Being a leader is tough, and many times you have to be tough—in a good way—to make sure the job gets done properly.
Circumstances, however, should dictate how tough you should be. It’s not a great thing to be hard all of the time. Sometimes you have to take a light approach to achieve your work goals, even when the job itself is difficult.
The leader who understands and acts on this principle is what I consider a smart leader. She or he knows that they have to switch up their leadership style sometimes to achieve the best work outcome.
Let’s take the example of someone I know: “Robert,” a project manager for a company that mitigates and repairs home disasters. As part of his job, Robert meets with homeowners who have endured traumatic occurrences such as fire, flooding, and other similar events. He then schedules the service work for these customers.
So, while Robert exercises top-level customer service and takes a light and sensitive approach with homeowners dealing with a harrowing situation, he adjusts this approach when managing the work team. He exhibits a healthy “toughness” with his crews to ensure that they show up to worksites on time, follow and adhere to all regulations, meet mitigation and repair deadlines, and do their jobs well to the satisfaction of the homeowner and the homeowner’s insurance company.
In this example, the way Robert tempers his touch is by engaging in empathetic listening to homeowners as they share details about their home incidents and by talking in a steady, calm, reassuring voice. However, with his crews, he speaks in a decidedly deeper, directive tone and manner to keep everyone focused on completing the job at hand while allowing little if any distracting side conversations about things unrelated to mitigation or repair work. For Robert, that’s his version of being a “tough” manager and leader.
The results of taking this leadership approach have spoken for themselves numerous time by way of his solid performance record and stellar reviews. Namely, Robert’s high success rate is punctuated with a top percentage of home repair jobs highly rated by the customers he serves. They highlight Robert’s wonderful demeanor and the excellent work completed by his team. As these positive reviews make their way to the insurance companies, Robert’s company remains on their speed-dial for the next homeowner disaster that crops up, which has kept Robert’s competitive business one of the best in the market.
As mentioned in past blogs, the key concept here is this: Successful leaders strive to understand the totality and complexity of the landscape in which they are working. The leader with broad working knowledge of their scope of work has a critical tool to help them make the important moves to successfully execute their job.
So, in your next client engagement or team interaction, be sure to assess and understand the varying and diverse communication needs of all your audiences. Then, employ the right touch based on situation and circumstances. Step into being the flexible, adaptable, and emotionally intelligent leader that you know you are without hesitation.
