I have always believed I’m not much of a shot. Years ago, I was told I’m left-eye dominant and was taught to close that eye. It didn’t help much. On a family clay shooting session recently, a different coach watched me and worked out that my brain was still seeing the picture as though that eye was open. Aim a foot to the right of the clay, she said. It felt ridiculous but I trusted her, and I hit it.
She wasn’t giving me the standard correction; she was coaching the person in front of her.
Most of us lead from our default
Almost every leader has a default. Some explain and direct. Some ask questions and wait. The style itself is rarely the problem; it’s that we do it without thinking about who’s in front of us.
Look at some of the people we work with. One gives people so much room that newer team members aren’t sure whether they’re doing the right thing. Another is hands-on, involved in every decision, and the people who know their jobs best find that wearing. Neither is doing anything wrong exactly. Both would get more from their people by asking a different question: not “how do I need to show up?” but “what does this person need from me?”
Some defaults are harder to read from the outside. We’ve worked with leaders whose style is short and direct, which from across the table can look like impatience or worse. Usually, it isn’t. Somewhere along the way they picked up the idea that being a leader means being decisive, and it hasn’t crossed their mind that it comes across as rude. Far more often there’s a good leader inside a hard shell and reaching them takes self-awareness on their part and patience on everyone else’s.
This isn’t about what type of person someone is. The same person may need direction on Monday for something they’ve never done, and none at all on Tuesday. That depends on their experience, their confidence, and what else is going on at home or at work.
Ken Blanchard’s Situational Leadership model is useful here. It considers how competent someone is on a particular task and how committed they feel to it, and together those suggest how much direction and support they need. It’s an adaptive leadership map with four responses:
- Directing: high direction, less support.
- Coaching: high direction and high support. This one needs care, because it isn’t coaching as we mean it now; asking questions and letting someone find their own answer.
- Supporting: less direction, more support.
- Delegating: less of both, when someone is capable and committed.
The point isn’t to remember four boxes; it shows you how you need to start by looking at the person in front of you.
The same person, a different situation
Someone hired for their expertise finds every decision second-guessed. It’s well intentioned, but it feels like mistrust, and capable people who feel undermined could end up looking elsewhere.
It works the other way too. A chief executive we worked with ran a deliberately collaborative business, where little was decided without the room. Then a perfect storm arrived, and the business was fighting for its life. Their team froze. What they needed was somebody to say plainly what was coming next, which meant leading in a way that felt uncomfortable. Same leader, same team, different need.
Flexing your style means flexing your language: supporting sounds like questions, reassurance, noticing what’s gone well. You can’t say you’re there to support somebody and then carry on telling them what to do; they’ll believe the instruction, not the offer.
You don’t have to get it right first time. When you can’t tell, ask. A few things to try this week:
- Notice your default before the conversation starts, and check whether it fits.
- Diagnose the task, not the person. The same colleague may need something different tomorrow.
- Ask outright: what support do you need with this right now?
Leading starts with attention rather than technique. Before deciding how you’re going to lead, have you stopped to ask what this person actually needs from you right now?
If you’d like a hand with that, for yourself or across your leadership team, we’d be glad to hear from you.