Good Leadership Calls For Light and Shade

Over the course of my digital publishing career, I have thankfully met very few one-dimensional leaders. 

You know the types. So certain of themselves that they don’t feel that they have to change their approach. So thick-skinned that no criticism can touch them, and therefore have the chance to change their sacred opinion. They surround themselves with “yes people” and choose to ignore everything that doesn’t fit within their worldview. Their thinking is narrow-minded and their behavior is utterly predictable – my way or the highway.

Happily, they are in the minority, and the law of averages is such that they get sent to the highway on a regular basis. This then results in their careers suffering and as a consequence, they sulk off to join the rest of the self-entitled moaners, who think that the world owes them a living and that they have been dealt a bad hand. At no point do they think that they could have been a little bit more flexible in certain situations.

They tend to move from company to company on a regular basis.

In my experience, the leaders with whom it is easiest to do business are able to vary their behavior depending on the circumstances. If you have let a client down, you have to adopt a conciliatory tone. If you are trying to win business, you have to aim to listen more than you talk. If you are in a conflict, then a firm but fair approach is required. There is never a one-size-fits-all resolution when other people are involved, and if you take the situation and the people into account, you will have a much better chance of achieving your objective. 

I find it especially interesting when you are taken out of the office setting. Maybe your spouse has got to know the spouse of a CXO in your industry, and you start socializing. The business fa?ade is dropped and you have the chance to truly get to know someone on a human level (well, at least with most normal people, anyway). It might be that this relationship is carried over into the business setting, and while relations will be more formal, there will still be a more relaxed element. Just because we go to work with the goal of making the most amount of money for our respective companies, doesn’t mean that we stop being “normal people” at a barbecue on a Sunday. 

If you can find that balance of light and shade for yourself (in any setting), you will be a trusted colleague and maybe in time a trusted friend. If you try to fit in to accommodate others, you will find that they do the same for you, and your life will be made that little bit easier. Life is so much more fun with a bit more light and shade. It is also a given that business is equally more profitable – let’s all try to be that little bit more flexible with our behavior.

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