Conscious Leadership

The problem with conventional psychometric assessments like Myers Briggs is that they prescribe character traits that people interpret as fixed, final and all-pervading. Any form of psychological, personality or character assessment is valid for that moment in time only, and its future relevance is dependent on the habits of the individual. If people do not change their habits, then tools such as Myer Briggs are successful indicators of future behaviour. Conversely, if people change then the tools become less predictive of future behaviour.

This is particularly relevant in the context of leadership, and specifically leadership within certain contexts. Conscious Leadership is the concept of being an adaptive, listening and flexible leader attuned to the environment in which the leader is immersed. A Conscious Leader adapts their style of leadership depending on the climate and its requirements. No single style or characteristic of leadership is optimal for all types of situations.

Essentially there are three broad environments in which a business operates:

1. Temporary Calm
2. Constant Challenge
3. Absolute Crisis

All businesses will experience, or be experiencing, the domination of one of these three states at any one time and will experience all these states during the life of their business, whilst also transitioning from one state to another constantly. Accordingly there are three types of effective leadership that a Conscious Leader can choose to adopt depending on the particular dominating state the business is experiencing.

1. Democratic Leadership - making decisions by committee using popularity as the determinant
2. Consultative Leadership - making decisions by consulting all stakeholders and incorporating their positions in the final decision ensuring all parties feel they own the decision
3. Authoritative Leadership - gathering the best advice and making a unilateral decision

A Conscious Leader will choose one of these three styles of leadership to be the dominating style matching it to the environmental demands. The Democratic style is best suited to the Temporary Calm state of business when urgency is low and there is plenty of time to involve all parties in a democratic decision making process. The Consultative style is best suited when the business is experiencing constant challenges, where timeliness is important and urgency is at moderate level. The Authoritative style is best suited to a crisis situation, where urgency is high, time is limited and the team are looking for strength in their leader.

By a Conscious Leader appropriately matching their style of leadership to the environment, they will optimise cultural alignment and team support for themselves and the business, whilst also making the best decision. Conversely by mismatching the style of leadership the leader will hinder cultural alignment and minimise team support for themselves and the business, and most likely make a sub-optimal decision.

Leadership styles are best thought of as being on a continuum, where a Conscious Leader can slide to any particular style as and when required. Unfortunately many business leaders are prescribed a certain style of leadership, either by themselves or by others, for life and without any consideration for the environment in which the business is experiencing.

The opportunity for you as a leader is to develop all three styles of leadership through combining 360 degree feedback, periodic psychometric testing, executive coaching, team development workshops and retreats. This is best summarised as constant introspection validated against external assessment. This will ensure that you are a Conscious Leader that is constantly adapting and growing through your experience, making the best possible decisions with the full support of your team.