Six styles of Leadership...

[garethace]

How many different styles of leadership described in the Goleman interview have you encountered in your experience?

 

http://www.pfdf.org/leaderbooks/l2l/summer2002/goleman.html

 

More to the point, has anyone here, encountered a combination of the different styles of leadership, working in project teams down through the years, that worked well. Because, Goleman, does seem to argue quite strongly for a 'combination' of different styles of leadership, over stressing one particular type in particular.

 

Unfortunately, reading through the interview, I would have to say, for myself... that down through the years, working on so many different architectural design project teams, types of projects and clients etc,... that I have witnessed very strong examples of all six styles of leadership. But, while that was nice to experience,... I cannot say that I have ever really worked on any project, where there were a couple of different styles blended together for best effect, if you know what I am saying.

 

I would be very interested to hear what other people here might think. (The following in just the mandatory Geek insight into all of this... sorry, couldn't resist) I was just reading Linux Torvalds last night, describe the six different processes that exist in the Unix operating system, and how Unix was a beautiful and simple operating system, unlike something like VAX, which was more akin to Chinesse writing, with a pictorial represenation for everything. That by combining the 'six basic processes' in the Unix operating system, you could achieve all the complexity you ever needed, using simple and beautifully basic six tools.

 

It is very coincidental, how 'leadership' psychology seems to have hit on these six types of leadership styles too. :-)

 

Daniel Goleman is an author who studies how teams behave and a phenomenon he calls 'emotional intelligence'. I reckon myself, that there are some pretty good case studies in emotional intelligence out there, in the architectural community. I think some architects have probably used emotional intelligence as a tool or even a weapon, down through the years in their careers to get results and turn things to their advantage - in a way, I have to say I admire at some level, because it is pretty smart. Though I wouldn't ever try to emulate it.

 

 

gareth

[William Alexander]

Brian,

 

Very interesting, nothing new, but a good comphrensive way to catagoraize and implement such thinking.

 

Having worked within a very wide range of projects in multiple industries I would say the most common mistake is to choose the one that best fits your personality and stick with it. Many people think that a single approach will carry you through to the end, then realize it's not working over compensate (choose the wrong type) piss everyone off. Then start all over again through the same process the same way.... Gee why do I hate when the projects get towards the end........

 

I think from a leaders standpoint (management) that not enough time is spent taking the temperature of the group and looking ahead to what kind of effort is going to be needed to continue....finish a project. Based on that info pro-actively changing leadership styles could really have a strong positive undertow kind of effect on the job. I have had some success with this approach, but I have seen only a couple individuals who used very well. It was a sheer joy to be associated with them and the project/s, which for some strange reason was always defined as "Doing the Impossible".

 

Team Management once again is a proffession unto it's self, like business very rarely emparted to the Arch proffession through primary education. They teach how to plan a project but not lead it, other than through implied greatness of vision- I see it therefore everyone will follow.

 

My rant for the week

WDA

[Bhanu]

Thanks for link...quiet a plain and simple article.

[garethace]

I'll tell you what guys, here is a huge tip for all of you,... which you might need at some stage... totally unrelated to this thread and post,... but I said I would put it in anyhow, as kind of an xmas bonus. Remember when you studied English in school? Remember when you read an important piece of literature that someone at some point in time, had gone to a lot of trouble to present and to put together?

 

Now fast forward to today's reality, where information can be packaged and put together in mere seconds and published to a huge massive audience even faster.... at some stage in the past, in those English classes there was just one poem, or one piece of text, or one short story, or play, that perhaps had been around for years and years. And one could have to study and look at this one work of literature or art, or music, or whatever, for maybe a whole year, because it was part of your examinations at the end.

 

Now that meant one very obvious thing, your initial reading of the literature or work of art, deepened and grew during that same period. In fact, you tended to discover often, that what you had initially discarded as pure rubbish, somehow could be understood at numerous levels and knitted itself together with all kinds of themes,... in other words, there were many different readings of the same thing, not just one. And as long as you lived on this earth, you probably could keep finding new ones.... all from one piece of text, one painting or one short novel or story.

