Tough environments need tough decisions being made to succeed. When you see a critical task that needs to be accomplished by your team, do you “push” them to get it done or do you “pull” them in, explaining the situation with your leadership competence and show them how they should carry it out and using inspiration and motivation to get them going?
These are two very different approaches to reach a goal, and the latter is often the better one, but knowing how to combine these two paths is an important skill for managers and leaders. Many lack this and typically a leader is good at one.
Have you ever struggled as a leader with direction and consistency? Ever felt like you were disoriented and lacked focus – like your proverbial leadership wheels had come off and your forward movement had stalled? All of you who are charged with the responsibility to lead have felt that! It’s a normal part of the leadership process. But there are some things you can do to get your focus back and regain your forward momentum, especially in tough conditions such as now.
If you want to achieve organisational chaos, then try to push your team, push your agenda, push your plans toward your goals. Normally, chaos will result and your chain will go in unpredictable directions. Nothing orderly will be achieved and you will expend large amounts of energy to accomplish negligible results, except, of course, high levels of frustration.
This is very true but the predicament is if you are landed with a team that cannot support a ‘pull strategy’ then to achieve results in the short term for long-term survival you need to adopt the ‘ push strategy’. However, your team is good if you are an optimistic leader you would always set standards to force a ‘push’. This is truer for companies that haven’t had processes and professionally trained people. If the previous leaders have not had a professional background to guide, coach and mentor people – then it’s a more complex issue.
Innovation for growth
The number one behaviour tied to innovation is the willingness to change. We can all probably come up with a variety of activities that we continue to do even though there is a faster, more efficient way.
Change takes energy, discipline, and often a willingness to do something we have never done before. The people who are most likely to be innovative are those who are not satisfied with good performance, but are constantly looking for superior performance. It is amazing how much mediocrity we can all put up with in our lives. Possibly it is the combination of traffic jams, the lines in stores, and the bureaucracy that develops at work that influences expectations that everything is going to be slow and difficult. It is easy for people to simply go with the flow and not look for efficiency or faster options.
Communicate clearly
Make sure your communications are clear, consistent and directional. It is better to over communicate then it is to under communicate. Don’t assume your team knows what to do and when to do it.
When all the links in a leadership chain know the plan, they can better cooperate by playing their part. Communication can help you achieve full pulling power when the pressure is on.
The neat thing about a chain metaphor is that every link plays its part in the pull. When forward movement is achieved, every link can have that sense of satisfaction that they did their job, held strong and diffused the pressure of the weight of the object being pulled throughout the links of the chain. Working as a chain is a great way to share the struggle, the pressure, and the glory of success. Literally, when the pull is successful, each link in the chain wins. Practice celebrating that reality with your team.
Push versus pull styles of leadership have long been discussed in leadership circles, but not enough in Sri-Lanka yet. Sadly, because of the general lack of leadership training, too often leaders are left to their native instincts as their primary means of leadership techniques.
When left to human nature, we almost always default to our own self-interests, and our lowest levels of leadership motivation. Therefore, personal issues like low self-esteem and the four fundamental fears that drive people in general - fears of being out of control, rejection, losing security, and criticism) can shade our leadership style to one that is more push than pull.
Developing a pull leadership style is not something you do accidentally; you must do it intentionally. You have to plan for it, strategise it and hold yourself accountable to it. And when you do, your team will flourish and your organisation can reach its greatest potential.