Emerging Styles of Leadership
A Daniel Goleman article published in the Harvard Business Review in March 2000 serves as the starting point for this section. The business scape has undergone quick and consistent change over the past two decades, adeptly described by the acronym VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous).
The need of the hour, as stated by Goleman, led to the creation of six new leadership styles, each bolstered by an individual facet of emotional intelligence competency. The competencies listed include self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy and social skills. The styles of leadership that emerged as a result were:
Coercive Style
An approach where the leaders gets ultimate authority and control. Albeit a valid style of leadership, it is not without its demerits, namely the lack of autonomy of employees and the absence of a conducive work structure.
Democratic Style
A style favoured by start-ups and smaller businesses; the democratic leadership style is one where employees are involved in decision-making processes. It helps leaders build organizational flexibility, and induces the generation of fresh ideas.
Authoritative Style
Similar to its predecessor in the fact that the leader has ultimate precedence, but more holistic because it allows employees to choose their own way of fulfilling assigned briefs. Cooperation, as always, is key.
Pacesetting Style
Modelled after a “Lead by Example” doctrine, this leadership style uses leaders as the ultimate example, thereby linking a leader’s personal performance and ethics to the organization’s competency.
Affiliative Style
This particular style of leadership puts the focus on people, and has proven useful in team building, morale boosting and in harmonizing the work environment. It allows people to ideate their own opinions.
Coaching Style
The coaching style of leadership focuses on personal development and steady growth, instead of a task-oriented culture. It is known to optimize business performance in the long-term.
Reimagination of VUCA Leadership
The reimagination of VUCA leadership is primarily headlined by professors Jennifer Jordan, Michael Wade and Tomoko Yokoi, who assert that the future of leadership requires leaders to extract theories from both traditional and emergent styles.
While Goleman’s approach was neatly designated into individual styles, Jordan et al. prefer a more cohesive approach that includes different competencies existing simultaneously.
The different points to factor in while doing this are:
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Holding and Sharing Power
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Adequate interpersonal communication
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Generating feasible short and long-term visions
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Emphasis on both precision and speed
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Equitable focus on data and intuition while making decisions
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A systemized SWOT analysis procedure in place
Sustainable Leadership
Another approach to the emerging face of Leadership involves combining TLL (Telos Leadership Lens) and PAC (Purpose, Alignment, Commitment) ontology to generate a sustainable leadership model that can act as a guide for the future.
Figure: Emerging Leadership Model, Todnem (2021)
This model is designed to be a cornerstone in delivering on the Sustainable Development Goals outlined by the US, combat an increasingly challenging climate crisis and maintain, at heart, what is really important – effective leadership.
The TLL and PAC theories have the potential to guide further development in leadership theory, and facilitate solutions to current and future leadership challenges which require collaborative solutions.
