I’m about to tell the story of a bit of a self-awakening I had last week. I woke up after a very stressful Wednesday evening which turned into giving away most of Thursday because I was not willing to let go the irritation of Wednesday. I learned that what I know about managing people is not good enough. I need to learn more. I need to practice even more.
Until now I have had both an affiliative style and a democratic style to my leadership. The affiliative style builds up team members and is useful for increasing team harmony and encourages all to be a bit happier. However, this style often allows for poor performance to go unchecked and often does not offer useful advice. The democratic style seeks to give the team members a voice in decisions, assuming this will increase team buy-in and flexibility, and two-heads-are-better-than-one will lead to better outcomes. However, this style can lead to endless meetings, indecision, confusion, and frustration among team members.
The question I am working on is how and what I need to change. I have a stack of books on management that I will be reading through in the coming weeks. This will not be my last blog post about management.