Leaders come in different shapes and sizes. Countless resources tell us what principles and characteristics define a “great leader,” but often fail to acknowledge that, we, as leaders, are different with diverse characteristics and “styles.”
Developing a healthy relationship with your leadership style
Developing a healthy relationship with my leadership style was a progression that did not come overnight. This process required that I conduct a deep and frank evaluation of my strengths, weaknesses, and unique characteristics. This journey started at a point of professional frustration, where I felt powerless and at odds with my workplace and continued to a place of great joy, agency, and capacity in my career. This blog post outlines this progression and addresses how I was able to understand my personal leadership style, cultivate my strengths, and act with confidence as the leader that I am.
Leadership journey
There was a specific point in my professional career that I was confronted with the stark reality that I was not like the other “leaders” within my organization. I was across the conference table from several confident, opinionated, fast-talking colleagues who relentlessly continued to share their thoughts on a wide range of matters, regardless of whether these matters were within their areas of responsibility or expertise. I found myself shrinking—this was not who I was and I shuddered to think that, in order to be heard, I would have to change how I expressed myself to compete with these strong personalities. Time and time again, I witnessed colleagues being spoken over and decisions being made loudly and quickly, with no research, expertise, or critical review. Often, the loudest voices in making these decisions were hard to find once others were left to implement or clean up after these decisions.
My frustration with this situation was healthy. There were several issues with this situation, but my greatest frustration was that I had not found a way for my voice to be meaningfully heard or found a way to fully utilize my expertise and skills in my professional career. I was at a loss for what I should do and left with many questions—did I need to match my colleagues’ volume and bluster, just to have my voice heard? Did I need to change, in order to work within this environment? If I did need to adjust my communication style, would this adjustment actually help the organization or would it just lead to more noise? Should I expect my colleagues to change their behavior? Why would my colleagues be motivated to change their behavior?
After weeks of wrestling with these questions—it hit me. I had to find a “third option;” a way for me to be heard without having to compete with my colleagues’ loud voices and without expecting them to change their behavior.
Finding solutions that worked for me
My first solution was simple and surprisingly effective—I started raising my hand.
This subtle gesture demanded attention and required my peers to give me the opportunity to speak. At first, I was met with laughter—my colleagues assumed that I was acting in jest. However, I persisted and it worked. My raised hand continued to force the loud voices to pause and permitted myself (and others) the opportunity to speak and to be heard. As a result, conversations and decisions began to pivot from my comments and my input, and my raised hand became an expected part of our meeting. Not only was my voice being heard, but our regular meetings became more effective and we were making better, more informed decisions.
A second solution was to appoint a meeting facilitator. With an individual responsible to guide our meetings, we were able to stay on-task and not lose ourselves in digressed conversations. Initially, we established a rotation for who would facilitate. However, I quickly distinguished myself and I became responsible for facilitating our meetings. As a facilitator, I maintained space for all the voices around the table to be heard by using a variety of tools, none of which related to the volume of my voice. Through clear communication, thoughtful and vetted agendas, detailed meeting minutes, action plans, and timelines, and my faithful timer, I excelled in guiding the conversation.
The third solution was to build trust, inside and outside of the conference room. The results of this solution were less immediate but ultimately proved to be the most effective. At a certain point, I realized that the volume and bravado that colleagues expressed in the conference room were, in part, efforts to cover uncertainty and insecurity in their roles and in related decision-making. My colleagues who relied on speaking over others and bulldozing ideas were often trying to prevent a critical evaluation of their proposed course of action. The need for my colleagues to be the loudest or to speak most often came from a reluctance to allow their work to be scrutinized or to “speak for itself.” Once I identified this situation, I employed two strategies: the first was through displaying consistency, reliability, and follow-through. If I raised a concern, I had a reasonable alternative. If I pushed a suggestion, I was willing to roll up my sleeves and do the heavy lifting. Likewise, if something went wrong, I was willing to listen to feedback learn from my mistakes. The second strategy was to build rapport with my colleagues through authenticity and sincere interest in their work and personal lives. Combined, I was able to strategically cultivate trust with my colleagues that resulted in a satisfying degree of mutual respect and greater and more effective collaboration.
It has been years since I sat in that conference room, feeling powerless, frustrated, and uncertain of how I needed to express myself. This was a difficult situation, that caused me to evaluate what kind of leader I was, whether I needed to change my leadership style and whether there were steps that I could take to allow my leadership style to thrive in the environment that I found myself in. I am now grateful for this past discomfort, as it led to a refined leadership style, years of deep satisfaction in communication, and a highly-tuned empathy for those who strive to find their voice.
I would love to hear your leadership journey and if you’ve had a defining moment that presented you with the challenge of determining what type of leader you are and how you could succeed in the environment that you were in.
Carolyn