As a manager, you must plan, prioritize and organize everyone’s efforts to meet specific business goals. The way you do this puts a defining imprint not only on the team but on the whole business. And your management style is a consequence of the type of mentality with which you approach this process.
Carol S. Dweck presents, in her bestseller Mindset, the two types of mindsets that influence not only the management style but the business itself. Synthesizing in a very succinct way, managers with a rigid mindset believe in talent beyond effort, and those with a flexible mindset presume success through the prism of work and the continuous desire for learning and improvement.
Starting from this general classification and presenting concrete examples of managers who have run famous American businesses such as Enron or Xerox, Dweck points out how the mentality of the decision-maker can lead to business failure or success.
Is Flexibility a Sign of Weakness?
The belief that people are gifted and “just” need to be great to be successful is still in vogue in various business environments. The opposite requires constant effort, a lot of work and firm opinion that people can evolve, learn, and improve their style.
Flexibility requires adaptation. Different projects, teams, and businesses require specific management approaches. If you cannot adapt to the needs of the organization, the team will suffer and, implicitly, the business.
Keeping your employees involved means the right direction to success. But how do you effectively manage a large team with different ages and expectations? The key is a flexible mindset, an open and direct approach to challenges – the courage to take different steps to lead to new ways to success. Moreover, the simple definition of success as a form of human and business development is the first step towards growth.
Winning Management Styles
An erroneous approach to management style demotivates employees, leads to decreased productivity and even removes organizational people.
Theoretically, there are several types of management with major chances of success (described in detail in this article) as long as the personality of the leader resonates with them and internalizes them. A manager can adopt different styles at different times in the business.
Visionary/strategic management – the manager does not see himself as the supreme leader who controls everything (micromanagement) but focuses on motivating the team and aligning it to go in the same direction. Moreover, it gives the employees confidence that they can achieve a common goal.
Democratic management (consultative/collaborative) – encourages the idea of sharing responsibilities (and implicitly of successes) and involves the regular participation of employees in the whole business process.
Authoritative management – there are situations when it is mandatory to impose your authority as a manager. Whether it is a junior employee who needs guidance, or a clear business direction that requires implementation, a good authoritarian leader will know how to impose himself decently, without harming pride and resorting to punitive methods.
Persuasive/charismatic management – built around the charm of a leader, this type of management is based on the relationships created with the team. The employees give the charismatic manager confidence and respect and follow the decisions.
A management style that leads to success requires alignment with:
- your skills, your experience, and personality as a manager;
- the needs of the team and the level of expertise of each employee;
- organizational culture and business direction.
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