How to Change Your Management Style
You've identified that your style of management isn't working, but how
do you effectively make the change without hurting your organization?
Courtesy Company
Robb Heineman, one of the principal
owners of Sporting Kansas City
Lamar Hunt, owner of Kansas City Chiefs,
1959 -2006
(This case study shows the importance of your management style on the
productivity of your team and the success of your business. There are a zillion
different ways to categorize management styles. I thought this author did a nice
job of narrowing it to just 5 distinctive styles that I would like you to use as your
framework for thinking about the style of you and others you work for. Mr. B)
When five local entrepreneurs purchased the Kansas City, Missouri-based Major
League Soccer franchise for $15 million back in 2006 (then known as the Wizards), they
came into a business that had been owned by the late Lamar Hunt as a secondary property
behind his NFL team (the Kansas City Chiefs) and that didn't have much brand identity. The
new owners, though, came in with little soccer knowledge but focused on building an
innovative business and becoming a community staple. And in five short years, they've
massively changed the organizational structure and are building a new model for sports
franchise management.
"We have the utmost respect for Lamar Hunt and what he did for soccer in Kansas City,"
says Robb Heineman, one of the principal owners of the recently renamed Sporting Kansas
City. "Without him, we wouldn't even be here. But we wanted to challenge the model. At the
end of the day, the team on the field needs to be successful to succeed. But we hope that by
building and managing a team on the business side that is winning from an innovation
perspective, that translates to on-field success."
Assessing your organization's management style and determining its time for a change is
not easy, though. If you're new, as the Sporting Kansas City owners were, they had a chance
to redefine the way the business was run. But not all managers have that luxury and
sometimes need to change styles in their existing role.
"If you begin to think your management style is backfiring, where you ultimately see it is in
the disengagement of your staff," notes Jon Picoult, founder and principal of Watermark
Consulting, a business advisory firm based in Simsbury, Connecticut. "As employees
become disengaged, they become less interested in your success as a leader but more
importantly in your company's overall success, which is what matters most."
But how can you successfully change your management style like the ownership group did at
Sporting Kansas City? This guide will describe the five different management styles, how to
recognize the type of style you employ and how to make that important organizational shift.
How to Change Your Management Style: What Type of Manager Are You?
The first step to changing your management style is identifying what type of manager you
are. Traditionally, there are four management styles, but a fifth is also worth noting.
Autocratic: A leader who requires control over all organizational decisions and requests
little input from his or her team members characterizes autocratic management, also
referred to as Authoritarian. In a positive sense, autocratic leaders are good at making
decisions, although they may not always be the most informed. On the negative side, people
who work for autocratic managers often feel as though their contributions are not valued by
the organization and decisions often don't consider how it will affect employees other than
the manager.
Paternalistic: Paternalistic management is also very dictatorial, but includes the best
interests of the employees as well as the business itself. In a very basic sense, the leader is
often in a better situation to make overall organizational decisions due to experience. A
well-known example of a paternalistic leader is Steve Carrell's character Michael Scott in the
NBC comedy The Office. From a positive perspective, these managers care about the social
needs of their employees (for example, being happy), but it also slows down and clouds the
decision-making process.
Democratic: Exactly as it sounds, a democratic management style gives everyone equal
say in decisions, from employees to management themselves. The "leadership by
committee" approach makes employees feel really good about the overall product, and the
collaborative style of management often leads to more thorough and thought-out solutions
to problems. If the workforce doesn't have the experience necessary to make informed
decisions, they can sometimes be made hastily while also being drawn out in the decisionmaking process (since you are soliciting input from much of the organization), but
democratic leadership is popular and often effective.
Laissez-Faire: A form of management that is characterized by being very hands-off and
allowing group members to make many big decisions, a laissez-faire management style has
generally led to the lowest productivity level among groups. In short, that is due to very little
managerial guidance and freedom for employees to make many decisions (informed or not).
