Leadership Skills – Contradictory Leadership Behaviors You Must Master

Leadership skills

Leadership skills involve a range of critical behaviors that you must master to be successful. Crazy as it sounds, great leaders tend to exhibit behaviors that seem at times contradictory. For example, in the same conversation they start out as pioneering and passionate, and a few moments later they sound humble and even meek. Another example is where they show up in a very commanding, take charge way, and then at various times, even in the same conversation, they adopt a more inclusive, empathetic demeanour. While some people might view this as flip-flopping or wishy-washy, I prefer to view it as “flexing”.

When leaders develop a more flexible range of behaviors, they connect with more people and develop larger follower-ships. And leaders today need those connections. They need to resonate with as many people/personalities as possible.

How behaviorly flexible are you as a leader? Can you, in the moment, shift your behaviors…

  • From being pioneering and passionate to being humble and egoless?
  • From being commanding and take charge to being inclusive and empathetic?
  • From being resolute and firm to being affirming and supportive?
  • From being deliberate and focused on the facts to being energised and focused on emotions and feelings?
  • …and the reverse of all of these?

Leaders have a lot of learning to do…in fact, a lifetime of learning. I know some leaders who, when they made it to the top, stopped learning. Then they started to struggle and some didn’t last very long. You see, as a leader, you need to lead by example. If you want your followers to take the journey of continuously learning and growing behaviorly, then you have have to take the lead on that journey with them. You have to become a lifelong learner, and promote behavioral learning as a pathway to success.

When you do this well, you and your team will achieve sustainable growth.Learning and behavioral flexibility, for individuals and the collective, will become a habit. The pay-offs are tremendous:

  1. You will attract and retain more talent to your team
  2. Performance will improve dramatically
  3. Greater confidence and trust will develop within your team
  4. Communications will reach new levels of efficiency and effectiveness
  5. People will be much more engaged
  6. Other leaders and teams will want to learn from you and emulate your success
  7. Relationships will improve, and people will support each other in ways you could never have imagined

How can you achieve this? It all starts with you. Make a simple list of the behaviors you want to be able to “flex”, then ask your team for their help in developing those behaviors. Don’t go any further than this for the moment, just make the list and then ask your team for help.

As usual, if you have any comments or would like to share your experiences, please do so below…

  • Rachel says:

    Hey Brian, this was a fun read. Thanks for sharing it! I research various leadership and management topicsA LOT, and I see a lot of the same stuff. So, when I read the beginning of your article with your definition of “flexing,” I was hooked. Well, by definition, I mean the part where you said: “Crazy as it sounds, great leaders tend to exhibit behaviors that seem at times contradictory. For example, in the same conversation they start out as pioneering and passionate, and a few moments later, they sound humble and even meek. Another example is where they show up in a very commanding, take charge way, and then at various times, even in the same conversation, they adopt a more inclusive, empathetic demeanor.” This was something that a lot of my teammates didn’t understand when I went through my first leadership course. I did indeed get called “wishy-washy” and it really messed with my confidence as a leader for some time. But what I was really doing was being behaviorally flexible, and this skill now serves me well in my current position. What a validating read; I wish I would have come across this article years ago. Keep the excellent content coming!

    • Brian Ward says:

      Thanks Rachel! Yes, I’ve been accused of being wishy-washy too, but I’ve stuck to my guns and it indeed has paid off! Behavioural flexibility is a must these days, with multi-generations and a diverse workforce.

  • Lusine Simonyan says:

    The most important in this behavior that your team understands the purpose of this flexibility for the overall goal and effectiveness of the work

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