"Demonstrate Flexibility"
To succeed with bosses who have different leadership styles, it's essential to respect their unique approaches and demonstrate flexibility by adjusting your work habits to meet their expectations. Make sure that your communication, work schedule, work ethics, research presentations, prioritization, and project management align with their preferences. To achieve success, it is essential to anticipate and fulfill their needs proactively. Taking the initiative to ask for clarification and feedback can be a game changer! It allows you to avoid misunderstandings and truly align with their expectations. Don鈥檛 hesitate to reach out鈥攜our proactive approach will set you up for success! To achieve success, embrace a results-oriented mindset! Always approach interactions with the belief that your boss means well and remember to keep feedback and comments in perspective. This way, you can grow without taking things personally and maintain a positive outlook. Those with positive, can-do attitudes and flexible mindsets often succeed under different leadership styles. Embracing this approach and recognizing their unique style will cultivate trust and nurture a strong working relationship, paving the way for your success.
"Be an effective communicator"
The key to success when working with people and organizations in general is to take time to understand the corporate culture, how people fit into that culture 鈥� roles/responsibilities, as well as personality. Understanding corporate culture is important because it can help you glean why those in leadership must act on tasks a certain way as it aligns with business goals as well as the most effective way they need to interact with C-suite. Taking time to learn your bosses鈥� communication style, expectations, and role in the organization will arm you with the tools to be an effective communicator as well as meet/exceed expectations. Emotional intelligence (EI) is an invaluable skillset to understand and continue to develop over a lifetime; not only does it apply to navigating different leadership styles, it also relates to effective interaction with people in general.聽
"Advocate for your needs"
A specific approach I鈥檝e found useful in navigating different leadership styles is having a shared language or understanding of the strengths for different styles. ClifftonStrengths (or Strengths Finder) is a great tool for doing this. It provides an excellent foundation of self-awareness about your own leadership style. And, even if your line manager or leadership team is not willing to participate directly, you can learn a lot from the tool and better understand where they might be coming from. Finding the right balance of flexing to meet others鈥� needs while honoring your own is not trivial, but important to your success. You may need to tailor your communication style or how you present information, but you should still advocate for your needs and what鈥檚 going to help the organization be successful. When appropriate, you may even articulate that the diversity of style you bring strengthens the team and organization.聽聽
"The welcoming of creative thinking"
When I looked online for information on different bosses' leadership styles, the following four appeared:
- autocratic
- democratic
- laissez-faire
- transformational
As far as the list goes, autocratic and laissez-faire styles are unacceptable; transformational is a pipedream; and democratic is the only style left standing. Autocratic styles do not allow the employee to incorporate new ways of doing things from recent education. The Laissez fair style does not involve the boss passing on his input from long years of experience. Transformational is not what the bosses boss has in mind, who wants certain objectives accomplished in a given timeframe that best uses the newer skills of the employee and do not transform that employee into some other mindset.
The democratic style includes (1) incorporation of ideas from all stakeholders; and (2) the welcoming of creative thinking. Micromanaging should never be allowed.
This article has been edited for length and clarity. The opinions expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect the view of their employer or the American Chemical 中国365bet中文官网.
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