A Contradiction for Prospective Leaders: Would Adopting Styles Confuse Them?

Looking back at some relatively old styles, laissez-faire leadership is best, servant leadership is best, democratic leadership is best, transformational leadership is best, and charismatic leadership is best. This list extends. Some of the relatively new terms and styles are increasing in popularity. Self-disruptive leader: best, transpersonal leader: best, altrocentric leader: best, leadership 4.0: best, agile leader: best, technoversal leader: best. For prospective leaders, this list extends much further.

But one second! Imagine prospective leaders searching for a style to adopt and employ. Would it be easy? This plethora may be one of the reasons for research indicating there are not enough business leaders rising. Which one would prospective leaders choose from so many options? Would it not be contradictory to choose from too many since they all are the best? More importantly, would this choice be a clear path to leadership excellence in an age with these many variables and challenges?

Adopting a leadership style

To adopt a particular style, it should be with a determined framework and clear guidance to prospective leaders. A style is answering the world’s issues and giving simple solutions to complex problems. Except for this, none of them would go in the long list of leadership styles. These styles typically spin in the circle of leader-follower interactions or how a leader can better motivate for more growth and profit. Perhaps these factors mattered most a hundred, fifty, or even twenty years ago, yet the reality and priority of the world have changed.

Leaders must consider further issues, such as resource scarcity and social responsibility. They also need to consider ethics since there is a debate about whether the digital work style inflicts work overload on employees. Above all, they must seriously be aware of climate change and inspire their followers to act to rectify it. Unless a specific leadership style offers unique elements to solving such a requisite aspect of the world’s real problems ordered above, a prospective leader should benefit from focusing on behaviours and skills rather than obsessing about styles.

If there is no such element in the core of leadership, taking a leader ahead of profit-making or leader-follower interaction of businesses. Then, this leader will circle on conventional business concerns, which skills and behaviours will be enough to answer these concerns. Especially when we consider each distinctive style’s distinguishing characteristics, it looks more rational to adopt a skillset and behaviours in demand rather than a leadership style. In other words, leadership must offer vital aspects and well-defined qualities, and a prospective leader must pick tens of different leadership styles.

APARTS Versus VUCA

Again, gaining skills and behaviours seems more practical unless the essence of a particular leadership is vital for businesses with all living, environment, and society together.

So, what are these behaviours?

Recent research answering this question found that APARTS Behaviors, Agility, Problem-Solving Efficiency, Adaptation, Respect, Tech-Savvyness, and seeking Different Perspectives are the findings of these behaviours and skills. These behaviours and skills will take the leader ahead in the competition. Coming to VUCA, many leadership readers might have recently seen this overused acronym. The good news is that VUCA or a VUCA world’s explanation will not be here. However, solving and overcoming VUCA and many more issues may sound more appealing.

APARTS Versus VUCA

Adapted from ‘’Technology Effect on the Leader Behaviors in the Digital Era.’’1 The author has produced the diagram.

According to the research, these are must-have behaviours for leadership success. They are genuinely logical, and the problem and how a leader can solve it with responsive behaviour are considered together in a problem-solution base.

You may hear a prospective leader talking about leadership or asking about a style. In the end, the matter is simply asking the following question: Will your adopted leadership style offer a vital element and make you think outside the box? If the answer is yes, then it certainly is worth trying. If the answer is no, the above content will be a good choice for beginning to gain the skills and behaviours.

References

[1] Kapucu, H. (2020). Technology effect on the leader behaviours in the digital era. Business&IT, 10(2), pp. 12-31. DOI: https://doi.org/10.14311/bit.2020.03.02