"Leaders become great, not because of their power,
but because of their ability to empower others"
~ John Maxwell
In all of this talk about leadership and the countless theories to becoming a "master leader," I think it is important to examine the impact on followers. In the picture above, there lie a path headed in two different directions. One is full of sunshine, probably with unicorns, rainbows, and tweeting birds. The other is dark, probably with death eaters, evil little trolls, and spiders. If you were a follower, and your leader picked either of the paths, would you follow them? Would you feel empowered to make a decision about the path on your own? The answer might be, it depends. Depends on what, you ask? Perhaps if the leader inspires, motivates, and empowers you, only then will you trust on which path to go.
Greetings fellow bloggers, this week, we are going to look at how leaders can motivate and inspire followers to achieve their maximum potential. Empowering your followers increases your influence as a leader. I like to look at it in this manner. The leader is the tip of the spear! If the tip of the spear is dull, the ENTIRE spear is a useless tool. However, if that tip is sharp and refined, that spear becomes a lethal weapon.
Back in the 1970's, sociologists and researchers understood that theories about leadership were lacking a true understanding of the impact on the followers. We could talk about influence, power, and motivation all we want, but if the followers aren't "drinking that Kool-Aid," the research did no good. The result was Path-Goal Theory which is about how leaders motivate followers to accomplish designated goals.
The biggest difference between Path-Goal Theory and situational leadership is Path-Goal Theory emphasizes the relationship between the leader's style and the followers characteristics and that leader uses a style that best meets the followers needs. Basically, Path-Goal tries to explain how leaders help followers attain their goals where the behavior is individually tailored to each follower. You see, in the past few weeks, we looked at the one-size fits all approach that addresses the influence of the leader. So if, for example, the leader uses an authority-compliant approach which may work well in a military type setting, Path-Goal Theory says that not every single person in that setting will respond well to that style. I am not suggesting that the military adopt a style for each recruit. That would not work. I am just illustrating that not every recruit will respond well to that style, even though overall it is effective for the needs of the military. So, it appears that Path-Goal Theory is saying, hey, if you lead a group of five people, maybe two respond well to directive leadership, one responds well to supportive leadership, and the other likes a participative leadership style even though the leader generally shows an achievement-oriented style. So let's take a quick look at the leadership styles described in the Path-Goal Theory:
Directive Leadership - leader gives instructions about the task
Supportive Leadership - friendly and approachable leader who makes things pleasant for the followers
Participative Leadership - sharing the decision making with followers
Achievement-Oriented Leadership - challenges followers to be their best and work at the highest level
What about those followers? Surely they have characteristics too? Yep, they do!
Followers have a need for affiliation, and those who possess a strong need for this, prefer a supportive leader. Those with less, prefer a directive leader.
Followers have preferences for structure. The stronger the preference, the more towards directive leadership they will fall, and those who prefer less, may want a supportive leader.
Followers have desires for control. You guessed it. The more control, the more towards directive leadership, and the less control, the more toward supportive. But overall, as the perceptions of a follower's ability to perform a task increases, their desire for direction and control goes down! You see, you're getting it! :-)
One thing I personally believe is very important is for the leaders to always examine their leadership qualities and to always want to improve. Don't just say, "I'm a leader," and then rest on your laurels. After a situation presents itself, take the opportunity to ask if there was another way to do it, or think about how you might do it differently next time. The video below perfectly describes the idea behind empowerment. Take a look:
That's all for this week as we near the middle of our nine week journey! Take care of yourselves until then and I look forward to our blog next Sunday!
Hi Gary,
ReplyDeleteExcellent blog post this week! I really enjoyed reading about path-goal leadership and empowerment. Your graphics and writing style kept my interest the whole way through. Your blog also helped me gain a better understanding of what empowerment is, as well as understanding our desires for directive and supportive leadership. Thinking back through my five years working as an accountant, I would agree with your thoughts on directive and supportive leadership. Early in my career, when I had less experience, I had a strong desire for directive leadership because I wanted to learn the right way to do my job and I wanted to make sure I was meeting my supervisor’s expectations on every assignment. As I became a subject matter expert in my job, I desired more of a supportive role because anything more seemed overbearing and like micromanaging. However, I have changed roles three times in the last five years and each time that I changed roles I desired a directive leader all over again. Most recently, when starting a new role I was aligned with a supportive leader who really relied on my ability to figure things out on my own. Although I initially desired a more directive leader, this situation allowed me to really mature in my profession and learn to not rely so heavily on others just because I was learning something new. Because of my current leader taking more of a supportive role, I learned to be more confident in my abilities to take a small amount of instruction and use my leader for support rather than for step-by-step direction.