Leadership Style Evolutions

Stop glorifying aggressive leadership. Start thinking like a farmer. I've coached hundreds of leaders, and here's what I've learned: Pressure kills potential. Force creates resistance. But nurture? It transforms. 7 practices that actually work: 1. Create space for growth 🌱 ↳ Stop shouting. Start listening. ↳ Your team needs oxygen, not pressure. 2. Own the environment 🌍 ↳ Bad results? Look at the soil first. ↳ Culture eats strategy for breakfast. 3. Trust the process 🕐 ↳ Growth happens in silence. ↳ Judge outcomes, not daily progress. 4. Match talent to terrain 🎯 ↳ Right person, wrong role = slow death. ↳ Your job is to spot the fit. 5. Feed what matters 💧 ↳ Recognition builds confidence. ↳ Learning fuels innovation. 6. Address toxicity early ⚠️ ↳ One bad apple spoils the barrel. ↳ Have the tough conversations today. 7. Plan for seasons 🌦️ ↳ High performance isn't linear. ↳ Build resilience before the storm. Real leadership isn't about control. It's about creating conditions for growth. You can force compliance. Or you can nurture commitment. Your choice shapes your harvest. What's one practice you're implementing next?

The entrepreneurial journey evolves from self-employment to management, and ultimately to true leadership. Initially, as a self-employed individual, you rely on your own skills, handling every task personally. As your business grows, you transition to management, learning to delegate responsibilities and optimize processes. Management focuses on organizing resources and achieving short-term goals. However, leadership transcends management by inspiring and guiding others towards a shared vision. True leadership involves influencing and motivating people beyond your direct control, fostering an environment of trust and collaboration. It is about creating a ripple effect of positive change, driving collective success even in areas where you lack direct expertise. This journey from self-reliance to empowering others highlights the difference between management and leadership. While managers maintain order and efficiency, leaders inspire purpose and drive innovation. The ultimate goal is to evolve into a leader who can impact and influence others, achieving greatness through shared vision and collaboration.

Magnets work better than mandates—another win for people-centric leadership. Brian Sherman, CPO at Delta Dental Ins., tested two approaches to getting people back to the office. His team? He mentioned once that he and other managers would be in on Tuesdays and Thursdays, with an open lunch hour. Another division took a different path: repeated announcements about when leaders were coming in. The result? Brian's low-key approach drove higher attendance. Why? "When a senior leader talks about it a lot, it implies there's an expectation," one employee told him. Perceived pressure killed genuine engagement. It's what Ryan Anderson told me years back: reactance theory says that adults don't like being treated like children. Nearly six years into the remote work debate, the real question isn't where people work. It's how you lead them: with mandates or magnets? Here's what magnets look like: 🧲 Create desire, not compliance: Airbnb hosts monthly in-person weeks with senior leaders onsite for major releases. They went for FOMO over RTO. 🧲 Design for engagement: Consistent leadership presence, valuable programming, and intentional team schedules draw people in. As CBRE's Emily (Neff) Botello Botello put it to me: "People are the number one amenity to other people in the space." 🧲 Stop policing, start coaching: Tracking badge swipes turns professionals into compliance officers. Emily noted that many firms have backed away from that practice already: not a good use of manager time (and no ROI). The bottom line: If you can't measure results without monitoring office chairs, you have a management problem, not a flexibility problem. Organizations treating attendance as compliance will keep struggling with engagement. Those treating it as a design challenge will build competitive advantage. That advantage pays off in AI: Debbie Lovich and Stephan Meier's research showed that people-centric organizations are 7X more likely to be in the lead when it comes to AI adoption. People-centric leadership for the win... 👉 My latest in Charter, thanks Jena McGregor for the support! https://lnkd.in/dq7rKbZH #Leadership #RTO #AI

