Fully rounded leadership

Intro

In the league table of leadership styles, democratic, meritocratic, and servant would all be at the top. Mid-table, you have your bureaucratic, laissez-faire and transactional. And firmly in the relegation zone is autocratic, right? Well, about that...

This table is always right in the same way that the diameter of a circle always fits exactly 3 times around its circumference. Both statements make their respective subjects simple and easy to understand, but neither is true. The awkward extra 0.14 of pi that doesn’t fit neatly is the small amount of time when autocracy leaps gazelle-like to the top of the table.

What's the issue?

1. Leadership developers like me work hard to move people away from autocracy. With good reason too, given that micromanagement and a lack of delegation are both endemic and destructive. No wonder autocracy is cast as the perennial villain, a two-dimensional caricature with no redeeming features.

2. But hold on, because democratic leadership has a problem. It takes time. Asking people’s opinions, weighing up their myriad scenarios, overcoming objections to reach consensus. It’s like herding bats.

3. Humans evolved fight-or-flight to prioritise the speed of response over its quality. That’s because tapping into your neocortex would in theory result in a better analysis of the situation, generate better options, and yield a better outcome. But in practice, you’d have been eaten by the time you’d considered all that. Democracy is the neocortex of leadership. High functioning, with superior results – but only if you have time. If you don’t, it turns you into a sitting duck.

Consider this

1. Autocracy minimises the time between decision and action. And there are times when fast sub-standard decisions are better than slow decisions.

2. Autocratic decisions can be clear and consistent, because they come from one voice.

3. In an autocracy, it’s clear who to follow. No servant of 2 masters, no noise from middle-management interpretation of comms.

4. If you are a democratic leader for 3 diameters of your time, then for the 0.14 when the stuff hits the fan and speed is of the essence, people will understand that this is the exception to how you rule, and they will trust that now is the time to follow blindly and do as directed.

5. Be careful though, because giving autocracy a limited green light opens it to abuse. Many leaders are addicted to the adrenaline of busyness, where everything is urgent, and autocracy can become the norm. Autocracy though, should only be the red lever behind the ‘in case of emergency, break glass’ cover.

6. Healthy democracy builds trust. Autocracy erodes it.

7. Those leaders who are uncomfortable going into ‘tell’ mode and who prevaricate when decisiveness is needed are as dangerous to the organisation as are full-time autocrats.

8. In a world that is becoming increasingly dynamic and unpredictable, the ability to move very quickly as a herd is essential. Autocracy is an existential leadership skill.

9. The best leaders are pi leaders: 3 parts democratic, 0.14 part autocratic.

Try this

Get your leadership team to (anonymously) give everyone else each 2 scores out of 10: the first for how democratic they are, the second for how well they deploy autocracy when needed. If any of the scores are less than 8, you’ve just identified where you have work to do.