Further Resources

Why Your Leadership Style is Wrong for Your Team

Three weeks ago, I watched a brilliant engineer get promoted to team leader and within six months, turn a high-performing unit into what can only be described as organised chaos with a side of resentment.

This bloke was technically gifted, no question. Could solve problems that made the rest of us scratch our heads. But stick him in front of a team? Disaster. And here's the kicker – his boss kept telling him to "just be more authoritative" and "show them who's in charge."

Wrong bloody advice.

After 18 years in management consulting across Melbourne, Brisbane, and Perth, I've seen this pattern repeat more times than I care to count. Companies promote their best individual contributors, hand them a team, and expect magic. When things go pear-shaped, the solution is always the same: leadership training focused on generic "leadership styles."

Here's what nobody wants to admit: your leadership style isn't wrong because you picked the wrong template from some corporate handbook. It's wrong because you're trying to lead humans with a one-size-fits-all approach.

The Myth of the Perfect Leadership Style

Business schools love their neat little boxes. Autocratic. Democratic. Transformational. Servant leadership. They'll teach you all about them, complete with case studies and assessment tools that tell you exactly which category you fit into.

Complete rubbish.

I've worked with CEOs who swear by democratic leadership but turn into dictators when the quarterly numbers are due. I've seen "servant leaders" who couldn't serve their way out of a paper bag when dealing with underperformers. And don't get me started on the transformational leaders who transform nothing except employee turnover rates.

The problem isn't the styles themselves – they all have merit in the right context. The problem is thinking that any single approach will work for every person, every situation, every team dynamic.

Take Sarah, a project manager I worked with in Sydney. Brilliant with client relationships, terrible with her team. Why? She was using the same consultative, relationship-building approach with everyone. Worked great with the experienced developers who appreciated being asked their opinions. Absolute disaster with the junior staff who just wanted clear direction and didn't have the confidence to contribute meaningfully to strategic discussions.

Your Team Isn't a Monolith

This should be obvious, but apparently it isn't: the five people on your team are five different humans with five different sets of motivations, communication preferences, experience levels, and psychological needs.

Yet most leaders I encounter treat their team like a homogeneous unit. Same meeting style for everyone. Same feedback approach. Same motivational tactics. Then they wonder why three people are thriving while two are quietly planning their exit strategy.

I learned this the hard way back in 2019. Had a team of six working on a major organisational restructure for a mining company. Kept running team meetings the same way I'd always done them – open discussion, collaborative decision-making, everyone gets a voice. Thought I was being democratic and inclusive.

Three months in, my most senior analyst pulled me aside. "Mate," he said, "half the team thinks you're indecisive, and the other half thinks you don't trust them enough to make decisions."

Turns out my "collaborative" approach was driving the experienced people mental because they just wanted clear direction and autonomy to execute. Meanwhile, the newer team members felt overwhelmed and unsupported because they needed more structure and guidance.

Same leadership style. Completely different impacts.

The Real Problem: Leadership Style Rigidity

The issue isn't that you have a dominant leadership style – most of us do, and that's fine. The issue is when you become so attached to that style that you can't flex when the situation demands it.

I see this constantly in time management training sessions. Leaders who are naturally directive get told they need to be more collaborative. So they start asking for input on everything, including decisions where their team actually expects them to just decide and move on. Productivity tanks, team confidence drops, and everyone ends up frustrated.

On the flip side, naturally collaborative leaders get told they need to be more decisive. So they start making unilateral decisions about things their team has strong opinions on. Engagement plummets, good people start looking elsewhere, and the culture goes toxic.

Neither approach is wrong inherently. But applying them inflexibly to every situation is leadership malpractice.

Reading Your Team's Actual Needs

Here's what works: start paying attention to what your team actually responds to, not what some assessment tool says they should respond to.

Watch how they react in meetings. Do they contribute readily or wait to be invited? Do they ask clarifying questions or just nod and go away confused? Do they come to you with problems or solutions?

Look at their experience levels. Your seasoned senior developer doesn't need the same level of direction as your graduate recruit. But that doesn't mean one needs "democratic leadership" and the other needs "autocratic leadership." It means they need different amounts of context, different levels of autonomy, and different types of support.

