When you think of leaders in your organization, you tend to bucket them into four stereotypical styles — autocratic, democratic, laissez-faire, or transformational. There are other leadership styles like strategic, transactional, coach, and bureaucratic that are written about.
What if I told you that all those leadership styles are poppycock? You heard me. It’s all nonsense mumbo-jumbo-corporate-koolaid-fake-it-till-you-make-it cow dung.
“OMG, Derek! How could you say that, you’re a leader of your own digital agency!”
I just did. And. You bet I am!
I’m not conforming to leadership styles just because they are popular belief. Not today, not tomorrow, not ever! I don’t need to pay a career coach thousands of dollars either — to pick up bad habits.
Why should I restrict myself to a leadership style that could be archaic and ineffective in the age of remote teams?
Remote teams require an adaptive leadership style
Good leaders inspire. Great leaders inspire and refine because they are aware of their surrounding and impact of their actions (verbal and non-verbal).
When I launched Fullmoon Digital, I had no idea what leadership style would help me build a strong team today. In fact, I don’t think I have a defined leadership style, and that’s what makes it work.
Stay with me.
The reason why I decided to build a 100% remote team is to access global talent, eliminate commuting, and have fun doing what we do. None of these reasoning fit into the leadership style mold created in corporate America. Today’s leadership styles is just not created for tomorrow’s progressive remote teams.
Don’t believe me?
See if you can find these words – “fun,” “eliminate,” or “access” in any of the leadership styles in this blog post written by one of the most respected CRM tools on earth! Don’t get me wrong, the article referenced is a great resource — but it’s not my cup of tea.
The highest “rating” for any leadership style in the article I referenced is “Commonly Effective.” If that’s the best outcome, then companies are in more trouble than meets the eye.
A leadership style that is simple and effective
Can a straightforward leadership style exist? Can it be simple and effective at the same time? Certainly the high-paid coaches and business consultants will beg to differ – after all, leadership training courses is how these people get away with charging tens of thousands of dollars.
Now, humor me.
If these leadership styles that are being evangelized so effective, how do you explain the growing cases of organizational collapse, mass layoffs, executive fraud, embezzlement, nepotism, corporate mismanagement, and the list goes on and on. Don’t give me the nonsense about “oh, we’re all humans” speech. Spare me.
Ok, you’re right. We’re all human. And we all make mistakes.
BUT!!!
These are leaders we’re talking about — you know, the unique individuals that are suppose to possess leadership skills that the common people do not have, right? So shouldn’t these powerful leaders be held at a higher standard?
Let’s face it. Leaders weaponize leadership styles to rule their empire. It’s not for the general employees’ benefits. Over the decades, leadership styles have been analyzed and over-analyzed and over-studied to a point where it has become a fairy tale.
Does it really have to be so complex? Why can’t leadership styles be simplified?
Leadership style is not always about wealth, or is it?
How much money does Bezos, Zucky, and Musk really need to have in their bank? I pick on them because they are household billionaire names – recognizable even by people who are living off-grid! 🙂
If you follow the news and the rags-to-riches story of these cats, you’ll find they started from the most humble of beginnings. Everyone has a story.
Fast forward two decades, and they have turned into seemingly polar opposite of their old self. Some call this reinvention, self-awareness, evolution, [INSERT FANCY “WOKE” WORD]…but I just call it power-grabbing-money-crazy-narcissistic behavior.
If there are any people in this world of 8-billion people who can evangelize hope and humanity, these three would be my top candidates because of their wealth, influence, and authority. Oh yea, I forgot Mr. Gates. Sorry Bill.
An important question I have is “does wealth and leadership style correlate?”
Is someone wealthy because of their leadership style, or is it their leadership style helped create wealth? I don’t believe its either or.
Someone can be a great leader and still die without wealth. And on flipside, there are wealthy people in the world who are certified assholes (terrible leaders) — I rest my case.
An effective leadership style is not defined by wealth or fortune. It’s about how you inspire people.
My leadership style is anything but normal
I’ve thought about this deeply and come to accept that I do not fit into the mold of any leadership style. I don’t subscribe to what corporate America expects from a leader.
As a leader of our pack at Fullmoon Digital, I am accountable for the well-being of the pack, the way we achieve client excellence, and avoid overload (of anything). To accomplish this, I take the approach that is more grounded — humanizing the way our team runs, and really, just avoid repeating everything I hated about corporate America.
