Finding Your Most
Effective Leadership
Style
John Harris
Vice President, OMICRON
Learning Objectives
 Learn
about successful leadership
characteristics, approaches, and styles.
 Understand your style and how to use it
effectively.
Agenda
 What
is Leadership and why is it important
 BEST Leadership Styles
 Leadership Styles Exercises
Leadership lessons from CIO Forum
 CIOs:
Jay Ferro, American Cancer Society
 Kevin McCarthy, SWM
 Calvin Rhodes, State CIO
 Bill VanCuren, NCR

Have a clear vision and consistent focus
 Communicate often
 Listen – know where your boss is headed

Leadership lessons from CIO Forum
 Find
a mentor
 Leadership is situational
 Learn from difficult situations
 Create high expectations
 Get out of the way
 Be consistent – true to yourself
 Be transparent
 Blend people, process and technology
skills
What % of your IT career would
you say you were well led?
20% never
10% about one-third
65%
less than one-fi
What is Leadership?
What is Leadership?
Leadership is a process by which a
person influences others to
accomplish an objective and directs
the organization in a way that makes
it more cohesive and coherent.
Kenneth Boulding in The Image: Knowledge in Life and Society
What is Leadership?
Leadership is not something you
do to people it is something
you do with people
Blanchard, Zagarmi and Zagarmi 1994
Understanding Leadership
 Leadership
is the essential ingredient that
turns visions and plans into reality
 Effective
leaders harness the energies and
gain the commitment of their people
towards great achievements
What Makes An Effective
Leader?

The factors that make an effective
leader can be classified under three
headings:

Traits or characteristics they exhibit

Behaviors that they show

Situations they find themselves in
Traits Approach
 According


to this approach
leaders are born not made
Traits include






Intelligence
Initiative
Self confidence
Maturity
People skills
Organizational capability
Behavioral Approach
 There

Task related behaviors


are two groups
Planning, resourcing and getting things done
People related behaviors



Gaining support
Gaining commitment
Motivation
Situational Approach
 The
leadership style shown is dependent
upon the situation in question due to:




The nature of the task
The expectations of the followers
The characteristics of the followers
Authority arises in the situation due to:



Knowledge
Position
Personality
What Makes An Effective Leader?
 Current
thinking is that an effective leader
possesses

key characteristics from the Traits approach

Skills and behaviors from the Behavioral
Approach

Use these in conjunction with appropriate
responses from the Situational Approach
Why leadership is important to
the organization
 The
organization needs to have leadership
because leaders provide:
Direction
 Motivation
 Inspiration

These allow ordinary people within the
organization to produce extraordinary results
over the long term
Share some examples of effective
leadership from your experiences?
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
School
Sports
Military
Business – peers, executives, managers,
subordinates
Volunteer activities
Religious
Why were they so effective?
How did they impact you?
BEST
Leadership Style
Leadership Style
 Can
be defined as

The way in which you carry out your functions
as a leader

A consistent pattern of behavior

A behavior that has been developed by you
consciously or sub-consciously over time
BEST Personality Types
 James
H. Brewer developed the
BEST personality profile based on
four personality types:
 Bold
 Expressive
 Sympathetic
 Technical
BEST Leadership Assessment
 Your
personality affects your
leadership style
 Learn the styles, strengths, and
challenges for each
 Be aware of the affects on others
 Discuss when each style is best
used
BEST Leadership Assessment
The BEST Leadership Style assessment
can be taken by purchasing the instrument
for $4.95 from http://bestinstruments.net
Due to time and resource limitations we
will approximate our leadership styles
using a key word list.
BEST Leadership Approximation
Check the words from each column
that best fit your behavior style
Count the checks in each column and
record the number at the bottom of
the page
The column with the highest number
is an approximation of your dominant
style
BEST Leadership Assessment
Column
Leadership
style
1
Bold
2
Expressive
3
Sympathetic
4
Technical
Personality Type Behaviors
Bold
Expressive
Sympathetic
Technical
First
Directness
Impressions and
Confidence
Friendliness
Calmness
Organization
Basic Drive
To influence
To maintain
harmony
To be orderly
To have
power
Personality Type Behaviors
Leadership
Strengths
Bold
Expressive
Sympathetic
Technical
Making
quick
decisions
Persuading
others
Loyalty
Attention to
detail
Getting
results
Leadership Bluntness
weaknesses
Won’t listen
Takes too
many risks
People
oriented
Not
objective
Emotional
Accommodating
Won’t change
Not creative
Too
Wastes time accommodating
talking
Accuracy
Too ruleoriented
Slow to make
decisions
Personality Type Behaviors
Bold
Expressive
Sympathetic
Technical
Non-verbal “Go to hell”
indicators look
with
Restless
leading
Smiling
Touching
“Soft” look
Helping
ways
Well
groomed
Neat
Leadership Stress
problems
carrier
Not enough Reluctant
structure
leader
Intimidating Leads by
emotion
Doesn’t
always
Not always
consult or
objective
delegate
No urgency
May not be
decisive
Can forget
people
Can’t deal
with conflict
Leadership Styles in the Movies


Apollo 13 was the seventh manned mission in the Apollo space
program and the third intended to land on the Moon. The craft
was launched on April 11, 1970 but the lunar landing was
aborted after an oxygen tank exploded two days later, crippling
the service module upon which the Command Module depended.
Despite great hardship caused by limited power, loss of cabin
heat, shortage of potable water, and the critical need to juryrig the carbon dioxide removal system, the crew returned safely
to Earth on April 17.
The 1995 film was directed by Ron Howard. The film stars Tom
Hanks, Kevin Bacon, Bill Paxton, Gary Sinise, Kathleen
Quinlan and Ed Harris.Gene Kranz, flight director
Leadership Styles in the Movies

Failure is not an option - Describe the situation.
What is Kranz’s leadership style? What is style of the
team? How does Kranz modify his style? Why was
this approach so effective for the situation?

Square peg in round hole - Describe the situation.
What was observed style of lead engineer? Team?
Would bold have worked well here?
Discussion
 How
do/should leaders modify their
basic personality types?
 With your group, discuss the following
situation and how you would respond as
the leader.
Leadership challenge

ABC company recently implemented a new ERP
system. There have been many problems and
support issues associated with the
implementation and the Help Desk has not been
effective in addressing the issues. The CIO
determined that a big part of the problem was a
lack of leadership from the help desk manager.
She fired the Help Desk Manager and hired you.
The first thing you did when you started was to
interview the team. You determined that most
didn’t receive consistent and effective leadership
from the previous manager or from anyone on
the team.
Leadership challenge

Next you hired a trainer to deliver a leadership
development course for the team. Part of the
training included a leadership style assessment.
Your style is expressive and it has served you
well in other jobs. Your new team is made up of
50% technical, 20% bold, 20% expressive and
5% sympathetic. You must now get the team
working together to begin to reduce the service
outages and issues. Your CIO expects to see
improvement in one month. Will you make any
adjustments to your leadership style? What
leadership techniques will you use to maximize
the performance of your team members?
BEST Leadership Summary
 It
is important to adapt your
behavior to the situation and
person.
 This minimizes conflict and builds
stronger relationships.
 It increases trust, confidence, and
productivity.
Take Aways
 What
is your observation about
leadership?
 What is your key take away (what will
you do differently)?