Leadership

By Lenn Millbower

“I tear the hell out of them. I pound, pound, pound.” —Walt Disney

Surprised by that quote? Most people are. It was not Walt Disney’s finest hour. It was, however, an important part of Walt Disney’s leadership journey.

Most people remember Walt as the kindly, loving, mischievous, impish uncle on television via his Disneyland and Wonder World of Color TV programs. The Walt on television was, by most accounts, an extension of the Walt at that stage of his life. But Walt went through much trial and error to become that guy on television.

When distilled into these phrases, or “acts,” to use show business terms, and as explained in my book Care Like a Mouse, Walt’s journey provides lessons applicable to any leader. Those three acts can be described as:

• Act One, The Pal
• Act Two, The Boss
• Act Three, The Guide

Act One – The Pal

In Act One, The Pal, Walt was, like his namesake Mickey Mouse, everyone’s best buddy. Walt Disney, likely for lack of funding and a young man’s naïveté, ran his business as a communal enterprise. With little income to pay salaries, everyone was expected to share in both hardships and success. Walt would inspire his staff with a vision of creating a new entertainment art form: animation. His leadership style was communal, collaborative, and almost utopian. This style worked… as long as there were no profits to share. With the huge financial successes of Mickey Mouse and Snow White, it became increasingly difficult to maintain.

Act Two – The Boss

Walt tried to maintain his communal attitude. But at the studio, flush with money, resentment built up. Sacrifices seemed pointless in a studio raking in money. Individual identities resurfaced. A lack of organizational structure made for chaos. Perceptions of inequity, arbitrary pay raises, and hard work gone unrewarded fueled resentment. This resentment led to individual demands for better pay, better working conditions, and more individual recognition.

In one example, Walt Disney complained that employees who were happy to work on any surface and sit in any chair when there was no money were now complaining about who had the best drawing desk and chairs.

People quit. People went on strike. Walt, frustrated that his “boys” (as he called all of them) did not appreciate how good he had treated them, changed.

And then, World War II hit. Overseas profits were frozen. Pinocchio, Fantasia, and Bambi did not perform well at the box office. The U.S. military took over the studio grounds. Disney was forced to make military training films.

In spite of Walt’s inspirational visions, artistic pursuit no longer made a profit and gave way to expediency. As Walt himself described it, “We’re through with caviar. From now on its mashed potatoes and gravy.”

Walt Disney detached. He became moody and dictatorial. Team members reported that he would either be sighing in tired frustration or growling in anger. They described him as distrusting, disgruntled and dominating.

Jack Kinney explained that he would “… giving you the evil eye, with his finger pointed at your chest, that was very intimidating.” Ward Kimball said needed “…to put somebody down. You learned early on never to argue with him or to cross him.”

If Walt Disney’s career had ended in the 1940s, he would have been revered for his animation breakthroughs, but not as a leader and mentor. Act Two, The Boss, just like Act One, had not been a good model for leadership. The real Disney model for leadership was in the future and would come to fruition in Act Three, The Guide.

Act Three, The Guide

Walt Disney’s switch in leadership style grew gradually as the 1940s faded into the 1950s. A catalyst may have been the trip Walt Disney and Ward Kimball took to the 1948 Chicago Railroad Fair. Walt had always loved trains. When animation no longer excite him, he removed himself from the minutia of day to day studio operations and turned to model training. We are all fortunate he did that because that tinkering led to the development of Disneyland.

Two other factors pushed Walt Disney towards a new view of leadership (1) Walt became a TV star thanks to his Disneyland TV show and (2) Walt had grown older, evolving from the passion-driven young man into a kindly, impish, wise old man. In this guise, Walt could weigh in on opinions where and when needed. He could support, guide, mentor, and coach without getting too deep into studio minutia.

Walt described his “Guide” role in this manner, “I think of myself as a little bee. I go from area to area and gather pollen and stimulate everybody.”

