How Your Leadership Style Affects Your Organization

Most of us want to create an enjoyable company culture, one filled with happy and productive employees. The obvious factors to consider are to pay a great salary, add attractive benefits, and offer a dynamic, and possibly flexible, work environment. But if your company leadership isn’t intentionally creating an environment that promotes that culture, you won’t have one.

At some point, most of us have taken a personality test that spits out several letters that explain who we are, how we tick, and what we need to be successful and happy. Everyone has a natural leadership style, but a trap that some managers fall into is ignoring their natural strengths and talents and following what they see other successful people doing.

I’ve always been the kind of person that doesn’t need a lot of direction to get things done. I like to ask a lot of questions and figure things out firsthand. That’s how I developed hint water and that’s the spirit I like to encourage in my company.

The mistake many leaders make, however, is observing what works for one CEO and company and trying to implement that same style at their own company. When leaders try to emulate what lead someone else to success, they may never get to fully develop their own management style. They end up with a list of behaviors that aren’t in alignment with their best self.

One of the most powerful keys to developing effective leadership ability is self-awareness. Here are a few things to consider:

Who are you?

First and foremost, know who you are. How do you think, act, and process information? What do you do on your downtime? How do you stay motivated? Developing a corporate culture that reflects who you are will allow you to naturally project your passion and vision to your team. You can’t do that effectively until you fully understand what your own style is and embrace its potential.

Watch yourself.

Your team will follow in your footsteps, so consider what your relationship to work says to them. Being the captain of the ship, you’ll probably burn the midnight oil a few nights, especially in startup mode. Even if that’s not your expectation for your team, they might feel compelled to do the same. If that is or isn’t what you want, make sure to let them know.

Don’t dictate.

There’s a difference between allowing your personality to inform the corporate culture versus forcing everyone to walk in lockstep with your way of doing things. Just as you have your own leadership style, your employees, as much as they love and respect you, have their own personal management style. Each individual comes with their own set of passions, hot buttons, quirks, and goals.

These people ended up in your company through desire or default, but they’ll stay if they’re dedicated to your vision. The environment and how the company makes them feel will have a significant impact on retention. But if a leader enforces every detail of every step of the way to every end goal, soon enough, there won’t be much of a team to lead.

So -- when you flex your own leadership style, your passion and ideas can ignite the same in your team. Allowing your employees to thrive under your positive leadership will create a thriving corporate culture and business, and that’s the real bottom line.

PS - I just started using Instagram! If you have any questions, send me a DM on Instagram, and I'll make sure to reply there! I'm @KaraGoldin!

Kara Goldin is the founder and CEO of San Francisco–based hint, a healthy lifestyle brand that produces the leading unsweetened flavored water and a scented sunscreen spray that’s oxybenzone and paraben-free. Listen to her podcast, Unstoppable, where she interviews founders, entrepreneurs, and disruptors across various industries and keep up with her on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

#LeadershipStyle #Culture #Management