You're navigating conflicting leadership styles in group coaching. How can you bring harmony to the team?

In my work, I often use a strengths assessment to help leaders understand each other. Viewing a behaviour as a strength that can be contributed to the team's success certainly beats viewing it as a team member's idiosyncrasy or worse, difficult behaviour. Yes, it's indeed an irony that the most difficult behaviours, the ones that persist despite all efforts by those around them to stamp them out, are often the natural talents of an individual. These can be honed into strengths or allowed to degenerate into annoyances. One of the outcomes I try to achieve in team coaching is getting leaders aligned on how their work styles and the talents they bring to the table can be used to reach team KPIs.

Further to Serene's point about using a strengths assessment, I have found the Strengths Finder instrument from the Gallup group to be really powerful. As team members understand that their strengths and the strengths of their colleagues, fit under four distinct domains they start to see what they contribute to a team. They also deepen their understanding of the strengths that a 'frustrating' colleague brings to the team as well. The domains are Executing, Influencing, Relationship Building and Strategic Thinking. If we are ALL strategic thinkers then we will have great ideas about what 'could be' in the future, but nothing would get done today. Understanding ourselves and others is powerful in building great teams.

When navigating conflicting leadership styles in group coaching, bring harmony with these steps: Understand each leader’s style and concerns. Facilitate open discussions for everyone. Get everyone's POV. Emphasize shared objectives to align everyone around common goals. Foster Mutual Respect. Encourage appreciation of different styles. Highlight the strengths each approach brings. Facilitate Collaboration is key. Design activities that require leaders to work together, leveraging their unique styles. Set Communication Norms: Establish clear ground rules to prevent misunderstandings. By listening, aligning around goals, and fostering respect, you can harmonize conflicting styles and create a cohesive team. Let's make it happen! ??

Trust begins with understanding. Understanding starts with dialog. Teach teams to “listen, listen, talk”. And when they do, to aim for transparency. Most misunderstandings begin with a misread of intent, which is because we don’t know the person behind the words well. If you do, you understand their intent and can look beyond the words to “get” what they actually mean or extend them grace. Leadership styles can be changed. But we tend to overuse the same ones. Different styles interpret the same actions differently. If you don’t know your own biases or your teammate’s tendencies, you will have conflict. As you create opportunities for dialog, use a psychometric tool to deepen and accelerate understanding of self and team. Keep it real.

Empathy plays a vital role in group coaching. Encourage leaders to step into their colleagues' shoes, fostering an understanding of varied leadership styles. This cultivates appreciation for diverse perspectives and identifies potential areas of synergy. Empathetic leaders collaborate effectively and support diverse approaches. As a coach, promote empathy through exercises like role reversal or sharing personal leadership challenges, bolstering the team's connections and cohesion.

Foster empathy among leaders to bridge style differences. Encourage perspective-taking and shared understanding to build trust and collaboration.

When coaching teams the topic of conflict comes up quite often where I inquire with them, what emotions appear when they hear the word conflict? Usually it is anxiety, nervousness, frightening rather than applying a growth mindset to welcome healthy debate where the team can create and innovate at the highest level. Every team member has a different relationship to conflict so spend time to be curious with the team on how they can engage with productive behaviors during conflict and hold themselves accountable should they shift to unproductive behaviors. Author Peter Lencioni is a great source when working through this topic as he outlines the different behaviors that can appear with team so that they can engage in conflict effectively.

Why is one - or indeed the team - surprised at differing & contrasting styles? As the coach, does one (or the team) expect uniformity of style across leaders? This is an unreasonable ask It's important to identify with the team the differing styles that are apparent. It is important to identify the nuances of these styles - detail seeking, preference for execution, consensus seeking, autocratic, visionary & others. Thereby, an awareness & appreciation of styles is created within the team w/o judgement The team can then focus on the desired goal(s) that the coaching is trying to accomplish. Together, members can debate how each style can contribute or otherwise. Team can then create synergies by teaming up leaders with complementary styles

Integrating conflicting leadership styles necessitates creating a cohesive strategy that values diverse approaches. Coaches should encourage leaders to capitalize on each other's strengths by teaming up complementary styles for tasks or projects. For instance, pairing a visionary leader with a detail-oriented counterpart promotes effective execution of strategic plans. Foster an understanding that collaboration achieves more significant outcomes than individual efforts, ultimately driving innovation and boosting team performance.

Sustaining team harmony requires consistent effort. Regular check-ins and ongoing leadership development foster a collaborative environment. By encouraging empathy, open dialogue, and adaptability, you can help leaders build upon their strengths and navigate diverse styles effectively.