In an organization where your employees are highly experienced, good at working on their
own and/or motivated, a laissez-faire approach can be a good one, but in many cases,
leaders need to actually lead.
Servant Leadership: the leader being focused on their colleagues and what they need to
succeed defines the fifth and final management style, made popular by Robert Greenleaf in
his 1970 essay "The Servant as a Leader." They are often humble managers that are
extremely talented at tapping into the expertise of their entire organization.
"The reason I think servant leadership is so powerful is because no matter what industry
you're in or how large or small your business, you're likely in business to serve someone
else—namely a customer," says Picoult. "Servant leadership provides a model for employees
of what it means to serve internally, and that's something they can apply to the customers
they deal with."
Before deciding to change your management, you need to identify what type of manager you
are and determine if a change is needed. There is no one size fits all type of management
that works, as each organization is different. But your management style more or less
defines your approach to leading others. Also, it's often possible those managers may have
qualities from many of the different styles.
"The most effective way to figure out if a change is needed is to solicit feedback from those
you're leading or partnering with," Picoult says. "I'm a strong proponent of reverse
evaluations and 360 feedback, but it comes down to the environment the business is
operating in."
Before you ask your employees about your management style, it's important to ask yourself
some questions:
• Are you prepared to adapt your style to become a more effective leader?
• Is a change needed to drive business or can it function as-is?
• Are you willing to ask your staff for more feedback on how to lead them more effectively
and then listen to their thoughts?
• What short-term changes can be made?
• What alterations in style will need a more long-term approach?
• Who inside and outside your organization can you enlist for support in this change?
"It's always been about clarity, alignment and focus for us," Heineman says of Sporting
Kansas City. "How do we do that? As leaders, by creating a team culture and creating an
environment where people are highly incentivized to try things, whether they fail or
succeed. We want people to be upwardly mobile and we'd love to create a reputation as a
training environment for sports. We really want to empower our employees to be risktakers."
One of the defining qualities of good managers is that they have more than professional
knowledge. They have self-knowledge—in other words, they can look inward to examine
their own strengths and weaknesses and they're also willing and happy to listen to outside
input on how they can grow and change.
So you've taken all the steps to determine if a change is needed and decided that a change in
management style is needed. How do you proceed? Think about each individual thing you
say and do, and before reacting with your initial thought, catch yourself and do something
differently before you fall into your comfort zone. Great leaders are good at adapting to the
environment around them, and are good at making changes when they're needed.
"Can people actually change their behavior effectively?" asks Picoult. "That's the big
challenge. I think the key element is being self-aware. If you've taken the first step to
recognize that something different would be good, that's a huge first step. But you also need
to be able to be really objective, step outside yourself and take a candid look at what you're
doing today and understanding what you need to differently. So it's not easy, but it requires
somebody who is good at making calculated and informed decisions but without an ego.
Once you do that, just follow that path."
In making the organizational shift, it is important to take a top-down approach and preach
transparency from a leadership perspective. If you are changing your management style,
you need to first assess and make the changes yourself (internally, without notification to
your employees). Then make it clear early on, or those you lead will anticipate things to
remain as they were.
"Internally, it's always been about clarity, alignment and focus," notes Heineman. "How do
we do that? When we came in, we created a team culture, an environment where people are
highly incentivized to come up with ideas and try things, whether they fail or succeed. We
want to empower people to be upwardly mobile and we'd love to create a reputation as a
training environment for sports, and that starts at the top."
Externally, if you're changing your management strategy, it's important to be up front with
customers and clients. For Heineman, they began by communicating with fans via social
media channels (where most of their supporters were anyway) and through a unique
membership model that gives customers and brand advocates ways to further connect with
the company. Through their successful 2010 rebranding as more than just a soccer club and
a June 9 opening of the state-of-the-art LIVESTRONG Sporting Park, a first-of-its kind
stadium naming rights deal that directly benefits a charity (ticket sales and concessions will
go the cause made famous by Lance Armstrong), the idea that management is no longer
doing things via the traditional methods has been made very clear.