Are You Ready to Take Charge with Directive Leadership?
For Megan Trainor, it’s all about that bass, but for excellent performance from your teams, it’s all about that situational leadership. Four types of situational leaders are visionary, coaching, delegating, and directive. Today’s blog post is brought to you by the letter D for Directive Leadership.
Defining directive leadership
A directive leadership style means providing clear guidance, instructions, and expectations to team members. This leadership style is particularly good for new employees, new initiatives, challenges requiring rapid response, and teams facing emergent, urgent, or crisis-type situations. (It’s also great for Zombies, otherwise, they’re just running into those barbed-wire fences…)
We see directive leadership work in real-time scenarios every day. It’s the way emergency responders or military personnel take their orders. It’s even the way a lot of political campaigns have to be run.
During my time in politics, I remember running a campaign team and having to direct people on how many doors they were going to knock on and telling them what they should and shouldn’t say based on a candidate’s particular stance on an issue. These specific instructions were critical to the success of the conversations we were having with constituents, and my team members relied on my clear guidance of our strategy.
When, why, and how to use directive leadership
Not every situation requires directive leadership and not every business or company requires it all the time. In fact, most organizations that are outside of emergency or rapid response, don’t operate from a solely directive style of leadership. And even those who center around the crisis, like FEMA, for example, don’t use directive leadership every moment. It’s great in the middle of a crisis, but they don’t need it outside of one.
And, yes, there will be times you’ll be in your own ‘crisis’ even if you are not in the business of saving lives. (I mean that literally.) You’ll have the days when you have the proverbial fire to put out, and it’ll be on you to have to lead your team through a rapid response of your own. But this isn’t going to be every day.
So, when else might directive leadership be helpful?
When swift action is needed to produce immediate results.
When you have new people who don’t know the ropes yet.
When you want something done in a very specific manner and any deviation will slow down the process.
When you’ve got a team embarking on a new project, mission, or goal for which there’s no precedent.
When people are looking for you to point them in the direction based on your vision.
Let’s look at an example of when directive leadership can be necessary and important to moving forward.
I’m working with a client; we’ll name her Sue.
Sue is a relatively new CEO with a board of directors that she regularly engages with and has to keep up to speed. In her mind, the board had to provide input into any major decision she would make.
(A common misperception for any C-suite exec is thinking that they have to have INPUT from the board on the direction the company is headed when, in reality, the board is looking to them for their leadership. It is easier for a Board to respond to the executive’s ideas rather than help to form them.)
So, when Sue had a large sum of money she needed to invest on behalf of the company, she turned to the board, asking for their opinion. For two months, she had been waiting on their input.
Sue came to me frustrated.
When I asked her how she originally approached them, she explained she provided them with reading material and resources to inform their decision. The material was in front of them, but they hadn’t yet decided or told her what direction they wanted to go.
I suggested to Sue that instead of providing them with information and asking for an open-ended response, she gives them three clear options for which they needed to decide and present them with which of the three she was the most inclined to go with. I also told her to make her choice the middle option because when people are faced with three choices, people naturally pick the middle one.
By going about it this way, Sue allowed room for feedback but ultimately stated which of the three she’d like to pursue. Or, in other words, directing their thought process toward the option she wanted. And it worked! Sue gained the Board’s approval of the direction she wanted to go.
Directive leadership isn’t about barking orders
Notice how subtle Sue’s approach was? Directive leadership doesn’t have to be about barking orders at someone to get your point across or provide direction. You don’t have to drill sergeant your way through or around your team.
It’s about being clear and consistent with the expectations or goals that are important. It’s about taking the time to outline the tasks, provide detailed instructions about how you want things done, monitor progress, and offer consistent and constructive feedback, so your people know whether they are being successful (or not).
The directive leadership style can also be (or present as) rigid and inflexible. Neither of these is advantageous in a situation requiring adaptability and quick decision-making. And when team members become too reliant on their leader’s guidance, they may not have their own ability to act in this kind of rapid-response situation or otherwise.
The dependency on being provided explicit direction to work or make decisions limits their growth and development as professionals. When team members aren’t growing and developing, this also hurts the team and the organization as a whole.
Using directive leadership to develop your team’s talent
This last part is huge.
Ultimately, directive leadership is about developing and empowering your team. At some point, you’ve got to take your hands off the wheel and let them do the work and take the initiative. If you’re directing your team all the time, you’re not actually training them and developing them. By constantly being in directing mode, you’re disempowering them and showing them you don’t think they can handle it themselves. When that happens, it squashes them.
So if your team isn’t excelling collectively or individually, it might be that you’re constantly relating to them in a directive style, making them feel small. This connects back to something I talk about a lot when it comes to awakening your greatness and that’s whether you’re listening for the gold.
Are you recognizing the little and big things your team is doing over jumping immediately toward the negative? Are you committed to their growth and intentionally meeting with them on a regular basis and being present with them in their own development? And I’m not talking about a once-a-year performance review. Meet with them weekly if you can.
When your team becomes a self-cleaning oven because they know their role, take initiative and action, creatively problem solve, and contribute to the success of the team, you’ve done your job as a directive (and effective) leader. But if you continually have to give people direction because they don’t know what to do without you, then there’s a problem on your end. And the first thing you’ll have to look at is yourself because the fish always stinks at the head.
Are you ready to become a directive leader?
If you’re feeling like you’re sitting too much on the sidelines waiting for things to happen through osmosis or telepathy or like you’re spending too much time micromanaging (or actually doing the work meant for your team), then you may need to evaluate. You’re either not being directive enough or maybe you’re being too directive. There is a happy medium and you can achieve it. Because great leaders can be made.
Ready to learn the special art of directive leadership so you can guide your team from the front instead of the side? Then you’ve come to the right place. You can learn the power and effectiveness of situational leadership and I’m here to help you.
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Join me on Tuesday, April 25th from 4–5 pm EST for my new monthly series, "The Empower Hour." Each month, I’ll tackle a different leadership topic, and two lucky ducks will have the chance to receive live coaching. We’ll focus on “Directive Leadership in April.” Bring a current leadership dilemma to the call and leave empowered.
