Innovations: Can you describe leadership styles deeper, and what are the main characteristics and minuses and pluses in these styles?
Jan Dirk: Let me start by saying the whole idea behind the model that we call The Behavior Style in the Personal Styles Model. It is based on two dimensions of behavior that were already described like some 2500 years ago by Hippocrates. That is, on one hand, the Assertiveness that people show, on the other hand, the Responsiveness that people show.
Assertiveness is degree to which people assert themselves, show strength in the words, in the body language, in the voice. Or they are more yielding, so the scale is from yielding to dominant behavior. And every person is somewhere on the scale. It is something that slowly grows and it is quite solid. It is something that is quite permanent.
The Responsiveness is the scale actually between more introversive and extroversive behavior. And also every individual is somewhere on the skill.
If you combine these two scales, you get four patterns of behavior. More dominant behavior combined with more controlled or introversive behavior, gives us behavior style that we call Driver. It is dominant and self-controlled behavior that is close to leadership.
It is very important for the Drivers to have the sense of control. They want to have the feeling that they control situation. It’s a kind of people that need to have all the pieces of information to get the total picture. If they don’t have that control, they become quite autocratic, and autocratic in decisions and communication. So, people don’t like to approach them when they are under pressure.
They are also focused on the result. They always want to know what outcome or have to be, and they need clarity. If thing are not clear, they are unhappy. They rather have like bad news than news that is not clear.
Then you have combination of more yielding behavior, more asking rather than telling, and more controlled. These people are usually more quiet and more thoughtful. Usually they are very methodical, people who are analytical in their approaches. And we call this group as Analytical. They are usually more withdrawing, and they tend to wait until they have got enough information to be sure.
Analytical people are usually very task-oriented and they are very methodical. When they promise something, they will do everything to do this. They think that it’s better to do it too late than never. What is important for the Analytical people is the feeling they are being perceived as professionals. So, this professional recognition is crucial. And if they have feeling that people do not recognize them as one who knows best, they feel unhappy, get under the pressure. And they withdraw. They start asking more questions, they want to get more information; they are mush focused on getting right evidence before they will conclude on something.
Then there is the third group, which is combination of more yielding behavior, more asking and outgoing behavior, and more extroversive. Those people are very kind, very friendly, and we call them Amiable. They really enjoy working together with other people; the basic need for them is harmony.
Amiable need harmony; they want people to enjoy each other in the company, to be happy with each other. These people have a need to be trusted, but they are also able to trust. So, trust is big issue for them. And they really want to cooperate. The weakness is that Amiable people make decision not very fast, because it gets too long to concern decision with everybody. But they really can integrate people.
The fourth group is the combination of more dominant behavior with more extroversive behavior. These people are very loud; they like to be the centre of attention. We call this group Expressive. Expressives want to be seeing and accepted by other people around. Expressive people are usually in the centre of the group. They are very good at motivating people going to new challenge. They are very talkative. But they can change these challenges too fast, not achieving previous one.
Of cause, there are conflicts between people with different behavior styles who start to work together. And if you can make them to work together, it will be a perfect team. I’ve learned of the last 10 that profit-based organizations that putted a lot of attention to getting team of perfect “mixture” have become more successful team than that who had too much or not enough of some behavior style. But, of cause, you should learn them to work together, because they obviously will have misunderstandings.
I: What do you think: is there any successful leadership style and less successful? And how people should develop the successful leadership styles?
J.D.: The successful leadership style does not mean to do much with the behavior, but to do with the extend, to which people develop social versatility. Social versatility is ability to adapt to the style of another person. But to be able to adopt, you first have to develop some emphasis, to understand why the person acts in the way he or she does. So that are two elements – to be able to recognize the style of another person and to be able to accept and respect that different style (or, maybe it is the same style, that can also lead to conflict), and the second part is that you need to adapt your own behavior at that moment. This means that if you work with a group of people, you have to be very flexible and adopting to all this individuals that are around you. And this is something that you can learn only by practicing and dealing with all these styles. If you develop that social versatility it has been proven that you are then perceived as a good leader and people than are following you better, they also take more initiative, the communication is more easier, people trust you more. So it is extremely powerful and the financial results are also amazing.
I can’t say that one style is more successful then another. I can imagine situation where the Driver is the most on his place – it is, for instance, when company is in trouble, decisions have to be taken very quickly, people have to be laid off. The ship needs to be turned very quickly. Than I can imagine that the Driver has to have very specific skills that can help him. I can also imagine the opposite - the Amiable people in a situation where everything is quite – a year after a merger, where people have to learn to work together, to respect each other.
If a leader develops social versatility, the style doesn’t matter, because any style can be successful if they are able to adapt to other styles. I think the key lies in social versatility and not in the behavior style itself. Very good leaders are among any style. For instance, Kofi Anan, the general secretor of the United Nations for many years is an Amiable person and he was successful in running one of the most successful organizations in the world and was respected for his ability to create consensus between straggling parties. This is a good example how the style that is typically is not perceived as a leader style can be successful.
If you develop this social versatility, you easily get the endorsement of people and they think that you are their style. It is not about playing a role. It is about automatic adjusting. For instance, if you are not Analytical and you have a meeting with an Analytical person. You want this Analytical person to decide something. What you should not to do is to surprise him with a lot of information at the beginning of the meeting – they will not decide, they need more time to read it and to study it. So everything that you have to do - is just very little adjustment – send an information to them a day before, give them a little phone call after two days and ask if they had the opportunity to read this, did they have any questions. They probably have some questions and you can answer them and when you meet them next week they will be so well prepared so that you can very quickly decide.
But if you will do that with an Expressive person, the opposite will happen - you will send the information a week before, they will first of all forget that they have received it, they will not read it because they are too busy and even if they would have that paper during the meeting they will read it beside to communicate to you directly. So with them you have to come with surprises because they love surprises and are challenged by them.
I: You have made some researches about Ukrainian managers. So can you share some of thoughts – do Ukrainian managers differ from other managers of the world?
J.D.: What I see with a younger managers and executives here in the classes is that they are very ambitious. That means that it is the leading generation. I am not talking about politics now :) I am talking about business. I am not an expert on culture, but what I see is that if you want to be a leader you have to be autocratic, which is Driver style. And I personally believe, if people would stay close to themselves, instead of playing this role of what they think is expected from them, it would be much more successful. But they are not aware of that yet. I guess there is one example of my Ukrainian student that changed his behavior. He came closer to himself. I think this geniality is very important in leadership, because people want to be with people. I think employee wants to have a person as a boss, but not a boss as a boss. And if people understand who the person behind the boss is, the whole atmosphere would change. I would be really interested to do research about that and see whether we can prove that. Because if we can, that could be tremendous event for this school to start focusing on that and develop more genuine leaders.
09.04.08
до друку
