For the uninitiated, all able-bodied males in Singapore have to serve in the armed forces (The Army, Navy or the Police) for at least 2 years usually before they head-off to college or university.

As a senior instructor in the Army, I had the privilege of picking my co-trainers.

So I decided to approach one of the junior instructors to ask if he will join my team.

His answer was a firm “NO! You always pull rank!”

I was shocked.
I was hurt.
And I was confused.

What was wrong with using my rank to get things done?

But that was the TURNING POINT in my life.

After I joined the Corporate world, I set out to change my leadership style.

I read voraciously on leadership and motivation.

Bit by bit I put into practice what I learned on leadership and motivation.

One day I was asked to build up a regional team in Asia Pacific.

I switched from being COERCIVE and COMMANDING, to being AFFILIATIVE and DEMOCRATIC.

Eventually I built a regional team so cohesive that we achieved 0% attrition rate; hit almost 100% of all KPIs; and almost 100% engagement rate.

Over 10 straight years!

I don’t remember his name. But I still remember how he looks like.
And if I see him one day, I will thank him for making me who I am today.

So what kind of leader are you?

If you would like to find out how you can be a better leader, check this out: Leadership Styles Questionnaire

Over the last decade, this company has grown by leaps and bounds and have established bases as far as the United States of America. Its entity here in Singapore is a small but rapidly growing one, and it has plans to grow and expand here in South East Asia over the next several months.

As part of its aggressive plans for expansion here in S.E.A, the Managing Director of the Singapore office realised that it was important for them to build and establish a strong culture here in Singapore and within the South East Asian region, that includes offices in Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia.

When I met with the M.D. to discuss the details of the workshop, he made it clear that he wanted to the leaders in this region to be effective leaders leading the growth of the organisation over the next several months.

Different Strokes for Different Folks

So based on the information gathered from the M.D. during the meeting, I decided to discuss Leadership Styles with the leadership team for the workshop. As this is a growing team, the leaders needed to understand how their leadership styles would affect the organisation at different stages of organisational growth and maturity.

We all know that we can’t use the same leadership style for all people in different circumstances. But the challenge is that most of us are not aware of which styles we use most often and how to switch between styles in different situations and when dealing with different people.

The Power of the Team View

So the workshop focused on the six leadership styles by Dr. Daniel Goleman but we discussed only the Consolidated Group Style Report as shown in the picture above.

From this report, it is very obvious which style the leadership team tend to gravitate towards. For those who are familiar with the six leadership styles, the Democratic Style has a strong correlation to positive performance. However, we all know that too much of a good thing can be bad. And it is no difference in this case.

A leadership team that is too democratic tends to breed mediocrity in the long-term. The team will most likely end up in endless meetings and discussions. Coming to concrete decisions may be an extremely long drawn-out process.

And herein lies the power of the consolidated leadership styles report.

The report avoids highlighting the individual styles of each individual, but instead highlights the leadership style of the entire leadership team.

I have conducted this same exercise for different leadership teams and the conclusion is always the same – the leadership team knew exactly why they have been ineffective just by looking at this chart, and instantly knew what they needed to do in order to be more effective going forward.

What about YOUR leadership team?

Do you feel that your leadership team is ineffective in leading your organisation, but don’t know exactly where the problem is?

Do you feel that your leadership team can do better leading your organisation, but don’t know how to go about improving?

If the above questions resonate with you, then the Leadership Style Questionnaire is just the tool for you. It will show you exactly why your team is ineffective and what you should do to improve.

Discover your own Leadership Styles here

Author Bio

Steven Lock is the Founder of FutureTHINK! Training & Consultancy LLP. He is a Trainer, Author and a Leadership Coach. Steven brings with him 20 years of corporate experience.

Steven is passionate about helping organisations transform their teams into high performing teams. He does that by first helping organisations identify and hire the right people, and then training their leaders and managers on how to manage and lead their people to achieve peak performance consistently.

Steven is the developer of The CAAP® High Performance Model. The model focuses on Culture (cultural fit), Attitude, Aptitude and Personality dimensions of their employees and job candidates. It is a highly practical, effective and proven approach.

Steven believes that for organizations to be truly successful and perform at their highest levels, they need to shift their mind-sets to having the RIGHT people on-board – and not necessarily the best or the brightest.

Steven is the author of two books:

• “Hiring for Performance: The CAAP® Model to Hiring and Building High-Performance Teams.”
• “The Right Talent: The Agility-Focused Interviewing Approach to Hiring the Right Candidate Every Time.”

He is the developer of The Leadership STYLE Report that is based on Dr. Daniel Goleman’s research on leadership styles.

Steven has been interviewed twice on MediaCorp’s live radio show The Breakfast Club on 938FM, and has contributed numerous articles to Singapore Business Review, ST Recruit, SHRI Human Capital, LinkedIn and other publications.

His comment on Team Collaboration has been quoted in the Harvard Business Review OnPoint Magazine.

Steven is certified in MBTI® (Step I & II) & DiSC® Personality instruments.

Is Leadership so elusive that we need so many books, articles and workshops just to teach us how to be a good leader?

The truth is, great leadership boils down to just a few very fundamental truths. Practice these fundamental truths and you will not go wrong as a leader. Practice these fundamental truths and you will be seen and regarded as a good leader.

So what are these fundamental truths?

1. Appreciate

Show genuine appreciation for the work that your people do. Appreciation has to be genuine; otherwise you will come across as fake and condescending. One of the fastest ways to damage the working relationship with your people is to fake appreciation. Most of your people will be able to smell a rat from a mile away if you try to be patronizing towards them.