Freed from the daily grind, Walt Disney became the visionary everyone loved. Everything then fell in place. The product was well received, the studio made money and Walt’s people bloomed. From a leadership perspective, Disney was free to chart the course, touch the rudder when required and enjoy himself.

Think about your leadership style and the three acts.

Do you believe in a communal approach? This Pal approach is applicable for startups where you have to inspire people but have no real financial rewards to offer them. It can, however, be challenging when people feel they are being treated unfairly or not able to share in the rewards because of their efforts.

Are you The Boss? Do you control everything with dictatorial demands? Walt Disney was able to keep his studio together during tough times with The Boss approach, but the cost in acrimony and turnover was high. Bossing is applicable for tough times but may make tough times even tougher and encourage a talent drain.

For the Guide – Do you share a vision and allow people to sail towards the horizon with direction only when truly required? For Disney, this approach worked best. The Guide is applicable when your employees respect you, know you know what you are doing, and really want your opinion. It does, however, require you to paint a vision and relax while others focus on delivering it.

All three roles have their place, but the choice is clear. The Guide is the one leadership approach that yields the most benefits, the best teamwork and the best chance for an enjoyable life. It is, as Disney discovered, the recipe for success … with or without the trains. To learn more, attend the Caring for Castomers: A Disney Inspired Approach to Employee Engagement webinar on Feb. 12 at 2 p.m. EST. Register here: https://www.hrdqu.com/webinars/caring-for-castomers-02-12-2020/.

Leadership skills are critical to success. Unfortunately, however, it is easy for a leader to lose focus and end up struggling. There are many derailments that can lead a manager astray. The key is identifying the potential outcomes of complex situations and overcoming them effectively. Preventing being derailed is ensuring leadership success.

There are a few important areas that leaders need to work on when they are focusing on building their leadership skills. These include:

• Organizing (Giving attention, focus and performing problem-solving)
• Relationships (Information sharing, working with others, working as a team, being supportive, and coaching)
• Learning initiatives (Competency development and enabling the learning application)
• Emotional management (Perceiving emotional climate and the response to the emotional climate)
• Career management (Making ethical choices and performing career anchoring)

Specific Traits and Skills Needed

The line between a successful leader and a derailed leader can sometimes be very thin. Common work situations can cause a good leader to get off track. But leadership failure can fortunately be predicted and be prevented. There are a certain behaviors that can derail any leader’s career, but knowing what they are can help. There are certain traits that show the difference between a good leader and one that is derailed.

Researchers have identified the below personal traits and skills that differentiate between successful leaders and derailed leaders:

• Diversity of Experience. Having a limited range of experiences derails leaders and can create behavior challenges. A lack of experience creates issues with problem solving, working with others, learning effectively, and addressing the emotional climate of different groups. Having a diverse leadership experience brings success.
• Emotional Stability and Composure. Being emotionally volatile can derail leaders and can lead to challenges with working with others, teaming up, and having supportive coaching behaviors. Leaders need to have awareness and effective management of the emotional climate. They must be stable and calm in order to lead their team.
• Handling mistakes. Mistakes can happen, and successful leaders need to handle them with the right skills. They should not manage mistakes by blaming others, demonstrating defensiveness, and refusing to move beyond failure. Poor mistake management creates problems with working with others, learning applications, awareness of emotional issues with the team, attending to ethical challenges, and problem-solving.
• Interpersonal skills. Being insensitive to others is a large source of derailment. Manipulative and insensitive behaviors interfere with building networks, fostering cooperation, and getting the most from team members. When communicating in ways that others experience as abrasive and intimidating, the leader is unable to develop them. These behaviors affect information sharing, working relationships, coaching opportunities, feelings awareness, and emotional climate reading. Leaders must be able to have good interpersonal skills in order to ensure the team is operating effectively.
• Integrity breaches. Breaches like betraying trust, promise breaking, and being duplicitous result in behavior challenges in the ability to build and mend relationships, the ability to understand the emotional needs of others, and the ability to make choices that foster commitment from others to achieve goals. Leaders must be honest, transparent, and honorable to succeed.
• Technical and cognitive skills. While leaders often have excellent technical and intellectual abilities, if overused, these behaviors may come across as overconfident and arrogant. Overplaying behaviors can generate difficulties with problem solving, relationships, learning new skills, and career opportunities.

