Mastering Leadership Behaviour: Balance is the Key

In a chart of organisational success, leadership will constantly move in an upward direction. The more effective the leadership, the more remarkable results an organisation will yield. Building a positive team culture, boosting growth, fostering continuous learning, and ensuring employee satisfaction—each component that drives a company’s success has one factor in common: leadership.

 

From 69% of employees claiming their hard work is directly proportional to their efforts being acknowledged to companies earning an average of 147% higher earnings per share under effective management, the impact of leadership on enterprises is profound. However, every leader is like the company they lead: unique. They have unique visions, working styles, and approaches.

 

While some leaders drive a task-centric approach, others value the relationship between employees and the organisation. Leaders who steer the wheel towards a task-driven culture prioritise task allocation, organise operations, build a robust infrastructure, define roles, share responsibilities, and manage time.

 

On the other hand, leaders who lean toward a people-driven approach emphasise the importance of camaraderie, positive work culture, teamwork, and fostering mutual respect and trust. Both approaches are equally valuable; choosing one over the other is the recipe for organisational stagnance. Therefore, the answer to the correct leadership strategy is finding equilibrium and harnessing an environment that balances both task- and people-driven approaches.

Understanding the Leadership Spectrum

Finding the perfect balance of leadership behaviour is the second step. The first stage in mastering it is understanding what drives leaders to adopt their preferred approach, whether it focuses on tasks or people.

 

• Prioritising Relationships over Tasks: Leaders gravitating towards this strategy place a high value on relationships and allocate less time and resources to organising tasks. Their priorities lie in understanding their team members’ motivations, emotions, and patterns. However, while this approach fosters a conflict-free and harmonious workplace climate, it can act as a roadblock in maintaining effective leadership, as it risks converting a professional workplace into a social spot.

 

• Prioritising Tasks over Relationships: When leaders migrate towards this orientation, they place task completion on top of their lists. Instead of fostering workplace relationships, their order of business entails meeting deadlines and achieving outcomes. The downside of this approach, however, despite its efficiency, is that it creates a less empathetic environment, which often leads to low employee retention rates and high attrition.

 

• Giving low priority to tasks and relationships: This scenario is the most challenging in an organisation, as team members are often left to their own devices. Leaders who place a low emphasis on tasks and people cultivate a culture of demotivation, dissatisfaction, and less productivity, failing to accomplish tasks.

 

• Giving medium priority to tasks and relationships: Placing medium emphasis on tasks and relationships is a leader’s way to balance the two by determining a middle ground. This approach includes compromising on task-oriented and relationship-centric strategies by giving equal attention to operations and team members. However, the results can be underwhelming and moderate in the quest to achieve team harmony. Even though this approach fosters a conflict-free workplace, meeting organisational goals can be challenging due to occasional hurdles and setbacks.

 

• Giving high priority to tasks and relationships: Leaders who place both tasks and people on the front seat redefine team management. They effectively master the art of boosting team engagement, transparency, conflict resolution, encouragement, and building an amiable work culture in a way that doesn’t compromise organisational goals and deadlines. This strategy is mutually beneficial for stakeholders, leaders, and team members.

Effective Leadership Epitomises Effective Management

Prioritising tasks and relationships is the ideal answer to understanding leadership behaviour. However, in pursuing this route, it is also essential to include external and internal components, such as business benchmarks, team alignment, the skills and capabilities of team members, social structure, and compatibility of personalities to ensure maximum and optimum results. Navigating the uncharted waters of leadership behaviours and fostering an unshakeable team culture that leads to long-term organisational growth also requires emphasising open communication, setting clear expectations, promoting an inclusive team culture, and being flexible and adaptable.