point. It will be a mix of everything and a lot of overlapping of styles. 2. Learning about self and then closing the gaps on how to lead the team in any given situation will contribute to the success of the program. 3. In Real life scenarios , communication of your style to your stakeholders happens through your conduct. Focus of a program manager should be on conduct and make sure the transition of your style, according to the situation is smooth to avoid any visible inconsistency in the basic character of the role.

Leadership is more a trait than a skill in my opinion. It is closely associated with one's personal value system. For instance, if 'Respect' tops your value system, you would be naturally inclined to Democratic leadership style. A person with Innovation, passion for creation as top values would have Transformational leadership. Hence, if you want to harness and establish your leadership style, know your value system. Anything that goes against your value system can do more harm than good, and leadership impacts people, organizations and economies and hence to be worked upon carefully.

These are all great, and in my opinion, program management is 100% learned behaviors and skills driven by repeatability, habit, and human perspective. My observation is that groups and individuals want to be led and follow a leader that they respect. But leaders want to follow great leaders. For me, to improve my leadership style, I seek to jobs, roles, projects that demand great leadership. I seek leaders who demand from me leadership in whatever task or role I take on. And most importantly, being honest with myself and the people around me allows for growth.

Remember that leadership is a journey of self-discovery and continuous improvement. Your leadership style will evolve over time as you gain experience, learn from challenges, and refine your approach based on feedback and self-reflection