Learning More

Watch HRDQ’s webinar “Leadership Skills That Are Critical to Success”.  You will learn the five key behaviors that can severely limit effectiveness, what leadership skills are critical to maintain and ensure success, ways to predict and pinpoint problems that can cause career derailment, how to develop and align critical competencies, and how to create an individual personal development plan.

For more information on how to prevent leadership derailment, check out “Leadership Unlimited Profile” by HRDQ. It serves as an “early warning” leadership development tool by quickly identifying trouble spots and building the skill sets leaders and managers need to stay on track and take charge of their careers. Participants will learn how to measure key career behaviors, understand the management skills needed to maintain and ensure success, learn how to predict problems and avoid career derailment, develop and align critical competencies, and create an individual personal development plan. Click here to learn more: Leadership Unlimited Profile.

What is Leadership Style?

Leadership style is the particular way in which a person leads others. It’s best understood by measuring the extent to which a leader’s preferred behavior demonstrates assertiveness and expressiveness, which are broad categories of behavior dimensions. The combination of high/low on the assertiveness dimension and high/low on the expressiveness dimension results in four possible leadership styles: direct, spirited, systematic, and considerate.

These are the four leadership styles and their assertiveness/expressiveness levels:

1. Direct – Direct leaders have high assertiveness and low expressiveness. They tend to lead by taking charge.
2. Spirited – Spirited leaders have high assertiveness and high expressiveness. They usually lead others by inspiring them.
3. Considerate – Considerate leaders have low assertiveness and high expressiveness. They lead by building group harmony.
4. Systematic – Systematic leaders have low assertiveness and low expressiveness. They usually lead by planning carefully.

The assertiveness dimension measures the degree to which a person’s behavior is forceful or directive. Highly assertive people like to take control of situations while people with low assertiveness may be more comfortable in less visible roles. The expressiveness dimension measures the degree to which a person’s behavior is emotionally responsive or demonstrative. Highly expressive people like to show their emotions and form interpersonal relationships while less expressive people tend to keep to themselves.

Each Style’s Strengths and Weaknesses

For direct leaders, their take-charge style can pull others through. They like to compete, which may give the organization an edge over others, and they produce quick results. They are energetic, and get people moving. They also take charge no matter how challenging the situation.

The spirited leader can encourage the team when their energy begins to flag. They are big picture, vision-oriented thinkers, who are good at generating enthusiasm and rallying support. They motivate others to develop fresh, new approaches, and they are spontaneous and create a fun atmosphere.

Considerate leaders can grow team harmony with their desire to accommodate everyone. They provide others with a sense of reassurance in difficult or changing times. They are also able to build a loyal following by demonstrating their support for others. Considerate leaders recognize the importance of taking others’ views and feelings into account.

The systematic leader focuses on accuracy and objectivity. Their analytical style can be a real asset. They provide structure for activities, which usually helps tasks or projects stay on track. A systematic leader makes sure that no one overlooks the important details and makes decisions based on facts. They also have a strong orientation toward objectivity and accuracy.

Why is it Helpful to Know About Leadership Styles?

Current research shows that the most effective leaders know that their first reactions to situations may not always prove effective. They know they must make deliberate choices about their way of leading. Effective leaders first evaluate a situation, and then, depending on the specific requirements of the situation, they may deliberately choose to follow their natural inclinations, leading others in their characteristic way. Or they may choose to modify their leadership styles to suit the situation.

One leadership style isn’t necessarily better than the others, and you could have traits of more than one style. The key is to know which one you are most like, and which ones your colleagues are. If you know these things you can use your style to interact with people better.

