The Key to Effective Leadership: Find the Balance Between Strength and Warmth
Being in a position of leadership in any professional setting will inherently come with challenges. There are goals to be reached, deadlines to be met, personalities to manage, and pressure to produce revenue. Sometimes, middle and upper management roles can feel limited by expectations coming from all directions: there are those at higher levels who will look to you for results (and expect explanations if those results are not delivered), and team members who will look to you to set the right example as to how they should be working.
Research conducted at Harvard Business School affirms that the key to managing the challenges inherent to leadership positions is in finding a balance between two important qualities: strength and warmth.
Though each are admirable qualities in their own right, one cannot exist without the other in a professional context. Someone who projects competence and possesses the necessary skills to take charge in an emergency can also come across as stern and unapproachable, whereas being overly friendly and agreeable can lead to being indecisive or easily manipulated.
It can be difficult to find that balance when feeling overburdened by the expectations of others; however, there are steps you can take to effectively strike the balance between the two.
Conduct An Honest Assessment of Your Leadership Style
In our current cultural landscape, we often associate specific qualities with specific genders. In this context, men are more often associated with strength and women are more often associated with warmth. As such, we tend to immediately prescribe the solution of more strength when talking about women in leadership.
At a Women in Tech event several years ago, a woman who rose to the level of Senior Director at Google spoke about her experience. She was determined, focused, and outspoken at work, but she was not feeling listened to or trusted. On the surface, these seem to be symptoms of a lack of strength, but when approaching the root of the issue, she found that she already led with strength, and was instead lacking warmth and approachability. If she were to allow herself to be lumped in with the stereotype that women lack strength, she would have overcorrected and become too rigid and impenetrable. It’s important to find clarity on where you fall first, then to be intentional in working on the balance.
Understanding different social styles and how your particular style shows up in group dynamics is an important component of being a leader in the workplace; each of us tend to lean toward being amiable, expressive, analytical, or a driver. Those that are particularly amiable tend to be great listeners and very good at empathizing with colleagues, but also conflict-averse and concerned with keeping everyone happy; expressive people can bring great energy to the table, but can get ahead of themselves when they’re too easily excited; being overly analytical can mean you have a great attention to detail, but may take too long to make a decision (and once you do, you will die on that hill); and drivers will be goal oriented and get the work done, but might steamroll others in the process.
These kinds of assessments, whether found online or through private coaching, can be really helpful in understanding certain weaknesses and how they may apply to you as a leader. There is also value in asking those on your team to give you honest (and therefore, anonymous) opinions on how they perceive your communication style. It will take a lot of trust to open yourself to that kind of feedback, but it can also be rewarding.
Audit Your Environment
Your interactions with colleagues and team members are critical to defining your success as a leader, so getting honest with yourself on how your leadership style affects those around you - and conversely, how your team is affecting you as a leader - is an important step.
Take some time to evaluate what kinds of personalities you see reflected in your team and what your dynamic is with each of them, both individually and as a whole team working together. What’s the energy like in meetings? Is it closed off, with minimal eye contact? Does it seem as though people are listening, or are they reading emails while you’re trying to give directions? Delegating a different facilitator in each meeting can help to change things up and help to keep the group alert, especially if you start with thoughtful discussions, such as something they enjoyed or learned at work since the last meeting.
It’s healthy for people to be comfortable making small talk with each other and bonding over things that have nothing to do with work, but are they too excited about topics other than work and taking forever to get down to business? Take a moment to notice who might be the least focused member of the group and ask them to be the timekeeper for each portion of the agenda.
Who, specifically, seems to be dominating the conversation, and who is too easily convinced to do something a certain way? Set a community agreement at the beginning of each meeting encouraging people to take space. Sometimes it helps to gently remind those who are usually quick to respond in meetings to give those who need more time to formulate their thoughts a chance to chime in.
When you’re dialed in to the similarities and differences between you and your team members, it will be easier to spot any weak links in communication and to meet those weaknesses with an increased level of strength or warmth, depending upon the need. It will also help you to give honest feedback when it’s time for performance reviews and will help elevate morale if your team feels they are being seen and understood for their individual qualities.
Approach Your Work With a Growth Mindset
A Growth Mindset is the belief that talent and intelligence can be developed through nurturing and effective feedback, and keeping that in mind at all times will help remind you that no matter where you feel you are lacking in strength versus warmth, and no matter what your social style or personality traits say about you as a leader, you will be able to make adjustments and learn to be a stronger leader at any time.
A Growth Mindset should be applied to your own work as well as to the rest of your team. A Fixed Mindset, or the belief that we are all inherently good or bad at specific things, can easily become a negative downward spiral. It’s the mindset that leads people to think, “These weekly meetings are pointless because we say the same things every week and nothing gets done,” or “What’s the point of trying this new initiative if it’s not something we’ve done before?”
Leaders should never be afraid to grow and to demonstrate that willingness in front of those who look up to them. Lead by example: learn about new things, ask questions, and be brave enough to make mistakes. You may have been too bullheaded in a particular meeting or too passive and quiet when presented with a project you found to be problematic or flawed, and that’s OK; it’s never too late to course correct, to go back to a conversation and say “I’ve been giving this some thought, and I have concerns.”
Walk the Walk
Knowing your qualities as a leader is one thing, but it’s only half of the equation; the other half is willingness to actually do the work.
Once you have clarity on what’s holding you back as a leader, it will be easier to identify and seek out the right kind of support. The myth that needing support is a sign of weakness is a common fear, and it’s also entirely inaccurate; even world class athletes at the top of their game understand it’s crucial to continue working with a coach because they need a trusted outside eye to remain the best at what they do. No matter what your goals are, learning and a willingness to invest in yourself is going to pay off in the long run. If you push past the stigma of asking for help, it will be easier to move forward rather than continue to hit the same roadblocks throughout the course of your career.
About the Author
Jackie Miller launched Bespoken in 2015 to channel years of professional performance experience into techniques that improve public speaking, presenting, and professional communication skills. She holds a B.F.A. and M.A. both from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.
More Insightful Reads