The most frustrating moment in my work is watching a brilliant leader lose their team not because they don’t care, but because they refuse to adapt. “I’ve always led this way.” “I just expect people to step up.” - leaders tell me and they mean well. But people aren’t machines. You can’t plug the same leadership approach into every person and expect power to flow. Just like traveling between countries, you need different adapters. And in leadership, those adapters are built on empathy, flexibility, and science-backed awareness of human behavior. 🔍 In theory, this is what Situational Leadership captures. Introduced by Hersey & Blanchard in 1969 and validated by decades of follow-up research, it showed that matching leadership behavior to the employee's needs leads to better motivation, learning, and performance. But here’s the nuance many miss: ❌ It’s not just about toggling between “directive” and “supportive.” ✅ It’s about building the diagnostic capacity to read people emotionally, contextually, and developmentally. And when combined with psychological safety (Edmondson, 1999), this adaptive leadership creates the conditions where people feel safe to contribute, challenge, and learn. In practice, I see this when leaders learn to carry the right “adapter”: 🔌 Structure: when someone is overwhelmed and needs clarity 🔌 Empathy: when someone is disengaged but no one has asked why 🔌 Challenge: when someone is ready for more but hasn’t been stretched 🔌 Listening: when someone has a voice but not yet a safe space 🔌 Autonomy: when someone is thriving and needs room to fly And in the end, it’s not the "best' leadership style that builds best teams. It’s the most responsive one. And being responsive also means being inclusive. P.S. What “adapter” do you find yourself using most as a leader? --------------------------------- 👋 New here? Welcome! I'm Susanna. I help organizations with high-performing, inclusive leadership and culture by fostering psychological safety.

Strategy is not a document or a plan. It is a disciplined sequence of leadership moves. Many leaders jump straight to planning and execution. But strategic leadership requires a deeper progression. My friend and Strategy.Inc cofounder Timothy Timur Tiryaki, PhD structures this progression into seven steps in his forthcoming book "Leading with Strategy." I find that sequence both practical and intellectually honest. Unlearn. Strategic work often begins with subtraction. Questioning inherited assumptions about markets, growth, leadership, even success itself. Without unlearning, we simply optimize yesterday. Rethink. Strategy is no longer just competitive positioning. It is reimagining how value is created through culture, business models, and transformation. That requires systems thinking, not isolated initiatives. Discover. Leaders need a North Star. Purpose, identity, and inner compass are not soft elements. They are directional anchors that shape real choices. Design. Strategy becomes architecture. Coherent choices, aligned systems, and clear logic. Not fragmented projects, but an integrated whole. Deepen. The hardest part. Navigating paradoxes and tensions instead of resolving them too quickly. Mining conflict for insight. Staying with complexity long enough to learn. Execute. Clarity must move. Strategy only exists when it changes behavior, resource allocation, and daily decisions. Evolve. Foresight is disciplined preparation. Especially in an age shaped by AI, leaders must cultivate the capability to anticipate and adapt. What I appreciate about this framework is that it connects reflection with action, identity with performance, and thinking with doing. Strategic leadership becomes a meaningful practice, not just a title or ritual. === Tim's book, "Leading with Strategy" launches on March 3 and can already be preordered through the usual channels. If you are serious about strengthening your own strategic leadership, this book deserves a place on your reading list.

For years, I led with intensity. And it worked - until it didn’t. Intensity can drive results, but it comes at a cost. Over time, I realized that while my approach pushed people to perform, it didn’t always create trust, collaboration, or growth. Now, I’m learning to balance intensity with compassion. It’s not easy as it’s a constant work in progress. But here’s what’s helping me along the way: 1. Reset before every meeting. Before stepping into any discussion, I ask myself:  What does this moment need?  Do I need to challenge the team? Or do I need to listen and understand? 2. Recognize the situation. Some moments call for accountability and tough questions. Others require patience and calm understanding. 3. Reflect on what went wrong. I’ll admit, I often leave meetings thinking, I could have handled that differently. But leadership isn’t about perfection - it’s about learning, adjusting, and growing. There’s a time to push, and there’s a time to connect. Leadership isn’t about being intense or compassionate, it’s about knowing when to be each. The key is to be intentional, to show up with clarity, and to create space for both. Here’s something we must never forget: People don’t just remember what you said.  They remember how you made them feel.

What does it mean to lead ethically? This week I taught our undergraduate students on our business management degree. Bayes Business School we think that a core skill for business leaders is being able to work with a wider range of stakeholders to have a positive social and environmental impact. So all final year students take a business and society course. This is taught by Itziar Castello, Simon Parker & myself. During the course we explore questions like climate change, alternative organisational forms, corporate stupidity, ESG measurement, systems change and much more. In my lectures this week we looked at ethical leadership. In particular we explored what leaders do to encourage others to behave in an ethical way. How do some leaders get people to go above and beyond themselves to serve the greater good. Four basic approaches we covered included: 1. Creating shared value. This requires leaders to slow down a bit in their thinking and focus on creating greater joint value rather than competing to claim value for themselves. There is a great HBR article on this: https://lnkd.in/eACYcT6Q 2. Transforming followers. One way leaders encourage their followers to work for the greater good is through charismatic and transformation leadership. Here is a quick guide https://lnkd.in/et5cmEYr 3. Being authentic. Another way leaders can drive positive change is by being true to themselves and their own values. This is central to authentic leadership. Here is the classic account: https://lnkd.in/eJ5wQMdh 4. Serving your followers. One way some leaders try to embody their ethics is through serving their followers. More on servant leadership here: https://lnkd.in/e2iUgU8n The final approach which we did not discuss but is worth looking at is Marshall Ganz's ideas about leadership through public narrative. https://lnkd.in/eUm82dzX