For the record, I did not pay tens of thousands for a career coach or spend hours attending leadership seminars. These are just things I wished I experienced when working for an employer.
Focus on strength, ignore the weakness
I’ve participated in many corporate team building activities and training sessions. From Myers-Briggs to Gallup’s Strengths Finder — I feel bad for the employers who spent money on this, but it was a total waste of money.
It is not difficult to understand that focusing on your team’s strengths is the best way to help elevate people.
I rather have people spend 4 hours on going from GOOD to GREAT, rather than going from “WEAK to GOOD.” That makes no sense at all.
“So…Derek, you’re going to ignore the weakness in your team?” That’s so presumptuous young grasshopper. Well, you’re not entirely incorrect.
Yes, I will choose to ignore the weakness, but I will also hire someone who’s GOOD to fill the gap. This strategy means everyone in our pack will start at GOOD and go to GREAT.
As a business, wouldn’t you want your digital agency to have a high standard for the team you will be working with?
Acknowledge and remove baggage
Everyone who comes from a different organization (big or small) will bring bad habits, unintentionally most of the time. Nonetheless, it’s so ingrained that it could disrupt our process.
Instead of trying to “fix” people, the first thing I do is observe – interactions, communication, work ethics, and other non-verbal cues. Additionally, I seek feedback from pack members to validate my observations.
As with all bad habits, the first step is to admit the problem exist. I set up 1-on-1 call with individuals to have an open dialog, acknowledge the issue, and discuss how it affects the pack and what steps we can take together to get rid of the baggage.
This approach has change the mindset of the team and elevated the way we work together and with our clients. The team continues to find these potholes and patch them up!
100% agreement or nothing at all
Sounds too good to be true? Too bad for your team.
For our pack, this holds true. One area that I’ve decided to enforce this is in our hiring process. As a result of our unique interviewing process, we are able to grow our pack stronger with each new member.
It took me over 2 years to refine this process, but we’re finally at a point where it is working 90% of the time, which by hiring standards, is pretty damn solid.
Let go, so your team can build amazing things
Such an easy thing to talk about. Hundreds of books have been written about this topic — and yet, so many leaders find this one the most challenging task. Why? A myriad of reasons. Untrusting, egotistic, narcissistic, and prideful to name a few.
“Bad leaders don’t listen to their employees because it makes them feel insecure when they find that employees are smarter than themselves.”
Letting go doesn’t mean there’s no operational oversight. Letting go means trusting that tasks will be accomplished, deadlines met, and projects delivered without micromanagement.
It took some time, but the more I let go, the more amazing things teams have produced. Our CSM team has introduced new processes that elevated client excellence, our SEM team started digging deeper into data and consistently find ways to do better, and our content team is coming up with some amazing new strategies to create better content for our blog and our clients.
While other agencies have an unhealthy obsessions over meeting quota, I am 100% focused on empowering our pack to do amazing things!
Tough love beats passive aggressiveness all day, every day
Many people have worked for bosses and managers who are passive aggressive on the regular. I certainly have experienced passive aggressiveness and it is one of the most disgusting feeling, ever.
There’s no need for this behavior and certainly inexcusable.
Instead, I choose to face the issue face-to-face, fix the problem, and move on to tackling the next challenge. I’m not being cold or insensitive. I’m tough love.
From my years of experience, I realize that I became much better after every time I received direct criticism from someone who cares.
So, that’s the approach I have taken with our pack. It’s risky. Any leadership tactic is risky. But this was a risk I was willing to take — why? Because, by nature, I’m a super stubborn, egotistical, mister-know-it-all kind of person. So if tough love worked on me over the years, then I took a calculated risks that it will work with people who are already way better than I am. And the risk is paying off in spades.
Nobody takes credit alone
We are a pack. The pack watches for one another. If one fails, everyone failed.
Extreme? Yes! Nothing worthwhile is accomplish through mediocrity. I’m sure many agency leaders won’t agree with this – and that’s perfectly fine. In fact, that’s good for us! 🙂
The more leaders accept mediocrity, the more our pack will slowly, carefully, and certainly become stronger.
What is your leadership style? Does it break the mold?
