As a leader, you are asked many questions. But are they the right type of questions?
A well-functioning team should feel comfortable in raising questions. Clarification questions about projects and priorities are needed to move you closer toward achieving your organization goals.
Too many questions and the wrong type of questions can bog your productivity down as a leader and stifling the growth of your organization.
Are you having conversations with team-members and asking yourself:
- Why’d they feel like they needed to ask me that?
- Why didn’t they just take care of that themselves?
If you find yourself fielding questions that you feel your team should already know or could handle themselves, you should take a second look at your mode of leadership.
There are two main approaches when it comes to leadership authoritative and collaborative.
Being directive means…
- Talking more than listening
- Make assumptions
- Giving answers
Directive leadership accomplishes goals, provides structure for the team, and can clarify expectations. The directive approach will also cut back your team’s creative thinking as they’ll be looking to complete the task then move onto the next task at hand.
While there is a time and a place for the directive leadership approach, long-term practice has shown to kill the morale in a workplace and increase your leadership workload.
How do you convey objectives, deadlines, and vision without being too directive?
Being collaborative means…
- Listening more than talking
- Understanding team’s perspective
- Asking questions
By focusing more on team-centric styles, such as being collaborative, you’ll see an increase in productivity and engagement. When your team feels engaged and heard, there is an increase in pride and ownership of their work.
Collaborative leadership skills shake off the old way of “top-down” managerial styles and focuses on working alongside your employees. This brings out creativity, better problem-solving skills, and more individual responsibility from each person.
Collaborative style encourages feedback and open communication which speeds up processes and invites open exchanges of ideas. When you’re clear on casting your vision, reason, purpose, and mission, your team will begin to use their problem-solving skills to answer their own questions.
Not only does a collaborative approach increase productivity, but it also helps to get your team moving forward toward your organization’s common goal.
Making the shift from a directive to a collaborative culture is a process and takes time. The payoff is worth it as you’ll be leading a highly productive and effective team taking your organization to the next level.
To help facilitate a collaborative culture change, contact us today to discuss options available.
