My leadership style

People have asked me about my leadership style, and as it is such a common question, I have decided to post it here.

People recognise that I am passionate, and I lead through inspiration and desire to achieve the strategic goals. I am a positive and passionate person who motivates people with energy, and give people a destination to head to.

My energetic and ‘youthful’ approach builds momentum in the team, where I demonstrate that we can achieve goals by working together. I set a vision and a direction – for an analogy it is like hiking up a mountain – showing people where we are headed, and then depend upon their own skills as professionals to get us there.

I encourage innovation and development – I empower the team through encouraging training and self-development, on the job experience, encouraging attendance to seminars and conferences, direct them to online training and of course official courses. I want people to get new qualifications and certifications, just as I want to increase my own skills and knowledge, I encourage them to do the same.

I provide for my team, with four main areas;

• Inspiration – what we could possibly achieve
• Direction – which way we are going together
• Protection – they can be bold and make mistakes
• Structure – the order and frameworks that we all need to follow

I am not a micromanager, I let the people within my team have freedom to achieve the objectives that I set for them – and I set guardrails to ensure that people stay on track, and then trust in the skills and expertise of the team. When I mentor and guide staff, it is to inspire their own ability to use their skills to solve problems, and not hand-holding them or spelling out how they should solve the problem.

I am a positive and supportive leader, with a focus on work/life balance and a pragmatic view of peoples’ own lives and needs. I encourage growth and responsibility, with a knowledge that not everyone works at the same pace or schedule – and that some people will have bursts of development, and others will be a ‘slow burn’.

In my 23 years of leadership, I have never had anyone quit or resign – I have had to make people redundant and unfortunately had to fire people, but I work on developing people instead of ‘churning’ them as resources. Some of my proudest achievements are of my team members who developed and advanced – taking roles in more senior positions and advancing their careers.

I am an open communicator, and ensure that people are engaged through the process – so when I reveal a strategy, people comment that it is “obvious” as they have been involved during the evolution of the plan. I take into account their needs, concerns and expectations – from staff and suppliers to stakeholders and executives. I am predictable and consistent – people know how I am going to react and what I will say when they come to me, because I include them in the process.

I celebrate successes, but also importantly embrace mistakes and problems – they become a learning point for the whole team and are not something to be hidden or worried about. If an error is made in operations or administration, then I encourage it to be fixed and remedied, and then ensure that people know what has happened – I do not punish the person who made the mistake, as this encourages future mistakes to be hidden and covered up.

I am not a micromanager, not an autocrat or in any way domineering – people follow me because they want to, not because they feel they have to. I am forward-looking, encourage people to achieve the goals with me, empower them to achieve and develop, and make sure we all grow on the way.