Every leader needs to navigate these seven tensions

 

The management style is gradually moving away from the old "command and control leadership" type. Instead of telling people what to do, leaders should ask them open questions. Instead of sticking to plan, they should adjust the goals as the new information is received. Instead of instincts, leaders should rely more on data to make decisions.

The current generation of leadership has to be good at both the old style (traditional) and the new style (emerging) during the transition from traditional to the emerging management style. It acts as the bridge between the two, ensuring a smooth transition. In short, anyone who relies solely on his position run into trouble and anyone who only listens but never decides and guides the team will also struggle to be effective.

There are seven significant areas, listed below, where the difference in approaches cause tensions, which need resolution. The dangers of ignoring them and strategies for managing them are discussed below. 

Expert VS Learner

Traditionally, leaders have gained expertise in their job. They demonstrated their experience and deep understanding as they move up the corporate ladder. In the emerging approach, leaders must accept that their specialisation is limited and be open to learning from others. These become very relevant when it comes to digital knowledge. This tension has to manage wisely else the leaders may end up making bad decisions.

Constant VS Adaptor

The traditional approach lays importance to consistency and convictions. The emerging approach recognises that in rapidly changing environments, decisions need to be adaptive. Changing course in response to the new information emerging is strength and not a weakness. These have to be managed wisely, else the leaders may seem to be too-rigid or indecisive depending on the situation. 

Tactician VS Visionary

In traditional management, leaders have well defined planned and clarity. In the emerging management style, leaders should have clarity on where they want to go without necessarily having a roadmap for the same. Thi dissonance has to be managed, else there will be no north star for the team members to follow. It has to be grounded in reality, else they may end up being lofty and unrealistic.

Teller VS Listener

The traditional management calls fro leaders to tell the team what and how to do the work to achieve the goal. In the new management style, the leaders listen to his team carefully before making a decision. If this is not resolved, leaders run the risk of missing an important decision from the members. 

Power holder VS Power sharer

Traditional management requires that the leaders lead fro the top, make decisions and take action independently. the new management style empowers others to achieve the goal. Leaders must balance the risk of alienating promising talent or they may undermine their authority by sharing power too broadly.

Intuitionist VS Analyst

The traditional management advocates leaders build up capabilities to take intuitive decisions. The new management style requires leaders to make decisions based on the data. leaders run the risk of makin\ng decisions on outdated concepts and at the same time they need to balance it with their instinct which is honed from experience.

Perfectionist VS Accelerator

The traditional management style requires leaders to take measured decisions to ensure a perfect product whereas the new management style calls for leaders to do something quickly rather than a perfect product. The first approach may lead to avoidable delays key initiatives whereas bringing into market products that are not fully ready may have disastrous results. 

How do leaders manage this transition?

Leaders need to develop ambidexterity to move between the two styles as required by the context. This becomes very difficult at the senior levels, with managers having developed tremendous experience but it can be achieved with focussed efforts.

Self-awareness: Understanding one's comfort zone is important. In the digital world, leaders get feedback realtime from apps and online forums post comments on the performance. 

Learn, adapt, practice: Once the leaders know their comfort zones or natural tendencies they can work to develop behaviours to address tensions that they are finding difficult to manage. This can be further enhanced by formal training.

Contextual awareness:  Becoming an effective leader means knowing when to focus on which style of managing based on the situation. this requires contextual awareness and emotional intelligence.

leaders can rely on their workforces to give them advice on when it is appropriate to use one approach more than the other.

Every leader needs to navigate these seven tensions.

By Jennifer Jordan, Micheal Wade and Elizabeth Teracino

HBR 2020/02