 

Anyhow, my point is that people tend to think nowadays, that complexity comes from having gigabytes of information passing over your desktop continuously all day long every day,... and the notion of a grotty old book in a library with one page of text, is just scoffed at, as 'old-school'. However, it has become increasingly obvious to me at least, that what the old school had was many ways, to see a single object. While the new school, can often have just one way to see a whole lot of objects. And worse still, the new school often gets mad, if their initial reading of a post, doesn't provide them with the instant gratification they so ultimately desire. Sad.

 

Brian O' Hanlon.

[garethace]

So this is the meat, of my post....

 

It is on the theme of leadership too, and sort of ties back in with the Systems Thinking thread, and 'standing back from it all'.... something that hopefully I will get to do over the xmas hols.

 

Happy xmas everyone.

 

Brian O' Hanlon.

 

Ways to make your vision real.

 

Having a vision for your organisation is one thing. Knowing whether the things you're doing right now are moving you toward accomplishing that vision is something very different. Executive coach James B. Anderson - who heads the Anderson Leadership Group - suggests these three interrelated actions can help close the gap between where we want to go and what we're doing today.

 

R,R&R getaways.

 

That's rest, relax, and rethink. "You're not just recharging your batteries", Anderson remarks, "but taking a step back, looking at where you've been and where you want to go - and making sure you're doing the things that get you there".

 

Vision check-ups.

 

"I'm not talking eyesight, but looking far ahead, to where you want to be ten years from now. Then you back from the future to the present: five years out, next year, next month, and - finally - next week".

 

Decisiveness.

 

"I believe that if you want to be productive, you have to be decisive", Anderson says. That "requires that you say no to some of the many good and valuable opportunities presented to you every day.... It's better to be narrowly deep in a few activities than to be widely shallow in many".

[William Alexander]

So this is the meat, of my post....

 

It is on the theme of leadership too, and sort of ties back in with the Systems Thinking thread, and 'standing back from it all'.... something that hopefully I will get to do over the xmas hols.

 

Happy xmas everyone.

 

Brian O' Hanlon.

 

The "map" is not the "terrian"! Leadership is about exploring (in between map & terrian) so others will follow and not fall of a cliff, or a 'challenged individual' can follow a path that is productive for them/group, or stop everyone climbing the highest mountian when a lazy river could take them to the goal.... it's always outside the box/s, imho

 

 

Old school still has more depth, if that's what you desire. The web has depth:confused: but there is no free library card to check it out.

 

Merry Xmas

WDA

[garethace]

I am going to start a thread for 'the geek olympics' over at aceshardware soon, but my own nominee, would be a character by the name of Bill Joy:

 

Bill's the only person I know who can simultaneously design a microprocessor, write the code for a new operating system, and invent a new computer language.

 

That was said by one Marc Andreessen, Netscape co-founder.

 

Anyhow, Bill Joy is an example of just the kind of leader, in technological circles, who is responsible for focussing all kinds of projects, on fairly sound coordinates and directions across that whole landscape,... but an interesting point too, as this article of Bill's highlights, and was hated be many too in the technology industry, including Linus Torvalds who was horrified by it....

 

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.04/joy.html

 

It has been described as Bill Joy's behaviour of not stopping 'a distance' from the edge like most people do, but having to go right up to the very last inch from the edge, where you can see all the molten lava bubbling down beneath you,... in order to envision what the future holds for the species on this planet in general. Very negative coming from a 'real leader' in the technology field.

 

BTW, that guy Kurzweil he refers to in the article is a very widely read author about Artificial Intelligence and that kind of field, who Bill says he just happened to meet by chance at some conference, and was fundamentally changed by the chance meeting with Kurzweil.

 

Brian O' Hanlon.