Three Brain Synergy Blog

Here is Friz Glaus' answer to last weeks leadership question along with a video interview with Fritz  sharing his views on the subject. Watch the video on You Tube

Leadership question of the week of August 17th 2009:

What type of person and what style of leadership are required in a leader intent on developing a team of managers and/or vice-presidents reporting directly to him who are self-directed and fully autonomous?

I would like to deal with this question in relation to a specific group of business people rather than to leaders in general. The basic leadership  requirement will be the same, but I would like to focus on the specific business leaders that ThreeBrainSynergy is addressing, namely company owners (Presidents or CEO’s) whose innate style of leadership is that of quick action. They decide and act quickly themselves and they expect quick action from the vice-presidents and other executives who report directly to them. They also expect their direct reports to be able to carry out such action without the need for detailed explanations.

When we observe the quick action business leader at work, we notice that he often complains about his direct reports’ failure to act with the effectiveness he expects of them. He usually ignores the real reason for their ineffectivenss (his brusque and overly directive leadership style), complaining that they show a lack of interest in their job, lack of commitment to a goal, pre-occupation with their personal problems, etc. He doesn’t realize that the main reason that his expectations of them are not being met is his own leadership style. He fails to see that the autonomy and independence he expects from his direct reports cannot be obtained through highly directive leadership. In other words, he fails to see the contradiction inherent in his leadership style. A leader needs to embrace the participative style of leadership if he wants to grow direct reports who show autonomy and independence. One cannot expect to develop autonomy and independence in direct reports who are strongly directed what to do. Unfortunately, the directive leader is not usually interested in changing his style, unless he has some acceptance of the fact that he could get better results if he were less directive.

Therefore, unless the action type business owner realizes himself that he needs to develop a more participative leadership style, he will not be interested in joining ThreeBrainSynergy. He will only be ready to join once he has learned somehow that there is more to life than investing all one’s time and energy into running a company and that it is possible to WORK LESS yet EARN MORE. Perhaps he has heard Ricardo Semler speak about his company, SEMCO, a highly successful Brazilian enterprise which is run entirely by Mr. Semler’s previous direct reports while he is making speeches all around the world explaining to business leaders how they can achieve similar results with their own direct reports.

Fortunately, the number of action oriented business leaders who see the need to change their leadership style is on the increase, due in large part to the Internet, as nowadays most business leaders, regardless of their leadership style, routinely consult the Internet in connection with their business.

Getting back to our leadership question of the week, the obvious answer to the question is that since it is being increasingly recognized that the companies with the highest productivity are those that are focused on teamwork, the leadership style required today is the participative one rather than the directive one. The participative style alone can ensure the development of  effective teams which, after all, are composed of fully participating, engaged and motivated team members.

It should be noted though, that even in the case of CEO’s who want to change their style to participative leadership, the ACTIVE LISTENING that this requires will not be easy for them, since they are normally ACTION types (body types) who are in the habit of requiring that others listen to THEM and do what THEY tell them to do.

Fritz Glaus

Know-yourself, learn your type & improve your effectiveness.

Watch the video