Executive Summary

Leadership styles range across a spectrum from one extreme to another: from self-effacing to-self promoting; from collaborative to authoritative, from results-driven to development-driven decision making, from envisioning to executing; and from competitive to cooperative. Leaders tend to harness a variety of these attributes to accommodate different contexts, audiences and cultures—hence the skill of adaptivity. 

Adaptivity means assessing a situation, person or group and then tailoring the way you address the situation accordingly. It also demands a high level of self-awareness and awareness of others as well as context. As with other leadership skills, adaptivity can be developed with effort and commitment. Being adaptive should not compromise your integrity or moral code; however, it may involve meeting people “where they are” and fluidly acting, reacting and interacting as situations change in real-time.

Leadership approaches can be received differently depending on the identity of the individual using them. For example, while likability and success generally are positively correlated for men, when women are more successful, they are less liked by both men and women. Women (who are expected to be friendly, cooperative, warm and nurturing) achieve leadership success, they are liked less by both men and women. Navigating these conflicting, historically gendered  expectations, without compromising personal values, means being aware of your natural leadership style and knowing where and when to deploy other styles to accommodate evolving environments and audiences. 

This toolkit explores different dimensions of leadership attributes—as they apply to leaders who are women or members of other underrepresented groups—as well as how and when to considering deploying these various attributes to achieve your goals. The toolkit offers questions to help increase your self-awareness and be intentional about your leadership choices, as well as tools and tactics for developing your adaptivity skills. Remember, adapting your leadership style in the moment is not a compromise of your authentic self, but rather a tool utilized in the pursuit of an intended objective.

How You Present Yourself 

Self-effacing:

Not claiming attention for oneself; retiring and modest 

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Self-promoting: 

Publicizing oneself or one’s activities, especially in a forceful way

Known as “presence,” this attribute is not only about how you present yourself, but also how others perceive you. It entails your ability to engage with people and inspire them to act or react in a way that aligns with your intended outcome (e.g.,ie. team building, seeking a promotion, closing a deal, building morale, etc.).

How You Make Decisions

Collaborative: 

Involving two or more parties working together

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Authoritative: 

Being commanding and self-confident; likely to be respected and obeyed

An authoritative leader generally prefers structure and centralized decision-making, which often results in clear boundaries and goals for a team. A collaborative leader is more inclined to make decisions with input from a group or delegate them, potentially allowing greater flexibility about the final outcome but at times risking clarity about team or organizational direction and objectives. A leader might have a different approach when dealing with a crisis or an internal conflict than when facilitating a team ideation session about new products or marketing efforts—in either case, a leader may adopt a leadership style best suited to achieve a desired result..

How You Measure Success

Results-driven: 

Recognizing outcomes caused or produced by someone or something thing else 

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Development-driven: 

Recognizing progress in a specified state of growth or advancement 

Leaders who use a development-driven style are more interested in growing direct or indirect reports’ ability to implement their own approaches to tasks and goals (based on what they understand to be their employees’ strengths) to help them develop professionally. Results-driven leaders, on the other hand, may prioritize immediate mobilization towards a vision or a set of measurable outputs or goals. These styles are not mutually exclusive, however, ending a quarter with specific revenue objectives, for example, may require a different approach than developing advanced sales techniques.

The Way You Work

Envisioning: 

Imagining as a future possibility; visualizing the big picture

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Executing: 

Putting a plan, order or course of action into effect

Leaders who prefer envisioning focus more on visionary (big-picture) work, spending most of their energy creating strategy for long-term goals. Leaders who prefer to execute, meanwhile, will allocate their time primarily to creating, implementing and evaluating plans based on strategy and/or overseeing the day-to-day operations of their organization. The most successful leaders have the ability to do both, however often early-stage leaders can easily confuse strategic planning with articulating tactics.

How You Relate to Others

Competitively: 

Relating to or being driven by competition

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Cooperatively: 

Willing to be of assistance to others

Leaders who elevate their competitive instincts thrive in high-stakes environments and prefer to set themselves, their team and/or their organization apart from others in their sector. More cooperative leaders prefer to collaborate with other individuals, teams or organizations to expand their industry as a whole or work towards team improvement. Often, however, long-term organizational and individual success entails both a highly competitive approach with the ability to identify and manage strategic partnerships.

Tactics That Can Elevate your Leadership in the Eyes of Others

All leaders need to decide which tactics are best for them in terms of their natural style, value system and authentic identity, while considering the specific situation and individuals or groups involved. That said, often for women and individuals from other complex identities must overcome conscious and unconscious bias coupled with historical gendered norms to make progress towards leadership opportunities. Basic tactics to help advance one’s leadership trajectory include the following:

• Lead through knowledge sharing by sharing your ideas, research, templates you create and processes that make life easier for members of your organization, etc.

• Develop tactics for handling interruptions, such as smiling while stating firmly “Tom, thank you, but I am not finished yet.”

• Form a “posse” of female peers since female leaders are far more powerful surrounded by other female leaders, and empathetic support is invaluable for anyone who is the first or the only member of an intersectional identity in the room or role.

• Preempt a request for help by offering to help others, since generosity is not relative, but rather valued by its intention and can also counter biases against historically gendered expectations.

• Lead as you want others to perceive you and decide in advance what three qualities you want to project in any given situation. In advance, plan actions and language you will deploy to reinforce those qualities.

• Do no’t be afraid to rewrite your narrative by clearly defining the leader you aspire to be, which enables your words, actions and interactions to influence how others see you.

Navigating each of these leadership style spectrums—such as the dichotomy between self-effacing and self-promoting—can be especially challenging for women and members of other underrepresented groups due to unconscious and conscious biases and expectations. However, following tactics in this toolkit will help you flex your leadership style along the various attribute spectra to achieve your goals.

References

Across a variety of studies, Sheryl Sandberg, Lean In (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2013), p. 50. For research on how aggressive women violate social norms, see Madeline E. Heilman and Tyler G. Okimoto, “Why Are Women Penalized for Success at Male Tasks? The Implied Communality Deficit,” Journal of Applied Psychology 92, no. 1 (2007): 81-92; Madeline E. Heilman et al, “Penalties for Success: Reactions to Women Who Succeed at Male Gender-Typed Tasks,” Journal of Applied Psychology 89, no. 3 (2004): 416-27; Alice H. Eagly and Steven J. Karau, “Role Congruity Theory of Prejudice (2002): 573-98; and Madeline E. Heilman, “Description and Prescription: How Gender Stereotypes Prevent Women’s Ascent up the Organizational Ladder,” Journal of Social Issues 57, no. 4 (2001): 657-74.

Alice H. Eagly and Steven J. Karau, “Role congruity theory of prejudice toward female leaders,” Psychological Review (July 2002): 109.