Driving change in organizations has interesting parallels to physical workouts. In teaching about this today, I started thinking about what makes change stick, and realized how much it mirrors what happens in the gym. Here are five parallels that stood out: (1) You can’t delegate the workout. Just as no one can do your pushups for you, no one can “do the change” on your behalf. A leader can inspire, set direction, and create the right environment, but must also model the effort. People follow sweat. Change starts when others see you lifting the weight you’re asking them to lift. (2) Real growth happens through discomfort, not avoidance. In exercise, muscles grow by tearing slightly and rebuilding stronger. In organizations, people and systems grow by facing what’s uncomfortable: uncertainty, conflict, new habits. Avoiding discomfort keeps you safe; embracing it makes you strong. (3) Consistency beats intensity. One heroic workout doesn’t make you fit (I so wish it did!); small, regular effort does. Change leadership is the same: big launches fade if not followed by daily practice. Meaningful transformation comes from steady repetition: feedback loops, small wins, sustained energy. Change is endurance not an event. (4) Progress feels invisible before it’s undeniable. When you first start training, results are slow and invisible. But over time, the small efforts compound. In change, early results are often hidden beneath resistance or confusion. Leaders must hold faith long enough for the “muscles” of the organization to catch up. Patience is the bridge between effort and impact. (5) You train differently, but you sweat together. Every body has its limits and rhythms; every person and team does too. But the shared experience of effort builds trust and community. Great leaders create conditions where everyone feels part of the same workout: supported, stretched, and celebrated. Change is a team sport, not a solo performance. #Leadership #ChangeManagement #HumanLeadership #GrowthMindset #OrganizationalChange #Learning

Stop treating employees like machines. Leaders: if you’re only focused on deadlines and output, don’t be surprised when burnout, disengagement, and turnover follow. Here’s the reality: employees aren’t programmed to grind nonstop from 9-to-5. They’re human beings with needs beyond tasks and targets. Want to build a team that’s resilient, motivated, and truly committed? Here’s where to start: • Show Empathy: Understand the challenges your team faces, both at work and beyond. • Offer Flexibility: Trust your employees to manage their time and balance their lives. • Create Space to Recharge: Encourage breaks, rest, and time off without guilt. • Lead with Humanity: Recognize that happy, healthy employees are more productive employees. Remember, treating people like people isn’t just good leadership—it’s good business. What’s one way you’ve made empathy and flexibility a priority in your workplace? Let’s hear your thoughts.

Most organizations want more collaboration. Fewer know specifically why and that ambiguity is usually the reason the efforts to build it do not hold. This is the starting point for any serious attempt to increase teamwork across an organization. Clarity about where collaboration is actually needed, how it creates value in that specific context, and what would be lost if it did not improve. Without that clarity, the actions taken tend to be generic culture programmes, team-building exercises, values statements and the results tend to be correspondingly shallow. When you have that clarity, the research points to a set of levers that work. All of them, not one or two. People: teams with higher average levels of agreeableness tend to be more cooperative. Hiring and developing for this matters. Leaders who support change and model learning have the power to drive team culture more effectively than almost any structural intervention. Tasks: framing work as genuinely interdependent so that each person can see how their contribution connects to the whole makes cooperative behaviour more likely and attracts more cooperative people over time. Recognition: at the point where bonuses, promotions, and assignments are decided, the behaviours that are rewarded shape the culture more directly than any stated value. If collaboration is not being actively recognised at those moments, the culture will not sustain it. And one finding from the research on multi-team systems that I find particularly important is coordination among leaders across teams matters more than coordination within individual teams for overall system performance. In other words, get the leadership layer aligned on goals and values and then give the operational teams the autonomy to execute. Trying to coordinate directly at the operational level is actually counterproductive. The collaboration challenge is a leadership challenge. It starts, and is sustained, at the top. #Collaboration #TeamPerformance #LeadershipCulture #OrganisationalBehaviour #RandallPeterson