Leading Teams
Influencing Culture & Choosing Leadership Styles
Objectives
1. Influence culture
2. Develop four leadership styles
(and team member competence, confidence & commitment)
3. Agree on leadership styles & choose decision-making roles
4. Combine leadership styles & DiSC strategies
Purpose
Effective leaders actively influence their organization’s culture by their behaviors. Employees may perceive, think, and feel differently based on what the leader says or does. Since what leaders say and actually do may be different, some of the “teaching” is conscious, some is unconscious, some is supportive, and some is contradictory.
When leaders don’t teach and model company values and their supporting behaviors, employees create their own. Unintended consequences include negative impacts on customers, reduced cost-effectiveness, increased uncertainty/anxiety, and more conflict and competing needs, versus teamwork and focus.
Therefore, leaders should not leave culture to chance. The primary ways leaders influence culture (based on world-renowned research from M.I.T.) must all be actively & appropriately managed to have a significant & desirable effect on their organization's culture.
In addition, just as leaders have a dominant communication style (e.g., DiSC), they often have a leadership style with which they’re most comfortable — their “auto pilot” way of leading teams. Yet, the same leadership style won’t work in all situations or with all team members. Team members have different levels of competence, confidence, and commitment per task.
“Situational leaders” adapt their leadership behaviors as appropriate to balance the amount of direction and support they provide. They develop people over time so they can reach their highest level of performance on each specific goal and task — to a point where others become self-motivated and self-directed.
This highly interactive training program develops core skills necessary for leaders at all levels to effectively influence culture & choose leadership styles to develop their team members as they achieve business goals.