2. Encourage and Motivate

Your appreciation for their work needs to extend into encouragement and motivation. Encourage your people to do even better work. Encourage them to do more with less. Challenge them to achieve higher goals.

So how do you do it?
First ensure that you say something nice about the work that person has done. Now, this has to be 100% genuine. As mentioned above in point #1, your people will be able to smell a rat from a mile away if you are being patronizing.

Next, tell the person you would like to see him/her continue doing even better on the assignment. Set stretch goals. The stretch goals are meant to stretch that person – not break that person.

3. Listen more than you talk

Most leaders like to talk. And that’s a fact. Look around and you will notice leaders always like to talk. They want to get their points across; they want to impose their ideas on you; they want to get buy-in for their strategies and plans; they want to bulldoze their way; they just love talking.

However employees are happiest when they feel free to contribute their ideas and to take initiative. If your people hesitate in contributing ideas, then perhaps it is because you are talking too much and not listening enough. Perhaps you’re not giving your people a chance to voice their opinions, make comments and suggestions.

Shut-up and let your people do the talking. Because when your people start talking more, you will get to learn more about them, their difficulties, their challenges, their aspirations, their shortcomings, their strengths and their frustrations.

About the Author

STEVEN LOCK is a Speaker, Trainer, Author and a Leadership Coach. Steven brings with him two decades of corporate experience.

Steven is passionate about helping organisations transform their teams into high performing teams. He does that by first helping organisations identify and hire the right people, and then training their leaders and managers on how to manage and lead their people to achieve peak performance consistently.

He is the developer of The CAAP® High Performance Model. This model focuses on Culture (cultural fit), Attitude, Aptitude and Personality dimensions of their employees and job candidates. It is a highly practical, effective and proven approach. Steven believes that for organizations to be truly successful and perform at their highest levels, they need to shift their mind-sets to having the RIGHT people on-board – and not necessarily the best or the brightest.

Steven is the Author of two books:

• “Hiring for Performance: The CAAP® Model to Hiring and Building High-Performance Teams.”
• “The Right Talent: The Agility-Focused Interviewing Approach to Hiring the Right Candidate Every Time.”

He is also the developer of The Leadership STYLE Report that is based on Dr. Daniel Goleman’s research on leadership styles.

Steven has been featured on MediaCorp’s live radio show The Breakfast Club on 938FM, and has contributed numerous articles to Singapore Business Review, ST Recruit, SHRI Human Capital and other publications. His comments on Team Collaboration was quoted in the Spring 2014 Edition of the Harvard Business Review OnPoint Magazine.

Steven holds a Master of Business (Information Technology) from Curtin University of Technology, Western Australia. He is a certified DISC & MBTI® (Step I & II) practitioner.

Recently Steven was invited as a guest speaker to share about his CAAP(R) High Performance Model with over 600 delegates at the Vietnam HR Summit 2016 in Ho Chi Minh City.

It was 1986. It was a cold January morning at Cape Canaveral.

Engineers had been frantically preparing for the launch of the space shuttle Challenger. On board the space shuttle were 7 crew members.

Just as in all previous launches, safety checks had to be done prior to the launch of the mission to ensure the space shuttle was perfectly safe before launching.

As part of the checks, Engineers working on the space shuttle had to sign-off a declaration that the space shuttle was safe to proceed. However, 4 Engineers had refused to sign-off on the declaration forms that morning.

At the height of the Cold War, the political pressure for this mission to proceed was huge. A lot were at stake. This mission had already been delayed several times and it would have been a huge political embarrassment to the United States Government if this mission did not take off again this time.

And because the political pressure was overwhelming, the Director overseeing the Engineers decided to ignore the concerns of those Engineers who refused to sign-off on the safety forms. Instead he signed-off on the safety forms for the launch to proceed.

We all know what happened to that ill-fated space shuttle that day. The space shuttle broke apart 73 seconds into its flight, leading to the deaths of all 7 crew members. The space craft disintegrated over the Atlantic Ocean in a huge fireball, off the coast of Cape Canaveral, Florida.

Watch the live video footage here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSTrmJtHLFU

The reason for the disaster?

The O-Ring seal in its right rocket booster failed at lift-off. The failure of the O-Ring caused pressurised burning gas from within the solid rocket motor to escape and affected the external fuel tank.

The O-Rings were qualified only to 4˚C (40˚F). The temperature that cold January morning was -7˚C (4˚F).

So what lessons can we draw from the 1986 Challenger disaster?

The Challenger disaster has since been used as a case study in many discussions of engineering safety and workplace ethics.

Workplace ethics has become a critical competency in most organisations today. However cases where Bosses override the concerns of reporting team members still happen every day in the corporate world.

As a leader, do you have a habit of dismissing feedback and comments from your team members? Do you always insist on your own ways? Do you always think you know best?

If you are a boss or a manager of a team of experts or highly competent individuals, it usually pays to listen to the opinions and concerns of your direct reports.

The reason is very simply: Your direct reports have the expert practical domain knowledge that you may not have.

In our volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous business environment today, it is impossible for any one individual to have all the answers, and it is impossible for any one individual to see all the different options and possibilities.

It is important to listen to their views, opinions and concerns and not dismiss their concerns prematurely. You need to solicit their feedback and expert opinions before you make any major changes or critical decisions.

Avoid becoming the next Challenger.