Leadership style can make or break the success of an organisation, team, or project. While different leadership styles suit different situations, effective styles share one common trait – emotional intelligence (EQ). Daniel Goleman (an EQ expert) proposed that there are 6 effective leadership styles, each stemming from 4 key EQ competencies: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and social skills. Coercive/Commanding Lead by force Climate influence: This style has a negative impact on the climate and demotivates employees as it eliminates the opportunity for new ideas, reduces accountability for performance, and destroys the rewards system. Of the 6 styles, coercive is the …
Is your employee experience Theory X or Theory Y?
Sixty years ago Douglas McGregor from the MIT Sloan School of Management presented two theories of workforce motivation he named “Theory X” and “Theory Y.” Over the intervening decades these theories have been used by leadership teams, HR professionals and OD folks as they craft and create HR policies, performance management programs, rewards and recognition, and work space design. If it’s been some time since you gave much thought to McGregor’s work, here’s a refresher: Employee experience Theory X vs Theory Y Theory X assumes that: people dislike work people want to avoid work (i.e. “people are inherently lazy”) people …
The observer effect: the surprising role of structured questions
How do we measure things like engagement and experience? We ask questions. But what if asking the question changes the very thing we are trying to measure? Here’s a newsflash: That’s exactly what happens. And it’s not a bad thing — in fact it’s a huge opportunity, because the questions themselves can be subtle but powerful change agents. The observer effect: simply observing a situation or phenomenon necessarily changes that phenomenon (a fact commonly cited in physics). We’re huge fans of open questions, but here are three good reasons why interactions should start with carefully chosen structured questions. Three good reasons that …