Pay attention to workload and pressure. When deadlines are tight and stress is high, even your most collaborative team members might just want you to make decisions and clear obstacles. When things are calmer and there's time for reflection, that's when participative approaches make sense.

Consider personality differences. Some people process information externally through discussion. Others need time to think before they can contribute meaningfully. Some thrive on detailed feedback; others prefer high-level guidance and space to figure out the details.

None of this requires a psychology degree or expensive personality assessments. It just requires observation and flexibility.

The Situational Reality Check

Most leadership development programs spend enormous amounts of time on self-awareness – understanding your own style, your own preferences, your own strengths and blind spots. That's all useful. But they spend virtually no time on situational awareness.

When is your natural style most and least effective? What situations trigger you to become more rigid in your approach? How do external pressures affect your leadership effectiveness?

I used to be terrible at this. My default mode is fairly direct and task-focused. Works great in crisis situations or when working with experienced people who appreciate efficiency. But put me in front of a team that's dealing with major organisational change or uncertainty, and my natural directness could come across as dismissive or uncaring.

Took me years to recognise that the same approach that made me effective in one context was sabotaging relationships in another. Now I consciously dial up the relationship-building and communication when I can sense the team needs more emotional support, even though it doesn't come naturally.

The key word there is "consciously." Most leaders operate on autopilot, defaulting to whatever approach feels comfortable regardless of what the situation actually requires.

What Flexible Leadership Actually Looks Like

Flexible leadership isn't about being inconsistent or unpredictable. It's about adapting your approach while maintaining clear values and expectations.

For example, I worked with a operations manager who had team members across three different experience levels. With his senior staff, he used a hands-off approach – clear outcomes, regular check-ins, but lots of autonomy in how they got there. With his mid-level people, he was more collaborative – involving them in planning decisions and using their input to shape priorities. With newer team members, he was more directive – clearer instructions, more frequent feedback, structured learning opportunities.

Same manager, same values, same standards. Different approaches based on what each group needed to be successful.

The senior people felt trusted and empowered. The mid-level people felt valued and developed. The junior people felt supported and confident. Everyone knew what was expected, but the path to getting there was tailored to their situation.

Common Flexibility Mistakes

There's a difference between being flexible and being wishy-washy. I see leaders make several predictable mistakes when they first try to adapt their approach:

Overcorrecting: Natural autocrats become committee-managers. Natural collaborators become micro-managers. Instead of adjusting the dial, they flip the switch completely.

Inconsistent standards: Flexibility in approach doesn't mean flexibility in expectations. Your quality standards, ethical requirements, and performance expectations should be consistent regardless of how you communicate them.

Reading situations wrong: Assuming that conflict means you need to be more collaborative, when sometimes conflict means you need to be more decisive. Thinking that quiet team members need more direction, when they might just need more time to process.

Personality stereotyping: Deciding that introverts need one approach and extroverts need another, without considering individual preferences and situational factors.

The biggest mistake is thinking that flexible leadership means being everything to everyone. It doesn't. It means being appropriately different for different people and situations while staying true to your core leadership values.

Building Your Flexibility Muscle

Like any skill, leadership flexibility improves with practice. Start small. Pick one team member whose response to your leadership style seems disconnected from your intent. Instead of assuming they're the problem, experiment with adjusting your approach.

If you're naturally directive and they seem disengaged, try asking for their input before making decisions that affect their work. If you're naturally collaborative and they seem frustrated with the pace of decision-making, try being more decisive about smaller issues and saving the collaboration for bigger strategic questions.

Emotional intelligence training can help here, but honestly, most of it comes down to paying attention and being willing to try different approaches when the current one isn't working.

Keep track of what works. When do you see higher engagement? Better performance? Fewer questions and confusion? More proactive problem-solving? These are indicators that your approach is matching the team's needs.

More importantly, notice when things aren't working. When people seem checked out, frustrated, or confused. When performance drops or quality suffers. When good people start asking about opportunities elsewhere.