The benefits of knowing your leadership styles include:

• Being able to work with others better
• Predicting people’s actions
• Knowing why you act the way that you do
• Seeing the bigger picture better
• Adapting to fit the situation at hand

The most effective leaders know how to make situational choices when leading, regardless of their dominant style. They may deliberately choose to follow their natural inclinations, leading others in their characteristic way, or they may choose to modify or adapt their dominant style to suit the situation. Making use of a style other than one’s dominant style is called “flexing” and is central to achieving success as a leader.

Learning More

To learn more about the benefits of leadership styles, take a look at our material HERE!

Leaders must be able to adapt to changing circumstances. Transformational leadership is an approach to leading others that causes change in individual and social systems. In its ideal form, it creates valuable and positive change with the end goal of developing followers into leaders.

Transformational leadership creates important, positive change in the workplace. It’s grounded in the belief that inspiring others to focus on the greater good produces a level of excellence that exceeds results achieved by other forms of leadership. It has many benefits, and is worth considering by everyone in a position of leadership.

Types of Leadership

Transaction leadership measures performance against set standards, focuses on short-term goals and results, enables quick decision-making offers structure and direction, and appeals to the self-interest of employees. Transformational leadership, on the other hand, builds a culture of trust and mutual respect, increases transparency and open communication, instills commitment and accountability, and propels far-reaching changes.

Individuals and organizations can be successful using transactional leadership; however, its strengths are more effective for maintaining the status quo or making incremental changes rather than creating sweeping transformations. Transformational leadership, in contrast to transactional leadership, is highly effective for accomplishing major and lasting change.

The Four Components to Transformational Leadership

James Downton originated the phrase “transformational leadership,” and James MacGregor Burns  expanded on it. He identified four core components of transformational leadership, which he called inspirational motivation, idealized influence, intellectual stimulation, and individualized consideration. These four components to transformational leadership are also named calling, charisma, challenge, and caring. Their definitions are below:

• Calling: Articulating a vision designed to create positive change that resonates with followers.
• Charisma: Connecting with followers through words and actions so that followers enthusiastically support the calling.
• Challenge: Encouraging followers to apply critical thinking and innovation to achieve the positive change described in the calling.
• Caring: Showing genuine concern for each individual’s needs and wants, celebrating individual accomplishments, and supporting individual growth and development.

Ways to be a Transformational Leader

In order to truly be a transformational leader, you need to carry out the four components of transformational leadership. You should identify your calling and share it with passion and purpose with others. You should be able to develop the elements of charisma and then share impactful stories with your peers and employees. You should help others engage in critical thinking and use problem solving. You should also implement ideas to encourage creativity and innovation. Finally, you should try to make personal connections with your followers and encourage their growth.

Learning More

Attend HRDQ’s webinar What Makes Great Transformational Leadership? on Sept. 12 at 2 p.m. EDT. This back-to-basics webinar focuses on the what – and the how – of effective leadership. You’ll learn to recognize the characteristics of effective leadership and behaviors that may undermine performance. More importantly, you’ll leave with a solid understanding of how best to develop both aspiring leaders and seasoned veterans.

Participants will learn how to carry out the four components of transformational leadership, identify their calling, develop the elements of charisma and share impactful stories with others, help others engage in critical thinking, implement ideas to encourage thinking outside of the box, and make personal connections with your people and encourage their growth. Watch the webinar here.

This webinar is based on research from HRDQ’s Transformational Leader, a training program that gives both newly emerging and experienced leaders and managers the tools and techniques for developing and refining their skills. This learning resource can help your organization retain employees and clients, make better decisions, and improve performance.

The Transformational Leader will walk you through the four components to transformational leadership – calling, charisma, challenge, and caring – allowing you to develop the skills and techniques required to make a real difference at your workplace and to inspire others to work toward a shared vision of positive change. View the course here!