There is common agreement in the corporate world on the importance of leadership skills. Differences lay in the definition of good leadership and ways to embrace necessary skills. To be effective, one needs to understand the various leadership models and adopt a model that best-fits their individual style. There is no one style that fits all. Every leader needs to pick a model that feels most authentic to them.
Common leadership models include The Leader-Member Exchange Theory dating back to the 1970s. The theory focuses on the relationship between a leader and members of their teams through three stages: role taking, role making and routinization.
Maxwell’s 5 Levels of Leadership explains reasons people follow a leader and presents the reasons in a pyramid. At the lowest level, people follow leaders because they have to. Next level is because they want to. Level three people follow a leader is because they like the results a leader produces. At level four, people follow a leader because they like what the leader did for them, and the top reason people follow a leader is because they respect what the leader represents (the Pinnacle).
The Leadership Challenge discusses five practices: modeling the way, inspiring a shared vision, challenging the process, enabling others to act, and encouraging the heart. It has six leadership actions for each practice for a total of 30 leadership actions. Gallup’s Strengths-Based Leadership focuses on recognizing areas of strength for team members and delegating tasks to those who are strong in those areas, hence allowing them to excel.
High Impact Leadership Model (ModelTM) focuses on drive, emotional intelligence, trusted influence, conceptual thinking and systems thinking. Transformative Leadership is all about managing change, Servant Leadership is a philosophy in which the main goal of the leader is to serve others and Goleman’s 6 Leadership Styles offers six styles of leadership based on a 3-year study of over 3000 executives.
At Awe Horizons, we define leadership in three pillars: People Leadership, Business Leadership and Strategic Leadership. Each pillar consists of certain skills to become a holistic leader. The pillars are not independent nor are they sequential. An effective leader needs to exhibit skills from all three pillars.
A leader cannot claim to be a strategic leader if they don’t possess people skills to ensure those around them are on board with the strategic direction. Similarly, a people leader cannot be effective if they lack business acumen to deliver on the strategy. In addition to the three pillars, leaders must take into consideration personal components, team components, organizational and environmental components to successfully drive the business forward.
Leadership is a serious business requiring deliberate efforts to leave a legacy. Contact us for more information on developing and strengthening your journey to effective leadership.