The Delegation Dimension

Nothing exposes leadership inflexibility like delegation. Most leaders delegate the same way regardless of the task, the person, or the circumstances. Hand over a project, set a deadline, check in periodically. Cookie-cutter approach.

Effective delegation varies dramatically based on the complexity of the task, the experience of the person, the stakes involved, and the broader context. Sometimes delegation means "here's the outcome I need, figure out how to get there." Sometimes it means "here's exactly what needs to happen and when." Sometimes it's "I need you to own this completely" and sometimes it's "I need regular updates and input on key decisions."

The same person might need different delegation approaches for different types of work. Your best analyst might be completely autonomous when it comes to research projects but need much more guidance when asked to present to senior leadership for the first time.

Most leadership training focuses on "empowerment" as the gold standard. Delegate everything, trust your people, get out of their way. But empowerment without adequate support isn't empowerment – it's abandonment.

Building Individual Relationships

Here's something that gets lost in most leadership development: your relationship with each team member should be somewhat different, because they're different people with different needs, goals, and working styles.

That doesn't mean having favourites or inconsistent standards. It means recognising that the way you communicate with your detail-oriented analyst should probably be different from how you communicate with your big-picture strategist.

Some people need frequent feedback to stay on track. Others prefer to work independently and check in periodically. Some thrive on public recognition. Others find it embarrassing and prefer private acknowledgement.

I spent years thinking that fairness meant treating everyone exactly the same. Now I understand that fairness means giving everyone what they need to be successful, which often means different approaches for different people.

This requires actual conversations with your team members about how they prefer to work, what kind of support they find most helpful, and what management approaches help them perform at their best. Revolutionary concept, I know.

The Context Factor

Your leadership style also needs to account for what's happening in the broader organisation and market. The approach that works during stable growth periods might be completely wrong during times of uncertainty or crisis.

During the 2020 disruptions, I watched leaders struggle because they kept using their normal collaborative, consensus-building approaches when their teams were actually craving more decisive direction. People were anxious and overwhelmed – they didn't want to be consulted on every decision. They wanted clear guidance and confidence from their leaders.

Conversely, leaders who defaulted to crisis management mode long after things had stabilised found their teams becoming resentful of the lack of autonomy and input.

Successful people pay attention to these broader contextual factors and adjust accordingly. The same team that appreciates collaborative decision-making during normal times might need more directive leadership during periods of high stress or uncertainty.

The Measurement Problem

Most organisations measure leadership effectiveness through engagement surveys, retention rates, and performance metrics. All useful, but they're lagging indicators. By the time these numbers show problems, you've already lost momentum and possibly good people.

Better to pay attention to leading indicators: How quickly do people come to you with problems? Do they bring solutions along with problems? How often do you have to clarify expectations or re-explain decisions? Do team members proactively collaborate with each other or wait for you to facilitate everything?

These day-to-day interactions tell you much more about whether your leadership approach is working than any annual survey.

Making the Shift

The hardest part of developing leadership flexibility is letting go of the idea that there's a "right" way to lead. There isn't. There are approaches that work better or worse in specific contexts with specific people for specific outcomes.

Your natural leadership style is probably effective in many situations. The goal isn't to change it completely – it's to recognise when it's not serving your team and develop the ability to adjust accordingly.

This takes practice, self-awareness, and a willingness to experiment. It also takes humility to recognise when your approach isn't working and curiosity to figure out what might work better.

Most importantly, it requires seeing leadership as a service to your team rather than an expression of your personality. Your job isn't to lead in the way that feels most comfortable to you – it's to lead in the way that helps your team achieve their best performance.

That's the difference between being a manager and being a leader. Managers apply their preferred style consistently. Leaders adapt their approach to serve their team's success.

The engineer I mentioned at the beginning? He eventually figured this out. Took about eight months and some honest feedback from his team, but he learned to adjust his approach based on what his people actually needed rather than what he thought leadership should look like.

His team's performance turned around completely. More importantly, so did his confidence as a leader. Turns out, flexible leadership isn't just better for your team – it's more sustainable and effective for you as well.

Stop trying to be the "right" kind of leader. Start trying to be the leader your team actually needs.